Fringe - 3.05 - Amber 31422 Review by A.D.Harris

It's been three long weeks, but we finally returned to Fringe's fifth episode, where we headed 'Over There' for an investigation into the mysterious Amber 'Fringe' Containment Device, which the Division over there uses to close off holes in their universe, at the cost of all life within that containment area. That is, what we, like the rest of the 'Over There' world was led to believe. What is actually the case is that people are in 'Suspended Animation' meaning that they are alive when they are contained in the Amber, but unable to do anything at all about it. Quite a 'Human Rights Disaster' I would imagine, and so Walternate had been working very hard to keep all of this quiet.

Whilst Walternate was talking about how he designed the Amber 31422, I was trying to get my head around exactly what William Bell's role was on that side, he designed some of the Fringe Disasters we had seen in 'our world' for 'over there' including the Shapeshifters, but then, why has there been no mention of him from Walternate now he has been killed. Maybe I'm wrong and someone can clarify :P
So we began with two men breaking a man out of an Amber Containment zone, the man being revealed to be the brother of one of the 'robbers' and awakening once they dug him out. It was a very cool start, I had not imagined that people inside the Amber would be alive and It was really exciting to see what and who this 'person' was that had been contained.
This week we had a very nice link all the way back to season one, episode ten, when we were introduced to the 'Bank Robbing' device used by Mitchell Loeb. All those who don't remember, I have a picture stuck in below.

Even though this was a nice shout out to continuity, I wasn't so happy that it emerged Joshua Rose was just a bank robber with this similar device. It seemed very much too advanced technology for such a simple bank robber, Michell Loeb was part of a much bigger group of people working to bring down our world. Joshua Rose was robbing banks for money, and causing holes in 'Over There' and therefore was caught in Amber when Fringe sealed off the hole. That is, however, not true also, as Joshua's brother Matthew was accidentally the one caught in the Amber as he went to stop his brother, and then Joshua had been living his life until he found a way to get him out. This was a very slick idea, and the Ashmore Twins in real life looked so alike it was at times so hard to tell which I was looking at, which was awesome yet annoying at the same time, and I loved this concept, but I still felt the 'Big Picture' was a little weak for Fringe. I know it can do better :P
On the 'Side Story' but 'Mythos Heavy' part of the episode, we see Walternate putting in plans for using our Olivia, thinking she is 'Bolivia' into action, trying to get her to cross over to the 'Our Side' safely, thus showing Walternate how to do it. It was nice to see different technology that Walternate had come up with to our Walter, yet based on a similar idea. The Glass Fronted tank looked a lot less scary and more Walternate, than the Iron Tank Walter uses for the same experiment.

Fringe has been really good at making both world different in cool ways, and I found this very cool. And so did it work, did Olivia reach 'Our Side'. Well, yes, but one thing Walternate didn't count on was that Olivia was starting to see the light in another way, that being that she began to realise that she was from our world! Peter was there in her mind to help her along, but to be honest, I didn't find Peter's appearances to be that great this week, not like the ultra awesome mind appearance he made in 'Electric Sheep.' He kind of appeared too much, it was more effective to me when Olivia got glances of him. Peter's appearances in 'Amber 31422' felt a little bit more like the Fringe Writers saying "We need to keep Joshua Jackson busy during the Over There weeks!" But regardless, it worked in getting our Olivia into her right mind, literally.
The tank visions Olivia had were really well done, appearing in an American Souvenir store, a snowglobe smashing to the floor (ultra shout-out to Nina's smashing of the snowglobe to demonstrate the destruction of one of the worlds) and then looking out into New York, the Twin Towers no longer there, a huge difference between our world and theirs. And the she calls home, Ella answering the phone all the evidence our Olivia needs that this is where she belongs.

And so our Olivia is back. Back in the right mind, but technically she is still over there, and so it's going to be so cool to see what happens in our next 'Over There'. I'm convinced Lincoln and Charlie are going to help her out once they realise, the relationship they have set up between the three characters this season is a lot of fun, and some of the best bits of 'Amber' were between the three.

Some gripes, Broyles and Nina are still far too underused. Nina has barely shown up thus far this season, and Broyles has been demoted 'Over There' to a very bland boss. It's disappointing to say the least. At least Astrid has something fun and different to do, despite the fact she hasn't moved in any of her episodes yet. And as I noted next week, I enjoy seeing Brandon 'Over There', but how about we get to see the fun version of him in our world!
The ending of the 'Twins' storyline was cool, Joshua sacrificing himself to help his brother live a normal life, Olivia unable to...
OBSERVER ALERT:

...reach him in time, and giving the brothers a nice few final words before Josh put himself in suspended animation.
So overall I felt that Amber had some very good bits,but compared to the previous four episodes that have lit up season three to huge heights, 'Amber 31422' missed some opportunities to shine, and feels less of an episodes as a result, and therefore is my least favourite of three. That being said, it was still a lot of fun, but there was no goosebumps like I got at the end of 'Electric Sheep' as Newton died whilst 'Bolivia' and Peter made love.
Still, don't let that leave you stuck in suspended animation, that would be a mistake. There's plenty more awesomeness to come, Fringe is really rolling out some corkers this season, so see you next week.

7.5/10

I hadn't posted all my last few episode reviews on here as they were pretty late in being written, but you can read them all here:
Fringe Season Three Reviews:
3.01 Olivia
3.02 The Box
3.03 The Plateau
3.04 Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?
3.05 Amber 31422
Fringe Theories:
Some Pattern Thoughts (written after Episode 3.04)

Adam