Eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the opening shot of the episode featured one of Fringe’s now-iconic 3D setting titles. But they also noticed that it was the only such title we’ve seen that was misspelled. How could the writers of Fringe, who have been known to be quite meticulous about every aspect of the series, have missed such an obvious misspelling?Answer: they didn’t.
If you’re still scratching your head, remember that the opening scene of the episode was set in an alternate universe. Therefore, it’s likely that Over There simply has a differently named Manhattan. Manna-hata is the etymological root of Manhattan, and it only has one ‘T,’ making it entirely plausible that some difference between the two universes caused them to leave out the extra ‘T’ that got added here. Why? Maybe they took another letter from this universe, and the ‘T’ was stolen from Over There thirty-five hours later, to balance it all out.
But here’s the question that’s always bothered me about all these changes. Over There is different from Over Here in numerous ways (too many to count), yet there are still so many similarities. The same people exist in both realities, and, in the case of the office building from “Jacksonville,” the people were standing in the exact same places in both universes. So why is that? Is it some sort of LOST-esque course-correction? Are people affected in exactly the same way by these differences?
Think about it.
Sam McPherson began writing for Walter's Lab in August 2009. He also writes for the sites TVOvermind, MovieOvermind and SpoilerTV, in addition to being an administrator on Lostpedia since March 2009. Sam's favorite shows are Lost, Fringe, Doctor Who, Flight of the Conchords, FlashForward, True Blood, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Follow him on Twitter (@mcphersonator) or send him an email (sammcpherson@tvovermind.com).
