'Power Hungry' - Fringe, Season One

Fringe

Season One

Episode Five

'Power Hungry' - 8.0

'I've been wanting to do this since you died.'

While it isn't quite as good as the last episode, it looks like 'Power Hungry' is the second in hopefully a long streak of terrific episodes of Fringe.

It's not quite obvious where the quality dips below what we saw in the previous outing, it may be the relative lack of action, or the fact that in the long run this episode probably won't have the same impact the last one did. The discovery of John Scott's old files will surely be important, but that is more a plot point than a drastic altering of the show's backbone, like we saw in 'The Arrival'. Don't let the irrelevance dissuade you, 'Power Hungry' is a fine hour.

It opens with a well-made sequence of scenes which introduce us to the aptly-named Joseph Meegar (if you can't tell, it's similar to Meagre), who is pushed around helplessly by his boss and his mother, and is pining after a girl at some random company he occasionally takes deliveries to. However, this all goes to hell when Meegar develops the ability to influence electric devices. This causes all sorts of problems, which were initially simple things like computers crashing, lights dimming, appliances fizzing out, you know, clichéd technopathy stuff, all caused unintentionally when Meegar lost control of his emotions. This all leads to a brilliant moment when he accidentally drives the elevator he and an indeterminate (it varies between five and eight) number of passengers into the ground, killing everyone else whilst he walks free. The lift crash is so well filmed, and the explosion it causes is pretty breathtaking. Even Meegar's walk of shame through the parking garage was fantastic, as he sets off every car as he passes them. Great stuff, and only the first five minutes of the episode.

Following on from the previous episode where Olivia caught a glimpse of dead beau John Scott, she spends tonight grappling with questions of sanity. It's all fine to me though, I like how it's been like a month and she is still pining for him on the inside - at one point even making out with hallucination - because a lot of other shows choose to practically jettison lost loves from the memory of their characters. I hope she is forced to dwell on John Scott's death for many more episodes, even if I didn't really like him. Hopefully he won't just be a device to unearth a bunch of files, and can actually allow Olivia to grow in our eyes and her own.

I did appreciate the 'scientific' explanation behind Olivia's visions of Scott, since the explanation behind Meegar's new ability was pretty stupid. It is kind of clever when a science-fiction show is able to give a rational-sounding reason for implausible or impossible events or circumstances.

As with much of Fringe the effects are well-done, whether it be something violent like Meegar's boss getting his arm ripped to pieces, or something simple and kind of beautiful like Olivia's necklace floating in the lift due to the remnant magnetic radiation. Ah, pretty. What Fringe does best is not call attention to its more shoddy CGI manoeuvres, and I believe that the odd blue lens flare that appears at random intervals aids that cause. There are few moments that sway our sense of disbelief or forcefully eject us from this universe, as a badly computer-generated scene can do.

Complaints and concerns? Well, this episode was pretty light on character development. Yes a bit of it was spent detailing Olivia's well-hidden desire to rip John Scott's corpse from the ground and either kill it again or have sex with it, but in the end it was more reminiscent of groundwork to develop her even more. I feel like what could have been said tonight is being saved for another time, if that makes it any clearer. Walter and Peter barely feature at all, only there occasionally to discuss the case or help Olivia overcome her psychotic break. Aside from this, there was only the smaller quantity of action-packing that were not in favour of 'Power Hungry', and ultimately it was a largely pleasing experience.