FRINGE 3.09 "Marionette" Review

Fringe
3.09 "Marionette"
Written by Alison Schapker & Monica Breen
Directed by Joe Chappelle

Say goodbye to Fringe for until January 21st, folks.  And when it returns, it's going to be on Friday nights.  You know, the Friday nights on FOX that signals the end of all things Sci-Fi on the damned channel.  Let's face it.  Nothing has survived Friday nights since The X-Files, and while one might argue that Fringe is the natural successor to that show, the ratings aren't great.  And if they're not great on Thursdays, what are they going to be like on Fridays?

Remember, Friday scheduling helped kill Firefly.  It helped kill The Sarah Conner Chronicles.  It helped kill Dollhouse.  Hell, just check out this: The Friday Night Death Slot.  While one might argue that Friday isn't instant death for a show, this is FOX we're talking about.  Look at those numbers.

Hopefully we'll at least get to see the rest of the season, but I have no hope for a fourth.  I mean, the first episode back on Friday the 21st is called "Firefly" for Pete's sake.

Anyway, back to this week's episode, "Marionette". 

Look!  Spoilers!

WHAT LOOKS GOOD #338: MULTIMEDIA POTPOURRI

I'm at the helm for this week's What Looks Good column over at Comics Bulletin, and there are lots of interesting things to see in comics, movies, and television this time around!

FRINGE 3.07 "The Abducted" Review

Fringe closes out November (there's no episode next week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday) by shifting the Two Worlds story line into high gear, but I'm afraid it's at the cost of logic, scripting, and acting.  I'd say this is easily the worst episode of the season, but I think those shortcomings come at the insistence of moving the plot forward.

As friends will note, I've been a defender of this series, even when the writing and acting hasn't been entirely up to snuff.  Mainly this is because of the strength of the ideas behind the show.

"The Abducted", however, was lacking in nearly every department.

Spoilers ahoy!

GENRE TV ROUNDUP: SGU, FRINGE, SUPERNATURAL

I just caught up with a few shows from this week, Stargate Universe, Fringe, and Supernatural, that I thought I'd chat a bit about today.  Every one of them moved their respective series' Seasonal Story Arcs forward with big revelations and while they were all kind of low-key otherwise, each episode was pretty characteristic of the ongoing series.

I'm not going to dance around some of the details of the episodes, since they're from all through the week, but I'll go ahead and say, SPOILER WARNING.  At the same time, if you haven't seen the episodes, or the shows, some of this might not make much sense to you.  But that's okay with me.

Here we go!

SUPER GENIUS AT WORK

Thursday nights at the Infernal Desire Machine Household are packed with TV.  Our poor DVR can barely handle the load, to be quite honest.  I'm not sure why Thursdays are the days most of the good shows are on, but it's kind of annoying.

Yes, Sundays are bad, too.  But it's Thursday that causes the most blockage in our viewing schedule.

I mean, we've got The Office, Parks and Recreation (when it returns), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Fringe, and my guilty pleasure, The Mentalist.  The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack was on Thursdays, but I'm afraid it was too weird for kids to latch on to, and is now gone.  I hope I'm wrong about that, though.

Thursdays are also home to Nikita, a show I sampled and found to be okay, but so lacking in personality and innovation that it was just boring.  And I haven't been even remotely tempted to try The Vampire Diaries.

Please don't mention Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, or Community to me at this point.  I've tried them and they never even made me chuckle.  I just don't think they're funny.  And if you mention Survivor, then you're dead to me.

But, as you can see, there's a plethora of stuff just begging for attention on Thursdays.

Anyway, after catching up with this week's Thursday night crop, I wanted to mention one of my absolute all-time favorite television characters: Dr. Walter Bishop from Fringe.

TV SCI-FI RUMINATIONS

After watching this week's STARGATE UNIVERSE, I felt compelled to sit down and write up some thoughts on the current crop of Sci-Fi Television.  I've already touched on some of these shows over in my contributions to Comicsbulletin.com's What Looks Good column, but I only write for that every third week.  Here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

(By the way, I'm experimenting with the format of the blog this time out, and hiding the long text beyond the jump, below - Click on the Read More to, um, you know, read more)

What Looks Good #329: TV Eye on the Fall Schedule

This week's What Looks Good is pretty much devoid of comics talk.  Sorry about that.  But it's got a list of 10 Hour-Long Shows I think people should be checking out.  At least so far.