FRINGE 2.20 - "Brown Betty"

WRITERS: Jeff Pinkner, J.H Wyman & Akiva Goldsman
DIRECTOR: Seith Mann
GUEST CAST: Lily Pilblad, Michael Cerveris & Leonard Nimoy (voice)

[SPOILERS] Despite its hype as a "musical episode" (a la Buffy's "Once More With Feeling"), Fringe's "Brown Betty" was actually no such thing. There were only four brief outbursts of singing, none of which drove the story forward. This was more a visualization of Walter's (John Noble) imagination while high on drugs and sorrow over son Peter's (Joshua Jackson) disappearance, telling a fantastical noir detective story to Olivia's (Anna Torv) niece while he minded her in his lab. It was amusing, and I'm glad Fringe has added another string to its bow (stealing a trick from The X Files' own "comedy episode" format), but the whole thing felt a bit laboured.

As mentioned, Olivia's niece Ella (Lily Pilblad) was dropped off at Walt's lab, meaning he had to entertain her with a story that merged the fanciful with truths about his life, career and emotional attachment to Pete. In some ways "Brown Betty" felt badly-scheduled, given last week's shock ending when Peter learned he was stolen from the parallel universe, but I'm glad writers Jeff Pinkner, J.H Wyman and Akiva Goldsman at least found a way to make this whimsy feel connected to Walt's mental state.

Said story was entertaining enough, although because it was for the benefit of a child character it felt more immature than I'd have liked. It reminded me of Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow spliced with Spy Kids-esque humour/peril, with the "Candyman" song from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, and featuring the core cast of Fringe. Olivia was a lipsticked gumshoe detective, Broyles (Lance Reddick) was a piano-playing informant, Walter was a genius paraplegic in a Hammer Horror-meets-Fisher Price lab of paraphernalia (working on making corpses sing!), Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) was pretty much herself, The Observer (Michael Cerveris) was renamed "The Watcher" and spoke more freely as Nina's hitman (wouldn't it have been more fun if he was a chatterbox?), Peter was a supposed thief who had literally stolen Walter's "glass heart", and William Bell even appeared in animated form on a TV (further evidence that casting Leonard Nimoy may have stoked geek fires, but it's made little sense from a production standpoint.)

I really don't have much more to say about this. It was cute, there were some fun moments, but compared to X Files episode of this nature it was sorely lacking. It was far below the work of Vince Gilligan and Darin Morgan when they worked on The X Files crafting similarly quirky ideas, mainly because it lacked much intelligence. It was just an amusing little romp where the cast got to play dress-up, disappointing me in many ways. And given the fact Darin Morgan was a consulting producer on Fringe last season, it just reminded me how unfortunate the show was to lose him without ever utilizing his Emmy-winning talent. He'd have worked wonders on a story like this, with far more incisive jokes and subtextual delights. As it stands, "Brown Betty" was just a diverting lark.

29 APRIL 2010: FOX, 9/8c