Cordial Deconstruction

Observations from our shared single objective reality in a materialistic, naturalistic, & effectively macro-deterministic universe.

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Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 6 Season 5 Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There

Posted by Karl Withakay on November 10, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis should eventually be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Pythonesque

Apparently the method of entering the pocket universe was developed by the Ministry of Silly Walks

Pocket Physics Science

Either the pocket universe includes a fully functional and self sustaining & maintaining power grid or generator, or the physics of the pocket universe cause light bulbs to illuminate without power.

Also, although the universe was very Escher-like, at least it wasn’t intentionally designed to be a Castrovalva-type trap.

Prop Convenience Theater?

It seems like the Observers have functioning security cameras only in locations that are convenient to advancing or complicating the plot as the writers desire.  Most times, the Fringe team can wander around in broad daylight, at will, in populated areas without any concern for being spotted, but every once in  a while, they get unlucky and get spotted & identified by one of the apparently very rare functioning Observer security cameras.  Do the Observers have budget problems that are preventing them from fully deploying or maintaining their electronic observation net?

If We Were to Go By The Book…

Assuming the rate of time flow in the pocket universe is fairly constant relative to the passage of time in the corresponding local region of our universe, then if 5 days passing for Cecil in the pocketverse equated to 20 years passing in our universe, it follows that there is roughly a 1:1461 correlation in time flow, such that every hour spent in the pocketverse should translate to about 60 days passing in our universe.  For every minute spent in the pocketverse, about 1 day passes in our universe.

Astrid mentions working with Walter the previous night , and even though Walter’s bed has not been slept in, it’s clear he did not get to the building where the portal was before daylight, and it’s also pretty clear the team went looking for him that same day, also arriving in daylight.  Thus the team couldn’t have been much more than about 10 hours behind Walter, at most.  Doing the math tells us that Walter should have only experienced the passage of, at most, about 25 seconds in time in the pocketverse before Olivia and Peter arrived there.  Walter probably would still have been in the room when Olivia and Peter arrived.

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Posted in Dreary Blue Episode, Fringe, Prop Convenience Theater, Science, Television, time | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 5 Season 5 An Origin Story

Posted by Karl Withakay on November 4, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

The Etta Cave?

Presumably that was Etta’s secret hideout apartment that Peter and Olivia were in at the beginning of the episode.  Otherwise, you’d think it wouldn’t be a safe place to be, given that the Observers know about Etta being Resistance.  Regardless, that release for the secret stash wasn’t very well hidden.  Peter wasn’t even really searching for anything, and he just stumbled across it by accident.

You Say Tomato…

I’m not sure why Astrid was pronouncing ethane eeth-uh-noll (with a long E sound) rather than eth-uh-noll (with a short e sound).    Is she British?

The Observers, All Tech & No Technique?

It’s no wonder the Resistance hasn’t been squashed yet, despite their frequent missteps and poor decisions.  The Observers seem to have no idea how to run a police state or an investigation.  In addition to not having observation cameras on every street corner or eyes in the sky and not monitoring all wireless communications, it apparently never occurred to them that it might be a good idea to keep their wormhole/portal locations under observation both before and after transport in case the Resistance might get curious and investigate, stake out, or attack  such locations.  If I was with the Fringe team, I would not have wanted to be so openly wandering around in broad daylight at the portal site investigating the scene.  It seems a bit brazen and likely to arose suspicion.

Tickling the Dragon’s Tail

Peter has the components of a device in the lab that he should at least suspect may be capable of destroying all of Manhattan (or more), and he plays around with it, randomly putting pieces together to see if they go together.  All of Manhattan is lucky he just got a little shock.

Number One With a Bullet

Peter said that the power coming off the device was “off the charts.”  Which charts?  He had already shocked himself with it and he wasn’t dead.  Either there wasn’t that much power in it, or he was extremely lucky to not be dead.  If it really did have “off the charts” power in it, Peter should absolutely not been tinkering with it so casually.

One One Eight Seven at Hunterwasser…

Peter’s interrogation of the Observer was even more Blade Runner-esque than the the Observer led security interview in the previous episode.  It was an outright homage or ripp-off, depending on how you look at it.

Good-Bye, Mr. Bond

Never pause to say anything to your target before you shoot them, especially if they are super-fast Observers from the future with the ability to phase jump from one location to the other.  It may not always end so well if you do.

