What Would You Ask: Charlie Francis?

The Man With the Voice himself, Kirk Acevedo, will be doing an exclusive one-on-one interview with Fringe Television on Friday, April 10th to celebrate Charlie's emphasis in next week's ep, Unleashed. You guys have already given me great questions for John, Anna, and Jasika, so keep 'em coming below!

Walter's Lab Notes: Fringe 115 Inner Child

Walter's Lab Notes from the Inner Child include the orange vinyl record of Al Green's Love & Happiness (iTunes, Amazon), The fax that "The Artist" send to the FBI (You can see a full-size version here), yellow M&M's, the book containing information about Marie-Angelique Memmie LeBlanc (you can find more info on her at - I kid you not - FerrelChildren.com), and a strange grainy photo, similar to the one seen in the lab notes for Ability.

Walter's notes mention:

• Joseph Heller, the author of the book Catch-22 (A Lost bookclub book, BTW...)
• Lethe, a river in Greek mythology which caused forgetfullness if you drank from it
• Mnemosyne, the Greek god of memory
• Various Mnemonics:
  • EGBDF (FACE) - treble clefs and chords
    
  • PEMDAS - Order of operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, and Addition and Subtraction)
  • 3.14 is PI
  • STDJaIAC - Presidential Line of Succession (after the Vice President, Speaker of the House, and President pro tem: Secretary of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice (Attorney General), Interior, Agriculture, Commerce.) - thanks Carol!
    
  • Anyone know the rest?
    

Fringe Episode Review: Inner Child

Fringe is back. Not with a bang, but with a subtle, creepy whisper. As far as I can tell, Inner Child is a prologue of sorts to the remainder of Season 1, laying a foundation of weirdness for the revelations to come.

"He could be significantly older..."

Our Pattern event of the week: the mysterious appearance of what can only be a young Observer. Or perhaps, as Walter theorizes, a young-looking one. He was found in a creepy subterreanean complex that hadn't been opened since the 1930's, and it looked to me like he was hiding from the construction workers in a holding cell of sorts. Was this some kind of abandoned research facility? Was our bald friend left behind by his experimenters to survive on rats and moths?

Or, could he have come through to our "universe" down there more recently? Given our clues from ZFT, it sounds like the Observers hail from a parallel Earth. Perhaps this one picked a bad place to cross over, and has survived down there for years (but not 70 of them).

"Our perp's name is The Artist."

Congratulations, writers. You managed to successfully incorporate a non-Pattern mystery into the show. By using the young Observer to solve the crime, I didn't feel like our time was wasted with the Artist subplot (like I did with the cyber-killer in The No-Brainer).

The Artist himself was nicely cast. He reminded me of John Fowles' The Collector, a novel about a mild-mannered sociopath who kidnaps women. But making surgical and cosmetic alterations and then putting them on display? That's pure Fringe.

"Not a psychic, more a shark."

Walter's shark analogy to explain the child's mental abilities was brilliant. I was spellbound by the implications. I have a feeling Olivia may be capable of similar feats, thus reinforcing my idea that Inner Child acts as a prologue for the rest of the season, where we may learn more about Olivia's cortexiphran effects.

On the same subject, what did Walter pick up with his wire-infested halo ring on the child's head? A signal from the Ghost Network? I have a feeling we'll be hearing that recording again soon.

Stray Thoughts

• Best Line of the Night: "Don't be such a prude. I'm sure Agent Dunham knows what a penis looks like!" John's delivery is perfect, once again.

• This was Anna Torv's strongest performance yet. She's great with action sequences, as we saw in Bound, but her scenes with the young Observer in this ep were touching and filled with nuance.

• Walter's dance is my new favorite scene. It wasn't just hilarious, it was touching. Walter's still got a very big heart underneath all those years of madness.

• Was anyone else reminded of the Green Lantern when Olivia mentioned her avoidance of yellow M&M's? (The Lantern's weakness is anything colored yellow.)

• Ari Graynor and Lily Pilblad are adorable as Olivia's family, and part of me is glad they're apparently here to stay. I do wonder how the writers will incorporate them into the story's meta-narrative.
  
  
• Does Walter's halo ring remind anyone else of Doc Brown's similarly-purposed mind-reading device in Back to the Future?

