"Fringe" on Jan. 21 Moves to New Time (Fridays) on Fox with a Fine Episode

"Fringe" has a new time slot on Friday nights. This first airing in that time period was promising. It was a very complicated show, with a theme of which one of the show's producers, Jeff Pinkner (another is J.J. Abrams of "Lost") said, "What we're trying to do is make a humanist statement. Everybody's choices inevitably interact with everything else. We are all connected, and there's nothing you can do to avoid it." (Ted Anthony for AP).

This theme came through loud and clear with lines like these from the first Friday night episode, (the show's first time back after a 2-month long hiatus): "Every action causes ripples, causing consequences, both seen and unforeseen. You and I had interfered with the universe -- upset the balance in ways I could not have predicted -- .It set off a chain reaction and unbalanced the universe."

Without revealing too much of the show's plot line, there are parallel universes---a time-honored science fiction construct that even I worked with into my novel "Out of Time." (Lachesis, www.OutofTimetheNovel.com). Television series as far back as "Star Trek" pondered how history might have been changed if, for example, only JFK had not been shot or various historic events had gone differently. It's always been fun to consider, for instance, in the case of JFK, whether we would have pulled out of Vietnam sooner. What if Gore had been declared president, rather than Dubya? What if Hitler had won? All interesting theoretical constructs to play around with.

In this particular series, an erratic genius named Walter Bishop (John Noble), whose son Peter (Joshua Jackson) died in our universe many years ago, found a gateway to a parallel universe where Peter was still alive and brought him back to our world, in essence, stealing another man's son. The other side (called "Walternate" by Walter Bishop) is a darker, more draconian police state. Characters like the show's heroine, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) have crossed over and "passed" as Olivia from our world and vice versa. That presents some interesting dilemmas for the "real" Olivia of our world, when she returns home and learns that Peter and Faux Olivia have been sleeping together while she was gone.

In an article entitled "Fox's '˜Fringe' a Not-so-distant Mirror of our Era" (Jan. 22, AP), Ted Anthony said, of "Fringe," "It has become one of the most nuanced reflections of American life during the past decade---the decade since 9/11, a period rich with wondering about the enemy within."

On this particular episode, Christopher Lloyd (Jim on "Taxi" and one of the co-creators of "Modern Family") played an eccentric musician living in a nursing home, whose group, Velvet Sedan Chair, disbanded after his son Bobby was killed. However, in this episode, Bobby returns from the dead to visit dear old dad and talk to him. Only problem is: what did Bobby say to Dad, because Christopher Lloyd's character initially can't remember. One of the questions asked, early on, by Peter and Olivia, the investigators, is "Why drag a dead man 25 years back through time to talk to his father?"

The answer, when it comes, is long and complicated and involves everything from a bank robbery where an asthmatic clerk nearly dies; "the Observers," who are bald men in hats from the Other Side (one suspects that the most often glimpsed Observer is the equivalent of Faust, the entity to whom Walter sold his soul, in order to assure the return of his dead son, Peter); Peter being shot and also having a seizure from brain medicine Walter concocted, which Walter was going to use in an experiment on himself to put back parts of his brain that have been removed (Peter accidentally drank the milk it was mixed with); and, as Peter puts it, "Walter channeling the Amazing Kreskin" to try to hypnotize Roscoe Joyce (Christopher Lloyd) to find out exactly what Bobby said to him when he returned from the dead.

Chief plot line, spoken by lovable genius Walter Bishop in Jan. 21's show: "That man (Walter on the other side) has lost a son, because I was unwilling to lose mine." What will happen next? What will the parallel universe people, who conduct business from a Defense Department located inside a gold-plated Statue of Liberty (even though, ironically, "liberty" is not Walternate's strong suit) do to get Peter back?

And what about the romance between Peter and Olivia-from-the-other-side? Will the real Olivia start up with Peter, now that she has returned?

Stay tuned to "Fringe" on Fridays to find out.

As for me, I chose to go see "Tron/3D/Legacy" yesterday on the IMAX screen at the Kennedy Space Center. Because of our decision to linger and see the movie after the tour was over, I was not on the exact spot on a highway in Florida at the exact time that a tanker truck collided with another truck, flipped end-over-end and exploded in a huge fireball, incinerating both drivers. What if we had not gone to the "Tron 3D" after the tour of Cape Canaveral, but, instead, had immediately started driving back to New Smyrna Beach? Would I be writing this today, one day later? Hmmmmmm. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6250420/huge_fireball_accompanies_weatherrelated.html?#comments