Better Than  Nothing

Astrid’s technique of looking for patterns in the Observer text that might correspond to dates and times wasn’t a particularly bad idea.  Though I would suspect the Observers might use such an extremely complex and foreign method of representing dates an time that such a technique might not work, it was probably the best thing they had to go on.

Posted in Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 3 Season 5 The Recordist

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 12, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Where’s the Black Guardian?

In this episode of (original) Doctor Who, The Ribos Operation, the Doctor and Romana seek out the first segment of the Key to Time (needed to set the universe right), which is disguised as a lump of jethrik, a rare and powerful mineral, from the rural planet of Ribos where it supposedly came from a local mine.

Scratch that, wrong show.  What I meant to say is:

In this episode of Fringe, The Recordist, the Fringe team seeks out the first component for Walter’s plan to defeat the Observers and set the world right, which is a rare and powerful mineral, from a mine in rural Pennsylvania.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I would think that the Observers are intercepting and monitoring all communications, including wireless communications, and that they have the processing power to analyze it all in real time, such that if someone were calling the Fringe team to warn them the observers were tracking them, the Observers would know about it.  If the Fringe team is using some sort of advanced encryption tech that even the Observers can’t decipher, the Observers should at least be able to detect that signal, and any such encrypted signal should be a massive red flag for resistance activity, right?  For plot convenience sake, we’ll have to assume some sort of special transmission technology/ technique that goes unnoticed by the Observers.

Old School/New School

What detected the Fringe team’s van on the roadside in rural Pennsylvania, and why couldn’t whatever it was be used to search for the van’s current location?  Why did the Loyalists need to conduct a search using ground vehicles?  Are there no air vehicles or spy satellites with infra-red imaging in the future?

In The Year 2036/ Oh My Aching Button Finger…

Apples are available in pill form, much like in The Jetsons.  It seems like either those pills must have some sort of apatite suppressant in them, or they somehow expand to fill the stomach a bit, otherwise although they might be able to provide nutrition, they couldn’t satisfy hunger very well.

Time to Bug Out

“You’ve got what you came here for.  Now leave before the Invaders find you here.”

The Recordists want the Fringe team to leave to prevent the Loyalists/Observers from finding their settlement, but regardless of whether or not the Fringe team leads the baddies away from the settlement, they already know that the team has been in the general area.  It seems likely the hostiles would want to search the area to find out what the Fringe team was doing there.  I think it’s not safe to stay in the settlement anymore; it’s going to be found.

In Two Weeks:

I can’t wait two weeks to cover the line spoken by Walter in the preview for the next episode.  Walter says:

“There was a time when we solved Fringe cases.  It’s time we created a few of our own.”

WTF?  That’s nothing especially new.  Weren’t nearly all of the Fringe cases at least indirectly caused by Walter?

Very Minor Trivia Note

The first three episodes of this season all feature words in the episode titles not found in my spell checker:  Transilience, Absentia, and Recordist.

Posted in Dreary Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , , , | 12 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 2 Season 5 In Absentia

Posted by Karl Withakay on October 5, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Angels and the Devil in the Details

Speaking about the angel device Etta says,

“It stirs up and destabilizes every atom in his body.  A full charge steals around 25, 30 years.”

She also says that it is based on Observer tech designed to prepare them for time travel, but that the loyalists adapted it to use against the resistance as an interrogation/torture device.

First, let’s be clear, the device can’t be actually aging people by making time pass faster for them than the rest of the world, because the victim would die of dehydration (or boredom) after only a few days passed for them, long before they visibly aged.

Second, and I’ve dealt with this before, more than once or twice, existing hair does not turn white from age, fright, stress, etc.  Dig up a corpse that’s been dead for decades, and the hair won’t have turned white or gray.

Third, we have a word to describe what happens to  atoms when they become unstable, it’s called radioactivity and it will do worse than visibly age you; if every atom in your body were destabilized, you’d die fairly quickly.*  You could make a semi-decent argument that Etta meant chemically unstable since she referred to atoms and not nuclei, even though simple searches for the term unstable atom yield results where all the top hits are referring to radioactivity and not chemical instability.  The word she probably should have used if that’s what she meant was molecules.

Also, I’m not sure why destabilizing atoms (chemically or otherwise) would give the victim the appearance of visibly aging and shorten their remaining lifespan to correspond with their aged appearance.  The effects of aging are the result of processes that occur over time and how the body and its systems function due to those effects.  You likely wouldn’t see effects like instant white hair (already covered) or wrinkled skin; it’s unlikely any fast chemical process or damage would so closely mimic the effects of aging in such short a short time span.

