'Fringe' Transportation

You know, I often watch this show baffled that the same man behind Lost is also behind this series.  They are just so drastically different.  Fringe is a modern-day X-Files while Lost is literature and mythology working together while stranded on a mysterious, remote island.  And then it hit me.  The man (J.J. Abrams) behind Fringe was also behind another series that centered around a strong female government agent fighting rogue groups with quasi-ties to the government.  Her name: Sydney Bristow.  Her show: Alias.  It all makes so much more sense now.  J.J. has become so synonymous with Lost that I had completely forgotten his earlier work and how many parallels can be seen between it and Fringe.  This week's episode really reminded me of the former spy thriller.  Maybe it was the international flair, the crazy time machine, Olivia becoming the target, that creepy guy in prison who benefited from the time machine or all of the above -- but something jogged my memory about Syd and co.  Let's hope Fringe doesn't create a huge pink spinning cloud of craziness.  Of course if it did, the special effects would be slightly better now.

So, four former military guys meet at the VA hospital when they start playing a friendly game of chess.  They get recruited to steal Walter's safety deposit boxes because those boxes contain the parts of a time machine he built to save his son.  How do they break into the banks?  Not with a clever mask and a shotgun, but by breaking the laws of physics and moving through the walls.  Once they have all of the pieces, they build the machine, head out to a remote air field and presto!  Creepy German Prison man is out of Germany and in the abandoned air field.  Good News/Bad News:  Walter really is a genius and his crazy experiments work, BUT... Creepy German Prison man is out and, we can only imagine, ready to wreak all sorts of havoc.  Oh yeah, there's also this little matter of Olivia being captured.  That can't be good.  Looks like we're going to have to wait until January to find out how not good.

Fringe airs Tuesday nights on Fox. If you missed last night's episode, watch it for free at Fox.com. Photo courtesy Fox.