Soviet Dust: A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6

Never underestimate Soviet science. In reality, they got out into space before we did in the 1950s. In the intersections of science and science fiction, the Soviets experimented with mental telepathy and all kinds of things. Who knows what they may have accomplished, or what strange forces walked through the doors they opened.

Tonight's Fringe 2.6 considered one of them - actually, a possibility that the U.S. was concerned about, regarding our own astronauts. They were quarantined at first, to protect us from any exotic organisms they might have brought back home from space.

This was the the different "stripe" of incredible, as Walter put it, that Fringe explored tonight. As Walter also said, those "pinkos" were up to all sorts of bizarre activities. One of which was their treatment of a cosmonaut who returned from space with an alien, shadow passenger.

Not the most original theme in the world - or, in places beyond our world - but, as I've noted about Fringe frequently, it excels in the retelling of classic science fiction motifs. Tonight's retelling embroiled Broyles, and gave us a bit of back story on how he lost his family - his wife left him, and took along their children - as his attempt to keep them and the world at little safer kept him too far from home.

But the best parts, as often on Fringe, were the visuals. Tonight's alien turns people into dust, leaving their skin intact as a fragile shell, which a strong breeze or the gentlest touch can shatter. The most memorable scene was a fly landing on a face, and causing it to crumble.

Fringe itself sometimes seems to be a such face. I hope we keep seeing it on television.


5-min podcast review of Fringe


See also Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind


See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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