"Fringe" Nothing As It Seems (TV Episode 2012) Poster

(TV Series)

(2012)

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8/10
Memories from Another Time
claudio_carvalho31 March 2017
When the passenger of a plane turns into a huge porcupine-like beast, the Fringe Division is assigned to the case. Peter recalls the case from his timeline but there are differences between the events. Olivia has memories from the original timeline forgetting many cases and even her family details and Broyles forces her to take a leave. However she secretly helps Peter and Lincoln in the investigation. She recalls the name of Bowman's partner, Daniel Hicks, and they head to his house. But Hicks has already transformed in a beast and injures Lincoln. Walter finds that he is infected by the mysterious virus and needs to find a means to save him. Meanwhile Peter and Olivia proceeds their investigation.

"Nothing as It Seems" is an episode based on "The Transformation" with many modifications. It is good to see Peter and Olivia using their memories from the other timeline to help in the resolution of the case. The conclusion is intriguing with the creatures locked in cages in the hold of a ship. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Nothing as It Seems"
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8/10
Hooray for the Flying Porcupines
Hitchcoc15 November 2023
A creature from the first season has a slightly alternate fate. It is the saga of the porcupine man who is ready to change but doesn't have the right medication. Somehow, the followers of this Sumerian doctrine have decided to pair up and become the new beginning of life. Early on, Olivia has been sitting with a psychologist to see if she should be allowed in the field any more. She is turned down, but is there anything that could stop her? Lincoln get scratched and infected by one of the things and there is a bit of a race to save him. Walter makes bacon and peanut butter sandwiches which leads to a clue. Good episode with some cute humor in it.
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10/10
"Weird is a Matter of Degrees"
XweAponX30 March 2012
I can hear them now, the people who may say: "Oh this is a rehash of a Season One Ep" - Feh. Not Quite.

Absolutely not quite. Normally, I would agree and I would spout: "Why are they re-telling THIS?" - But 'they' are not 'retelling this' - 'they' are taking 'this' and making 'THAT' out of it. We have now the opportunity to see how things that were one way in Blue 'Verse play out in the Orange 'Verse. Now there seems to be some dissatisfaction with this ep, but WHY? Cos this is the HEART of Fringe. All aspects of this ep, the story, execution, and Performance, are Top Notch Fringe.

So it is cool that the writers of this Ep could take this plane incident, and tell the "Orange Verse" version of it. We already know, "Different Timeline" vs "Alternate Realities" - As close as the Orange 'Verse is to the Blue 'Verse, there are substantial differences

Of course Jones is behind it in all the 'Verses - But the fact that Jones had not been cut in half by Peter in "Orangeville" makes the present timeline quite a bit different.

This is our Fringe 'Supersoldier' Story arc - What I mean is, the 'Supersoldier' Arc of X-Files was quite a bit different than the earlier MythArc. It was a new Beginning, like we have a brand new MythArc here. Or... Is that "Ark?" Things that happen at the very end of the 'sode hint at a Noah thing happening.

Now as I loved the X-Files 'Supersoldier' arc, I love this new Fringe arc. It's simply a new direction, it does not invalidate the old Fringe stories, it builds upon the 1st Three seasons. "Everything Old will Become New." The FBI Psychoanalyst Olivia Met on the Other Side in Season 3 (Who is Gabriell Rose from the 2nd X-Files Episode "Deep Throat", by the way...) returns to interview our new "Olivia with Olivia's Memories".

Olivia is the Fox Mulder of Fringe - We knew she would not be relegated to sitting on arse while Peter and "Kennedy" (Lee) went out and had all the fun. That's just Not Olivia. Not Olivia or Fauxlivia, neither would accept sideline sitting or the taking of Sick Days or Vacations, not normally. This is another thing I just realised - Fringe is Gender Bent from X-Files, in the two lead characters. If Olivia is more like Mulder, then Peter is more like Skully. But that is all I will read into it, and the only reason I compare the two shows is that I have been watching them side by side these last few weeks.

The 1st Season Episode which served as the basis for this ep, well we can see maybe this was what could have happened in Season 1. But as we see in this ep, "Controlled Conditions" rather than just "Dosing" a person. These people actually wanted the transformation.

It was also great to see Peter's friend Markham with the Bookstore, no reason why they can't have him in the show... Just waiting for Sam Weiss now. Honestly, I do Miss the Season 1-3 characters. Even Newton, maybe he'll come back too. And the Shapeshifter Roger C Cross played... Fringe is rich with characters played by great Character Actors.

I had to stand up for the last half of the ep - I'm about to watch it again. Once more, IMDb does not have all of the actors posted for this ep, was kind of interested to see who they were. The blending of the scenes from the 1st Season ep to new footage was seamless, but I didn't look too hard, it has been 3 and a half years. But the guy looked the same.

The Creature - Looked very good. And multiple creatures at the end, this was the big surprise - We've seen some of these things, if not all of them, before. Although the original creature was a computer animation, they did have a "corpse" made for Season 1. I'm impressed on how well they made the Living versions of the creatures match the dead version. Once again we get Feature Quality prosthetics.

Knowing that Jones is behind some of this, it will be interesting now to see what direction they take it for these last S4 Eps.

And, HEY, it's a (knock knock) Alternate Universe - Why have Alternate Universes and NOT use them? This Episode - It's about time this was done. There should be more like this.

I'm praying this new Arc is leading up to a 5th Season, Fox is Dumb, there is nothing else to put in that slot on Friday.
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Not as anomalous as some might claim...
RockyMtnVideo21 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
No spoilers for future episodes. Everything here pertains to this, and prior episodes.