The Eyes Have It

In case you were thinking that maybe the writers got it wrong and were getting retina scanning wrong and mistakenly changing it into iris scanning, iris identification is another method of biometric identification.  Though Wikipedia notes that the the iris identification article does not supply sufficient sources for the shortcomings section, that section notes that many commercial iris scanners today are able to be fooled with a high quality image in lieu of an actual eye.  If this is true, then apparently the technology does not improve enough by the year 2036 to be truly secure, at least not when Walter’s around.

Music Note

The song that was playing on Walter’s record player before it was ambered (and after it was de-ambered) was Knights in White Satin by The Moody Blues.

Gun Note

The gun Peter was carrying was an FN P90.

Footnote

*Unless Proton Decay turns out to be real, in which case every atom in the entire universe is already unstable, just with a very, very, very, very, very long half life, like 10^34+ years long.

Posted in Dreary Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 1 Season 5 Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11

Posted by Karl Withakay on September 29, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Scrabble Knock Off Notes

The words in Astrid’s Scrabble-like game before she attempted to play NAUGAHYDE were:

TILE

PART

DE

FLEET

HOPE

GALIUM*

And off by itself, not connected to any other word: NA

(This variation of Scrabble must have rules that allow at lest one word to be off by itself.)

Walter Has a Hard Drive in His Head?

At one point Peter said, “The plan was fragmented and hidden on Walter’s hard drive by September.”

Was Peter using hard drive as a colloquial term for brain, like noggin, or did Walter actually get a hard drive installed in his head?

Something to Think About

If Walter and September were really cunning & devious, then the plan in Walter’s head is a trap intended to lead the Observers to their own defeat, and the capture of Walter and the extraction of the plan were both intentional.

Stuff to Look Forward to in the Year 2036

Naugahyde has been out of use for so long, the word is no longer in Scrabble dictionaries.

They are still using paper money, the bills still looks like current U.S. Federal Reserve Notes, and they still haven’t gotten rid of the one dollar bill.

Inflation can’t have been a particularly out of control problem between now and 2036, as they still have a one dollar bill, and $3000 is still a lot of money.

They still have tea to drink as a beverage.

People eat eggs in the form of egg sticks.

Walnuts are rare and extremely valuable, literally worth their weight in gold. (At least in today’s gold prices.)

Merry go rounds are distant memories.

Some time in the not too distant future, both battery and music CD &/or CD player technology are radically improved such that a dusty CD can be wiped off and played in the CD player of an abandoned cab that has been sitting idle for many years.

Amber Gypsies have some sort of camp where people can visit their loved ones encased in amber, much like visiting a cemetery, but on a pay per view basis.

For the right price, really disturbed individuals can purchase someone encased in amber to use as a coffee table.

* Gallium is apparently spelled with only one L, at least when playing Astrid’s Scrabble like game.

Posted in Dreary Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 21 Season 4 Brave New World, Part 2 of 2

Posted by Karl Withakay on May 11, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Quote of the Show

William Bell:

“As scientists, we’re taught that fate is nothing more than the convergence of a series of probabilities into one potential outcome, that there’s no such thing as divine intervention.”

Forgotten Point About Last Week’s Episode

Somehow I skipped over it in my note when writing last week’s post, but since Olivia mentioned Bell’s attempt to ignite the underground oil reserve, in this episode, I’ll cover it here.  Just superheating up an oil reserve wouldn’t ignite it unless there was sufficient oxygen present to support combustion.  You can’t burn petroleum with oxygen.

Like Father, Like Son: Peter’s a Chip of the Old Block

Walter would have been proud of Peter’s reanimation of Jessica’s corpse in an attempt to extract Walter’s whereabouts.

Was that a Light Saber Needle Peter Used?

I’ve never stuck a syringe into a human skull before (I have dissected a fetal pig), but it didn’t seem to take very much effort to get that needle into Jessica’s skull.

Alacadabra!

That was a nice implementation of a classic illusion/ special effects technique of inserting and removing the telescoping probe from Olivia’s skull.  Walter even bit down on it to supposedly prevent it form collapsing since we could tell it was a telescoping probe/pointer.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 21 Season 4 Brave New World, Part 1 of 2

Posted by Karl Withakay on May 4, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Hash Tag Note

For some reason, this is the first I have noticed that the hash tag displayed on the lower right part of the screen during the episode doesn’t correspond to the episode title.  Tonight’s hash tag was #DarkestBeforeDawn

Product Placement, A Necessary Evil?

