Fringe: Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11

"What a miserable future."

Though this quote is taken a bit out of context, I think it's an apt description of future Earth in 2036.

Yes, we are picking up where last season's future episode Letters of Transit left off.

The episode opens with Peter dreaming about the day the Observers invaded Earth. It also turns out to be the day Peter and Olivia lost their daughter Henrietta (who, as we know, Peter has been reconnected with).

Many sequences in this episode were splendid. Walter's interrogation, though difficult to watch, was an amazing to sequence to get into the mindset of the Big Bad Observer (same one who threatened a much aged Broyles in Letter of Transit) as well as the amount of will power Walter had in resisting the torture. Unfortunately, it had dire consequences.

The rescue sequence was executed well. The plan was good (really cool technology, faking the dead thing was). Peter, Olivia, and Etta executed it rather flawlessly. Everybody got out alive and relatively unscathed.

I know some people probably didn't like the reveal of a tumultuous relationship between the wonder couple, but even though an outline of what happened (Peter apparently abandoned the team after Etta's disappearance), the events leading up to it were not explained, which I think leaves us open for some good flashbacks in future episodes.

That last scene with Walter after they figure out the torture has erased chunks of his memory, including the plan to defeat the observers, was immensely powerful. Him sitting in his underwear in that dilapidated taxi listening to the music was fantastic enough. Then he saw that dandelion, a weed most people utterly hate, and I'd like to think those tears were him feeling hope for what may come in the future.

Some quick observations:

1. Marcum proves his overwhelming creepiness with his purchase of Olivia and hoping to be her knight in shining armor like she was Sleeping Beauty. I shuddered.
2. I completely forgot Simon sacrificed himself to free Peter and ended up in the Amber. Hopefully the brown shirt traitor bringing up the recovery of Simon's body means we may get to see more of him to come.
3. Maybe the most important one, I think Etta may not be 100% stable. She seems to have much more of Peter's personality than Olivia's, and I don't think it's any more obvious than in during the rescue sequence when they have the following exchange: "What happened to him?" - P "Occupational hazard." - E "That's my girl." - P. I'd say Etta is somewhere near the point where Peter was during his murder-all-the-shapeshifters phase. She's been fighting this war for likely near as long as her parents have, and she is still quite young (23-24) so her actions are still more influenced by her emotions. This may prove to be problematic in the future for the Fringe team.
4. Glyphs spell out D-O-U-B-T. I have feeling we'll be seeing much of that in future episoded.

Overall, I'd give this episode a 9 out of 10. I liked it. The pacing kept things moving. We had some great scenes. I look forward to seeing if Wyman can keep the story going now that it's serial for these last 12 episodes. If the rest are close to this premiere, I think season 5 is going to come along just fine.

Aliens! Aliens Everywhere!

This today from The Guardian:

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists

Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report 

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. 

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. 

"A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

Granted, this is just one of many scenarios that were thought up by NASA affiliated scientists from Penn State University (the same university of the (in)famous Michael Mann, AGW alarmist du jour).

But lest we forget that infamous Paul Krugman rant about needing inflation to stimulate the economy (seriously, how did he win a Nobel). His solution? Why faking a hostile alien invasion, of course.

Video of evidence of a Krugman WTF:

Yep, that's Krugman, Nobel Laureate, saying the US government should fake an alien invasion to "stimulate" the economy.

So we've got on one hand Paul Krugman, heralded economic genius of the mainstream, saying the US should fake an alien invasion, and we have scientists from Penn St, most assuredly working under heralded climatology genius of the mainstream Michael Mann, saying aliens may destroy the human race because of how we've treated the climate.

Now, you can take this with a grain of salt, probably should really) but don't be surprised when in a few years we get the announcement: ZOMG ALIENS R GOIN 2 KEEL US!!!11!1!11!!