“The Dreamscape”

In every series it is impossible to retain a full fledged bullet train speed. There has to be a downturn or a moment to stop and catch your breath a bit. In a series like Fringe, that has begun to be defined more by the overall arc rather than the specific moments, an episode like Dreamscape faces an uphill battle.

Fans are wanting to find out more answers to the overall questions and aren’t going to get much. That’s not to say that self contained episodes are doomed to failure, more that in this type of series, they better step up their game.

Dreamscape does an admirable job at that…but not perfect.

The Fringe event of the week involves a young successful executive at Massive Dynamic who hallucinates an attack of killer butterflies so realistic that he throws himself out the window.

We learn quickly enough that the executive was dosed and the psychosomatic fears were so real that his bodyactually reacted to the imaginary cuts.

The one part of the story that does have to do with the overall arc is the continued interaction between Dunham and John Scott’s memories. He leads her to exactly where she needs to go in the investigation.

While in the sensory deprivation tank, she sees Scott in the resteraunt while they had their first date. Walter continuously reminds Dunham that Scott can not see or hear her, but he suddenly does.

They track down the people behind the attack, and take a man into custody. He promises to sing about everything if they can protect him from Massive Dynamic who he claims is behind everything. The Pattern is all a hoax to allow Massive Dynamic to do whatever they want.

The man is killed, ostensibly enough by John Scott after he is dosed with the drug somehow.

Olivia then gets confirmation from Scott when he sends her an email simply stating that he saw her in the resteraunt.

There is another subplot to the story, but it is almost not worth mentioning as it doesn’t seem to have any importance to the story at all. There are people in Boston who want to have words with Peter, but he avoids them. An old girlfriend of Peter’s tries to warn him and he notices that she’s bruised. Peter visits the girl’s man and roughs him up again.

It’s all very nice but in the end pointless.

Overall not a bad episode, just not an upper tier one either.

C+

OBSERVER MOMENT: The Observer is standing against the wall behind Mark as he comes off the elevator at the beginning of the episode.

Previous – 1.08

Next – 1.10