If product placements like the one for Sprint in this episode are what it takes to keep the show on the air, so be it, but can’t they find slightly more subtle ways to do it?

Throw Out Your Credit Cards

Is near field payment common in the altered timeline?  It’s certainly not common yet in my timeline, and yet Astrid tells Walter, “This is just how people pay for things now.” as if near field payment was not only common, but typical.

Is There a Negative Biosafety Level?

Just because no airborne toxins were detected doesn’t mean that the hazmat suits and safety protocols aren’t needed.  First of all, it’s possible that there is an airborne toxin, toxicant, or pathogen that the detectors are not designed to detect, unless the Fringe team has tricorders.  Second, there could be a contact poison or fomite transmitted pathogen (or nanite infestation) which would still require hazmat suits.  Additionally, even if the environment is currently clear, there’s no way of knowing what might be released by examining the bodies.  Walter was pretty lax in  inspecting the scene and handling the bodies even though he has no idea whatsoever what caused the deaths.

Green Light….Red Light!

Once Walter determined that expending energy leads to overloading the nanites, resulting in the death of the infected, wouldn’t it have made more sense to lay the people down and sedate them rather than force them to hold their poses in a  deadly game of freeze tag?  Surely the stress of maintaining their position coupled with the anxiety of their situation would cause elevated pulse, blood pressure, etc, increasing their energy levels.

Olivia Isn’t the Sharpest Tack in the Junk Drawer

Maybe Jessica might not have nearly combusted so quickly if Olivia hadn’t been engaging her in conversation, causing her to consume more energy than if she had just laid there at rest.

It’s Not Just a Suggestion, It’s the Law.

If Olivia can slow down molecules, the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy says that the energy has to go somewhere, so where did it go?  Maybe Olivia redirected into the power grid, and that is why the power overloaded in the lab.

Sherlock Holmes, They Are Not.

Did it really not occur to anyone on the Fringe team  that Jones might have been responsible until they saw the security footage?

Shock it to Me

Hallucinations are not a side effect of ECT, but memory loss and confusion are.  I suppose that Walter may have been confused into thinking he was visited by William Bell due to ECT (perhaps he was visited by someone else he mistook for Bell), but it would not cause him to hallucinate seeing Bell.  I guess it’s also possible some medication Walter was on could have caused such a  hallucination, but generally they medicate people with drugs intended to stop or prevent hallucinations, not cause them.

Wait, Did They Just Create a Plot Point and Corresponding Plot Hole in the Same Scene?

When Walter asks if he can borrow the log book, Dr Benlo (closed captioning’s spelling) says it’s OK since they’ve already digitized those records, but previously she had apologized for not having an up to date record keeping system, implying that the records only existed in the physical log books.  If the records had been digitized, why weren’t they doing an electronic search instead of looking at the physical log books?

Trivia For The Search Engines

Agent Astrid Farnsworth’s Agent ID Number is JH112402

Geography 101

When Olivia mentions that it seems like Jones if trying to burn a hole to China, Walter corrects Olivia by saying,

“It’s a myth.  Technically it would be India, but I doubt it.”

Seeing as the beam is clearly shown to be relatively perpendicular to the surface of the Earth, and India is in the Northern Hemisphere, just like Boston, Walter also seems to be mistaken.  From my semi-rough estimation, it looks like the opposite side of the Earth from Boston would be an area of the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

Radio Ga-Ga

2202.518 and 2202.520 kHz are in the S band, and that band is used for satellite communications.  Specifically, those frequencies are just barely 2 kHz above frequencies assigned for space to Earth communication.

Darwinian Fail

It apparently never occurred to Olivia or Peter that the satellite dishes might be guarded and it might be a good idea to have some backup covering them while the disabled the dishes.  It really is a wonder they both weren’t offed a long time ago.

Cortexiphan, it Repels Rain, Repairs Scratches, and Adds years to the Life of Your Car’s Paint Job.

Apparently cortexiphan now also regenerates tissue and lemon cakes, plus it allows you to remote control other people.  Nifty.

Jones Wasn’t the Sharpest Tack in the Junk Drawer, Either

Jones apparently interpreted Bell’s bishop comment a little too literally, and failed to consider that he might be the chess piece Bell was sacrificing.  I thought it right away.

