Initial Thoughts on 2.01 ‘A New Day In The Old’

Posted by Bryan Jones on September 18th, 2009 - (5) Comments

Wow.  What a fantastic opening sequence on the season two premiere of Fringe last night.  I was a bit confused when the episode began, trying to figure out just when these events were happening in relation to how the season ended last year when Olivia traveled to an alternate universe where William Bell was working out of the World Trade Center.  When Olivia busted through the windshield of her hours earlier crashed car my eyes about popped out of my head.  I was still a little confused at when exactly she was returning to our time, but I was convinced that we were in fact seeing her return after speaking with William Bell.

Sam did a great job of explaining it here, in our first investigation of the season, but I’ll mention it again here as well.  Basically, in the season finale last year, before Olivia arrives at the building where she is supposed to meet Bell, she swerves in traffic, barely missing an oncoming.  It was apparently at this moment that Olivia either crossed over into the other world, or started the crossing over process.  The details are sketchy still, but essentially she swerved and avoided the crash in the other world, but in ours the crash in fact happened.  Except, of course there was no Olivia in the car to end up dead.

Its interesting that we still don’t know what Olivia and William Bell’s conversation consisted of, but based on tidbits I’ve read around the web, I think we’ll be getting that answer in the coming weeks as Olivia struggles to remember exactly what it is she’s supposed to be doing to protect everyone.

There was a lot that I loved about this episode, and a few things that bugged me a little, or at the very least made me roll my eyes.  All in all I thought it was a great episode and a fantastic start to the new season.  While I knew I’d been missing Fringe this summer, I didn’t really realize just how much I’d missed Walter in general.  Seeing him fighting with the vending machine in the hospital and eating a twizzler while doing an autopsy with blood all over his hands was great.  I also really enjoyed the Olivia dying angle, while I didn’t really believe she was dead for a minute.  I knew there’d be some twist where she came back, as I’m sure just about everyone did, it was still enjoyable non-the-less.

Most Shocking Moments
I have to say, one of the most shocking moments for me was seeing Nina Sharp lean over and kiss Broyles.  My eyes about popped out of my head, and actually made me cringe a little as well (kissing Nina Sharp is not something on the top my list of things to do).  Its been obvious that these two had some kind of strange relationship together since last season, but I hadn’t suspected that relationship to be one of romantic involvement.

Other great moments was the already mentioned Olivia bursting through the windshield, as seeing Peter step up in this episode and be more than a plot device and a babysitter.  I’ve enjoyed Joshua Jackson’s character a lot, but I haven’t felt that they’ve allowed the character to live up to it’s potential…until now.  I also love the fact that Peter no longer intends to be reactive and a cleanup crew for the FBI.  He plans to take take the action to them (whoever “them” are).  The other great scene was the mysterious cross-universe typewriter communicator device.  But I’ve always been a sucker for sci-fi shows that take something that should be highly technical and advanced, and stick it an unlikely place, like an old typewriter.

Finally, I loved the mysterious connection that they give us, where Olivia speaks in Greek upon waking up from her “death” and just so happens to say something in Greek that Peter’s mom used to say to him as a kid.  As long as they explain it at some point, it’s cool.  Otherwise, it’ll suck.

The Aggrivations and Weak Points
I actually don’t hate the new girl, I kinda like her, however her actions and character don’t really seem to fit AT ALL with who she is supposed to be.  I get that she says she’s just following the case, but some of her actions just seem to go beyond what I’d expect to see from a federal agent.

On to Kirk Acevedo…while I love that his “fired” tweet was all a part of some kind of planned marketing at the most, or awesome spoiler prank by just him at the least, the big twist of the episode, at the end when we find out Charlie is dead, wasn’t really a twist at all.  I think it just bugged me a little how quickly they’ve killed off such an awesome character and switched him to the otherside.  It’s a bit too gimicky for me, and didn’t play out with any kind of suspense or surprise due to the obviousness during the scene.  In short, they could have done this SOOO much better had they not been trying to rush through.  Still, it is what it is and at least we get to continue seeing Charlie on the show, and in a much different light.

A few other smaller things…I normally love Broyles impassioned speeches, but his speech supporting Fringe Division seemed a little overdone and overly dramatic to me.  Of course the Nina Sharp moment that immediately followed made up for it.  Then there was when Peter was at the morgue with the new Agent lady and she gave the “my father was a soldier” speech.  This was merely an eye-rolling moment that just seem like a real conversation.  I know, I know, I’m okay with Peter saying things like “…she was a shape changing soldier from another universe,” but its all in the context and way its done, and she didn’t sell me on her my dad was a soldier comment.

That’s really it, and if those minor things are all I can find to complain about, then this was definitely a good episode!  I’m so glad Fringe is back, and I don’t think they’ve ever gone wrong when they’ve put Olivia and Peter in direct danger.  We definitely need more of them fighting to save their own lives and less of them searching for the answers to the weird things happening.  What did you think of the episode?