Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 8, Season 3, Entrada
Posted by Karl Withakay on December 2, 2010
A Purple (Both Red and Blue) Episode
As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.
No Wonder Wikileaks Is So Successful
So the FBI, the top law enforcement agency in the USA, doesn’t have a screen saver password policy (on their MacBook laptops), especially on Fringe Division (defenders of the universe) laptops? Sure the files were encrypted, but those were Fauxlivia’s special files, not the FBI’s.
For the Search Engines
Na einia kalytero anthropo apo ton patero toy (According to the closed captioning)
Να είστε καλύτερο άτομο από τον πατέρα σας (In Greek)
Be a better man than your father (In English)
I Am Not A Doctor…
But shouldn’t Olivia have supplied Peter with a tourniquet to use to shoot himself up with that paralytic?
Also, if that was a paralytic drug, Peter probably had some damage to his corneas once he was able to blink again since nobody was keeping his eyes moistened. Also, it was a bit dangerous leaving Peter unattended under the effects of a neuromuscular inhibiter, he might have experienced adverse side affects such as difficulty breathing or cardiovascular problems. And why a paralytic drug anyway? It seems an odd choice to be keeping around for a rainy day. I would think a more traditional sedative would be safer.
Well, We Are All In the Fringe Unit For a Reason
“Eight weeks and none of us suspected anything.” Fringe team is not staffed with the sharpest tacks in the junk drawer. Peter, as an honorary member of the Fringe team fits in just fine, although it seemed at times he was more willfully ignorant than unsuspecting of Fauxlivia’s true identity.
If You’re Not Going to Use That Any More, Can I Keep Some Parts to Play With?
If it didn’t matter where the mass came from, why not just send back a sack of potatoes and keep the whole, living Olivia to experiment on and study?
Quote Of The Show
“She tricked my son with her carnal manipulations and he fell right into her vagenda”
I laughed out loud when I heard that line.
Spooky Action Across Universes
So the typewriter is a quantum entanglement telegraph? Although it’s a bogus application of the science, I won’t call it bad science fiction unless you’re a quantum physicist, in which case you already know quantum entanglement can’t be used to transmit information.
Third Time’s a Charm?
Olivia had traveled back to our universe several times in Walternate’s Fringe Lab, and she always reverted back to the alternate universe. What made her so sure she would be successful on the next try?
Zed’s Dead, Baby/ I Am Not a doctor Part II
Since when does adrenaline neutralize sedatives, and why the Pulp Fiction stab in the chest? Her heart wasn’t stopped.
Nature vs. Nurture
“They’re genetically identical, so they think alike” Not so fast their, Olivia. Brain development is a lot more than just a result of genetics.
To quote academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine, Steven Novella:
The genome provides more of a template for developing a brain rather than a blueprint for the finished product. The development of a brain and the resultant though processes is heavily influenced by environment during development. If you want to argue that their thought processes should be similar because their genes are the same AND their environments during development were similar, fine, but genes alone won’t cut it.
Peter Has a Brief Moment of Deductive Insight
Good work figuring out that was a shape shifter Peter. Be careful. If you keep showing such levels of stunning deduction, they may not let you stay with the Fringe Division.
Wow, That was Quick
So normally, you have to shoot Olivia up with a bunch of psychotropic drugs and let her cook in the sensory deprivation tanks for a while, but this time all it took was a little Cortexiphan and a couple of seconds in the tank and pow, she’s home free before she’s even had time to relax.
Are We Really Trusting the safety of Our Entire Universe to these Guys?
Did it ever occur to anyone on the Fringe team that it might be a good idea to take the owner of the typewriter shop into custody for questioning and maybe also search his shop? It’s not like the fate of the world is at stake and he’s known to be involved or anything, is it?
Cordial Deconstruction 
Polite Dissent » Fringe — Episode 8 (Season 3): “Entrada” said
[…] This week’s Fringe cipher was: CROSS. A list of all previous Fringe reviews is available here. Karl, as always, has much more to say. […]
FC said
I’ll have to watch again but I was under the impression that both MacBooks upon opening showed a login window? Of course it’s still poor because the background desktop was visible or is that what you mean by screensaver?
Karl Withakay said
Peter was able to get right in to Fauxlivia’s laptop and navigate the file system when he tried it in the middle of the night. It was only certain files he could not access.
RicSantiago said
PD asked “If it didn’t matter where the mass came from, why not just send back a sack of potatoes and keep the whole, living Olivia to experiment on and study?”
Well, maybe (on an effort to justify the writers), I suppose the proportion of materials within the mass had to be close. Potatoes have a very different composition than human body. But, then, one or two pigs bodies would do. Or just any other John Doe’s dead body. As it ended up being…
Good point, anyway.
bros said
I think that the extra boost of cortexiphan boosted Olivia’s abilities to travel. Although I am curious as to how AlternaBroyles knew how much to put in her.
Daedalus said
Note on entanglement: you can transmit a particle’s quantum state, and therefore the particle itself, using an entangled pair. See Wikipedia on Quantum Teleportation. Now who’s to say this doesn’t have some inter-universal aspect? It’s mostly hokum, but a lot more credible than some more mundane stuff on the show.