What Does Nimoy Think Retiring Means?

Not that I’m complaining, but Nimoy seems to have had nearly as much work since he retired than he did between Star Trek VI and retiring.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 15 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 20 Season 4 Worlds Apart

Posted by Karl Withakay on April 27, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Old School Walter

It makes sense that since Walter’s been institutionalized until fairly recently, he hasn’t had much opportunity to learn PowerPoint yet, and he is instead using a Kodak carousel slide projector.  For the real youngins out there, before there was PowerPoint, you used either a carousel slide projector or an overhead projector for presentations.

Brane Freeze

There’s a few issues with the concept of gravitationally collapsing the two universes into a singularity.

First, even if the two Earths were brought together, they wouldn’t have enough density or gravitational force to collapse into a singularity, and if you combined both universes, pretty much the only things that would instantly collapse into singularities would be neutron stars and certain white dwarf stars of sufficient mass.

Also, just collapsing the two universes into one (probably*) wouldn’t cause the entire resultant combined universe to collapse gravitationally into a singularity, at least not instantly, though it might make the resultant combined mass (or altered curvature) of the new universe large enough to eventually result in a Big Crunch.

What it sounds like what he is describing is more like the brane collision model of the creation of the universe which isn’t really gravitational collapse.

* Who knows what new physics could arise from such a collapse?

How Much Does a Grain of Sand Affect a Desert?

Contrary to what ancient people may have believed, the world does not equal the universe.  The visible universe is about 46 billion light years across, which is unimaginably larger than the tiny Earth.  Amphilocite may contain a lot of energy, but come on, how can Jones collapse two entire universes just by linking/ collapsing a few points on one planet orbiting a nondescript star among over one hundred billion stars in a nondescript galaxy among over a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe?  It’s a small wonder some other world’s version of Walter didn’t destroy the whole universe already a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Are There Roaming Charges?

Cell phones and ear cuffs from both sides have functional signal in the bridge complex.

Convincing Proof

Maye Nick would have been more likely to believe Olivia if she had brought Fauxlivia into the interrogation room to show Nick that both sides were cooperating and no longer at war.

It’s Nice Out; Why Not Walk Instead?

Having one Fringe unit standing by in one location waiting to drive vehicles to the site of the next “attack” doesn’t seem like the best way to make sure you get there in time.  How about having multiple units spread across the city waiting for Astrid to call in with the location?  How about having helicopters with assault teams circling the city waiting to swoop down on the suspect when his location was discovered?

The Fringe Division(s): Guardians & Protectors of Two Entire Universes

Even if I trusted Nick 100% (and I wouldn’t), I surely wouldn’t leave him in the custody/protection of only one lone agent.  I’d at least be concerned Jones might try to capture/kill him and would have him under the guard of at least half a dozen agents.  Also, since I wouldn’t trust him or his cortexiphan enhanced abilities, I’d have him locked up (and possibly sedated) as well.

Time Convergence of Reality and Fantasy

At 47 minutes into the episode, the countdown clock in the episode was at 47 minutes.  Nice touch.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 8 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 19 Season 4 Letters of Transit

Posted by Karl Withakay on April 20, 2012

A Dreary Blue Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Opening Theme Fringe Terms

Community

Joy

Individuality

Education

Imagination

Private Thought

Due Process

Ownership

Free Will

Freedom

Presumably in the Observer Controlled Future (OCF) of 2036 , all these concepts are mostly unachievable fringe notions.

You Look Like You Could Use a Few Pieces of Joe

In the OCF of 2036, liquid coffee hasn’t existed as a drinkable beverage for a long time.  Now coffee is consumed as “Coffee Chews” which are chocolate covered coffee beans.

From the packaging:

Nutritional Information

Serving Size: 1pkg (50g)

Calories                        480 Cal

Calories from Fat          0

Total Fat 2g                  0%

Saturated Fat 1g         0%

Cholesterol 0mg           0%

Sodium 105mg 10%

Carbohydrate 45g        15%

Fiber 0g                     0%

Sugars 30g

Protein 0g

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Ingredients: Coffee Beans, sugar, brown sugar, glucose, modified corn [starch], wheat flour, water, treacle[…] palm oil, artificial flavor, […]artificial color (FD&C B[…] monoglyceride.

