The Mad Science of Fringe: Artificial Life Generates Artificial Creepiness

Men talk with gaping holes where their hearts should be (We flash back to the hideous singing corpses from Fringe's unfortunate musical episode). Mad scientists string up corpses like marionettes so they can dance. Why did these things happen in last night's Fringe? Because, while they are largely totally unrelated to the plot, they help pad the creepy quota. And sometimes, as long as you're not thinking too hard about it, that's all you really need. Read on for the mad science breakdown of "Marionette!"

Scenario: Depressed, almost-doctor Roland Barrett is collecting the donated organs of his lost love so he can reanimate her. For some reason, he injects his transplant victims with a serum to slow cell decay before taking their parts back to his corpse. (Of course, one victim doesn't have a heart while he does this, so there's no way for the serum to actually ... yeah.) Anyway, again, it pads the creepy quota and makes for an ultimately diversionary instance of bodies talking while they have no heart.

Plausibility: 6 of 10. I don't think I can ethically give reanimation higher than 6, but this was at least a far more interesting scenario than The X-Files movie. But let's talk about that marionette scene. Was Amanda a ballerina? Did Barrett really dig ballerinas? Should we stop asking questions and just let the ick-factor work its magic? I will pretend the answer to all of these is unequivocally yes.

Scenario: When the corpse, Amanda, is reanimated, Barrett looks into her eyes and remembers that crucial lesson from the Buffy episode "The Body": They come back wrong, dude. It's always a mistake. He leaves her to die three minutes later.

Plausibility: 8 of 10. This makes about as much sense as you can make from reanimation. Barrett is only able to get the synapses firing, or "create life on the cellular level," as Walter explains.

Scenario: Olivia, back from the alt-world, comes to terms with the fact that Bolivia hasn't cleaned her apartment in weeks, deleted all her TiVo Season Passes, and, oh yeah, slept with her almost-boyfriend. When Peter first fesses up, she explains it away awfully quickly -- "Who knows what would have happened if Bolivia's boyfriend had been around!" she ribs. But soon as Dr. Frankenstein drops that line about knowing it wasn't his Amanda when he looked into her eyes, Olivia realizes she's miffed. "I know the facts," Olivia whines at Peter, "But I had to deal with a vision of you giving me the Cliff Notes for every episode this season. Why didn't you?" She saunters off leaving poor Peter to mope.

Plausibility: 3 of 10. I get that Olivia's angry -- and maybe she'll admit come January 21 that she overreacted a little -- but what did she expect from the man? It took until about last week for the brother-and-sister vibes to quiet down! It's not completely artificial; it's just not helping me buy this relationship at all.

Scenario: Fringe will survive on Fridays.

Plausibility: 5 of 10. I'm not going to make any predictions here, but after the end-of-episode tease of the Observers' return, I'm really hoping the new time slot gives the show a ratings boost.