Another reviewer complained that the original version of this incident took place before Peter joined the Fringe team, so this episode is illogical. This seems to be a good point to clear up the nature of how/why we're seeing the events of this episode, a second time, as this episode is making a point that I think some folks are missing.

When the Observers attempted to erase Peter from the timeline, the initial, more obvious impact of that erasure didn't extend to Peter's involvement with Fringe, it extended to the day Peter drown in the lake, on the day of his kidnapping. This completely altered the state of mind of Walter, his wife, and their entire history, going forward. Walter, already distraught from his own son's death, now had the additional guilt of having brought about the death of yet another version of Peter. We also learn in an earlier episode that Walternate was also aware that his son had drown.

The point is that both Walters had profound influence in each of their universes, based upon their involvement in "world changing" science (discoveries, inventions, etc.), with Walternate even becoming the head of what one could argue is the most powerful entity in his world. Yet, each of their mental states, motivations, , etc., would have been profoundly altered (along with those people around them), from that point forward. One of those people would have included David Robert Jones, certainly resulting in a completely different "future path" for his life, and motivations. (And remember, Peter was the person who killed Jones, in the original timeline, which is why he's still playing a part in both universes, in the current timelines.)

Chaos theory is directly applicable to all of this, such that these changes do not simply impact the core set of people that we know. There would be a massive ripple effect from the day of the drowning, going forward, in both universes, which already accounts for the many differences that we witness. But, the impact also goes backwards in time, and starts much earlier. Remember that Walter built "the machine", and sent pieces of it "back in time", pieces that the lineage of "Sam Weiss" family members discovered, and expended great effort to understand, and eventually document. But in the original timeline, Peter was a key component of that machine, and his erasure would have had an impact on the nature of the machine, and how it came to be understood. Thus, his removal from the timeline would have gone all the way back to when the original Sam Weiss, and his immediate family, discovered the machine, searching for its remaining components, as well as researching/documenting it. And yet again, chaos theory applies, as the ripple effects from that (much, much earlier) change to the timeline, would have the potential for profound changes through all of the subsequent historical timeline.

Bottom line... we see, in some cases, vast differences between what has happened before, and what is happening now, but all of that makes perfect sense, when one considers just how far back the timeline would have been altered, by the removal of just this one key person.

The more interesting discussion (to be having at this point in the series) relates to the conundrum of how Peter's refusal to be erased by the Observers, has started to ripple through, and somehow "unwind", the Observer-imposed timeline (as is evidenced by Olivia's reconstructed memories). But, that's a puzzle for another time.
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10/10
Time line is off
gswear8113 April 2019
This episode is based off another episode that happened in season 1 which would stand to reason that the time frame when Peter came back this event should have already taken place.
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4/10
Disappointing story, uninspired writing, some thrilling sequences, misplaced humor, underused Olivia, mysterious ending but not intriguing
igoatabase1 April 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Nothing is as it seems…on The Island of Doctor Moreau ? This is not Fringe anymore, at least the one I like. Season 3 was all about the fascinating amber and delivered some mind blowing stories. However for some episodes now I have been questioning the sources of inspiration used by the writers to develop the arc about David Jones and the shapeshifters. I'm not satisfied at all with this episode probably based upon H. G. Wells' novel. Humans turning themselves into porcupines thinking it's an improvement ? With no doubt the last man we saw, played by the actor who portrayed a doctor in Smallville, did it for love and it's not surprising considering how the woman was pretty but why would she inject herself such an atrocious substance ? And I'm not really interested in answering these questions because I feel like the writers are out of ideas or just slowing things down using fillers to achieve their goal, 22 episodes. So let's hope they will step up their game and go back to the show's roots !

In my opinion the first disappointing element was the creature of the week. The second it rushed out of the bathroom and attacked the customs officers I knew it should have been kept in the dark. Isn't the unknown stimulating for the imagination after all ? The part on the plane was thrilling, from the nosebleed to the panic attack in the toilet, but afterward they landed in B movie land. Still its sudden appearance in the house both scared my popcorn and myself. An entertaining explosion and it took me a while to recover ! It leads us to Lincoln because his infection was dead boring and for once even Walter's jokes didn't make me laugh. This time one of them was even misplaced, the late birthday presents, as it interrupted Olivia and Peter's discussion about the case. Moreover it seemed even Joshua Jackson was annoyed by his role, forced to jump from seriousness to a kid at some party. Even his chat with Lincoln in the car, finally, didn't meet my expectations because he played it way too nicely. How would you react if some other guy stole your girlfriend right under your nose ? So let's just hope he's a shapeshifter or will turn his back on them somehow !

As for the episode concept I have to admit that it was well thought out. Peter and Olivia used their alt-knowledge to investigate but I think the last could have been better used. What about using her as a bait to trap the porcupine ? He was apparently seeking for a mate. Moreover when it comes to such monsters I can't help thinking about the 15th episode of Primeval 3rd series. In it Abby, the cute blonde, has to deal with a half Gollum and half Gremlins creature. I compared her to Buffy and mentioned the Little Red Riding Hood as a reference because she just made the story more frightening. That's why I strongly believe that an Olivia versus Porcupine sequence could have been jaw dropping ! After all what's more exciting than a damsel in distress ? Instead they decided to develop some predictable arc about her career when I never considered for a second that she was in trouble. Last but not least I can see how the ship transporting the creatures is a Noah's Ark but sadly, beside spotting the leg of a giant spider, I'm not really intrigued by it. In fact I worry that we will never know what it was even if David Jones should be behind it.

Note : This review was first posted on Kritikenstein, my weblog.
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