Coffee Talk

I’m not sure where all those Calories come from.  Carbohydrates (sugar is a type of carbohydrate) have  4 calories (kcal) per gram.  Doing the math results in 180 calories in one 50 gram serving.  Somewhere an extra 300 calories have been added that is not accounted for in the rest of the nutritional information.

Also, there don’t seem to be any chocolate in chocolate covered coffee beans according to the ingredients list.

Nutritional information is still based on a 2000 calorie diet in the OCF.

“Old fashioned” one dimensional UPC barcodes are still used on food packages and it appears that two dimension barcodes never caught on for UPC labels.

Cardboard packaging is still used for candy treats like chocolate covered coffee beans.

More OCF of 2036 Notes

The Brooklyn Bridge road deck is destroyed, but the towers still stand.

Central Park has been razed and paved over.

Some Loyalist forces carry FN P-90 personal defense weapons, originally designed in 1990.  (This is not necessarily surprising.  In 2012, the US military still uses the M-16 rifle, which was originally designed in 1957.)

Closed captioning refers to an unnamed Observer in the OCF of 2036 as a Neo Observer.  I assume that means they are new Observers rather than Observers who watch the central character of The Matrix trilogy.

Quotes of the Show

Shortly after being called Prisoner by a Loyalist trooper, Walter says,

“I am not a number.  I am a free man!”

While bluffing their way past the same trooper, Walter also says,

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

And after succeeding at tricking the trooper into letting them pass, Walter says.

“Move along.”

For the Search Engines

Neurotrophins are indeed growth factor proteins.  Apparently in the OCF of 2036, synthetic ones are florescent yellow-green.

Posted in Dreary Blue Episode, Fringe, Science, Television | 24 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 18 Season 4 The Consultant

Posted by Karl Withakay on April 16, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

Sorry for the delay, I was out of town on vacation with friends this weekend.

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

I Knew it Wasn’t Mass Effect, but…

I did note that what happened to the jerk business guy looked a lot like he got hit by the slam power wielded by a biotic from Mass Effect.

Good Vibrations

I have neither the time nor patience to go into much detail regarding exactly how absurd the whole idea of everything in our universe vibrating with a C note and everything in the Alterverse vibrating with a G note was, but it was really bad in many ways.  To point out just a couple of quick points, everything in the universe doe not resonate with the same frequency, and matter is generally not vibrating with frequencies in the audible range.

Do their Planes Not Crash That Often?

I don’t see how having satellites that intercept and record all commutations to and from airplanes eliminates the usefulness of black boxes in airplanes.  The two different types of black boxes serve several important functions.  The cockpit voice recorder records everything that is said by anyone in the cockpit (what the crew are saying to each other), not just communications with the outside would.  The flight data recorder records instrument readings and control inputs of the aircraft (what’s going on with the aircraft).  Together the information from the black boxes is vitally important to be able to determine the cause of accidents and understand what was going on in the cockpit and with the craft in the time leading up to and during an accident.  I’m pretty sure that we also record all communication between aircraft and the towers, but that information is likely less useful that the black box data in most accident investigations.

Another note:  I guess if a plane in the Alterverse looses its radio before crashing, they just chalk it up to an unsolvable mystery and move on.

Nice Twist

It was a  nice twist that Colonel Broyles turned out to not be a shapeshifter and there was a different explanation for his actions.

Stranger Danger

So the wife of the head of Fringe Division just welcomes into the house any stranger who claims to be friends with her husband, and lets them hang out unsupervised with her son?  WTF?

Doing the Right Thing

I wonder, did Colonel Broyles turn himself in at least in part because when Jones ordered him to plant the device on the bridge (the device saving his world), he realized that there would be no point in saving his son’ life if his world was destroyed?

Alternative Football League Notes

In the Alterverse, the New York Jets NFL football team are still called the New York Titans, which means that there can’t be a Tennessee Titans NFL team.  If the Houston Oilers did move to Tennessee, either they retained their name, or they chose one of the other names they considered using: Bobcats, Stallions, Toros, and Apollos.  If the Oilers did not move to Tennessee in the Alterverse, then perhaps a different city (Los Angeles or Toronto) got an NFL expansion team in 2002.

Oops, It probably Won’t Matter, but…

Fauxlivia forgot to turn the camera back on in Meana’s cell

Now With More Drama!

Instead of immediately putting out a warrant for Colonel Broyle’s arrest and flagging his Show Me, the Fringe team takes the time to travel to Liberty island to apprehend Colonel Broyles in person, why?

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

 
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