How would you grade "Inner Child"?

Adam Morgan is a writer for the page and screen in Chicago, and blogs daily on writing, film, tv, and pop culture at Mount Helicon.

Fringe Episode 115: What You Missed Because of American Idol

If you Tivo'd Fringe tonight, you might have found that the last five minutes or more were cut off due the American Idol running long. If that happened to you, don't worry - FringeTelevision has got your back! Here are the final scenes from Fringe episode "Inner Child".

UPDATE: In a strange move, FOX has pulled some of my videos from YouTube... Here is the same thing from Hulu, just in case.




Did you miss the last part of Fringe because of American Idol?

The Observer on American Idol

The Observer made an appearance on American Idol tonight. No, not singing - he was in the audience.

BTW, something you may not know about Micheal Cerveris, he is an accomplished singer and Tony award winning Broadway actor. Here he is in Sweeney Todd.

Fringe Episode 115: Inner Child

Just seconds before a building is demolished, a mysterious mute child that has been living alone underground is discovered. When the FBI's Fringe Division investigates, the boy forms an unspoken connection with Agent Olivia Dunham. Meanwhile, an especially gruesome serial killer resurfaces...
Will you be deciphering the commercial break glyph codes?

LIVE Fringe Chat Tonight

Tonight we will be hosting a LIVE Fringe chat from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM ET, if you want to talk with other Fringe fans during or after the show. If all goes well, we may even be around when Fringe airs on the West Coast...

To join the chat, visit the Fringe chat room, enter you name or nickname, and join the fun!

I will be there (as FringeTelevision) to answer questions, along with Adam Morgan, and who know who else might stop by...

Fringe Episode Preview: Inner Child

For the next six eps, I'll be giving you a little tease every Tuesday morning about what to expect when Fringe airs. No spoilers. Just something to whet your appetite (like the image above).

Tonight's Inner Child definitely cranks up the Creepy Factor. It wouldn't be a bad episode to air around Halloween. Here's what you can expect:

• The best Walter moment ever. (You'll know it when you see it. John talked about it on Friday.)

• More info on the Observer(s).

• One of the most compelling mysteries we've seen yet.

• Anna Torv's best performance of the season.

Check back after the episode for my review, along with a few theories for you to rip apart in the comments!

FringeTelevision now on Twitter

We think FringeTelevision.com is already the best and most up-to-date Fringe site anywhere, but for those that like their news even faster, you can now follow FringeTelevision on Twitter (FringeTV).

While you're at it, Fringe fans will want to follow Fringe Executive producer J.R. Orci (jrorci), and Fringe Co-producer Brad Kane (BradCalebKane).

If you have a Fringe twitter feed, let us know!

Fringe's Glyph / Symbols Code Cracked!

Ars Technica editor Julian Sanchez (my new hero!) has finally cracked the code of the mysterious Fringe glyphs that appear during the commercial breaks, piggybacking on the work done in a recent Ars Technica article. Each glyph and position of the yellow dot indicate a different letter, so Julian used a simple one-to-one, monoalphabetic substitution cypher, like the Caeser Shift Astrid used in In Which We Meet Mr. Jones to link Mitchell Loeb's parasite to ZFT.

UPDATE: Fringepedia has a more complete list of Glyph Codes here.

Click here to read the solution

Each set of glyphs translate into a word, which relates to the theme of the episode:

101: OBSERVER
102: CHILD
103: AEGER [? -- AETHER would make more sense for the episode]
104: ROGUE
105: SURGG [should be SURGE?]
106: CELLS
107: CODES
108: TAKEN
109: VOICE
110: TRADE
111: SAVED
112: BISHOP
113: AVIAN
114: OLIVIA

Joshua Jackson & John Noble on Good Day NY

Good Day NY's Anne Craig chatted with actors Joshua Jackson (Peter Bishop) and John Noble (Dr. Walter Bishop) from the Fox show, "Fringe." The show returns on FOX with new episodes Tuesday at 9 p.m. after "American Idol."

The Observer spotted at NASCAR race

The Observer was spotted at last Sunday's NASCAR race - the Samsung 500. He must be a big sports fan, because he was also seen at an NFL game. Where will he appear next - MLB?

* Thanks to Julia R. for sending this in!