Fringe (TV Series) Reciprocity (2011) User Reviews

Jackson steals the show

[A_Different_Drummer · 7/10 · 24 November 2015]

Reviewers Notes:

1. Swarc directs. Wow. Has been in the groove since the 1960s. Check out his IMDb resume. Reads like a WHOS WHO.

2. Jackson shines. Takes a character everyone thought they knew and adds layers. Carries the episode on his back.

3. Fun watching the series get better and better. TV fans think of Alias as a "test" series for JJ but he really honed his craft here. The casting is MUCH better. The stories are MUCH better. The writing is MUCH better. The arcs are so strong that you don't have to constantly re-invent the show, on the fly, just to make it connect.

4. Show is also odd for the career arcs of the stars. Torv had a monster fan base ... and then disappeared. Jackson, ditto. Too bad.

Weaponized

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 12 March 2017]

The Fringe Division visits the Massive Dynamic to see the Doomsday Machine and the presence of Peter assembles the device. He is submitted to tests by Dr. James Falcon against Walter's will. Walter asks Nina to find William Bell's research since he wants to restore his brain to increase his IQ and help Peter. Meanwhile Broyles gives access to the main frame where the alternate Olivia's files are to help the investigation and they suspect there is a moll accessing the information. Soon they find that someone is killing the shapeshifters. Who might be the killer?

"Reciprocity" is another intriguing episode of "Fringe" with more questions than answers. What is the relationship of Peter and the Doomsday machine? What will happen to Walter if he succeeds in restoring his brain? Walternate is an evil man and Walter requested William to remove this parts to avoid what he would be. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Reciprocity"

Expansive

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 9 November 2023]

Things keep moving forward. The shapeshifter have really infiltrated and Fauxlivia's documentation is giving the gang some views into what the alternate universe is up to. Peter has decided to go rogue which flies in the faces of those who wish to take a more calculated approach. He is tired of being reactive. He knows now that he is the catalyst in the building of the machine (doomsday, perhaps?). Of course, there is advantage to thinning out the herd if one knows where the entire herd is holed up. Anyway, at times Peter seems to be magnificently under control, but we can't forget his checkered past in evaluating him. Things roll along at a nice pace.

Fascinating scientific topics, delicate character development, wowing investigation, unreal dark writing and Do Shapeshifters Dream of Robotic Monkeys?

[igoatabase · 10/10 · 29 January 2011]

The Firefly effect was intense and heavy on emotions. The bond between Walter Bishop and his son Peter seems unbreakable despite the disastrous impact his saving had on the parallel universe. However in the past episodes their relationship has been unidirectional because it seems Walter is desperate when Peter is quite confident when if he doesn't know what's happening. Even after what happened with Fauxlivia he has always managed to put one foot in from of the other. Don't look back, move forward. He has a goal in his life and won't give up for anything or anyone. Still his connection with Olivia is strong and it's sweet that the writers keep covering it while they work or investigate. It makes it even more authentic and freshen up the episodes with moving moments. However even if Peter is no Parker and definitely not a superhero it seems he has the ability to trigger a very technologically advanced device, the machine. Reciprocity was mostly about developing their interaction. Human-computer is a well known subject because we use smartphones or play video games everyday. But what's their influence on our evolution ? Do we live in symbiosis with the objects we have created ? We're probably as clueless as a clownfish dancing with sea anemones. It's the vicious circle of life and death. Will they win the war ? Could they defend themselves without studying and building the machine ? But asking questions is not enough, almost frustrating, so this installment was also about answering a few of them. The story was actually more twisted than Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?. It wasn't an other silver invasion but something entirely different in the end. It was almost like if they put two writers on the job and convinced them to compete instead of collaborating. One minor issue was made with an awkward revelation that could have been more subtle but overall it was an intriguing and puzzling tour de force ! And as often Walter was a barrel of monkeys. Wait ?!

Peter goes Bladerunnering

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 12 June 2012]

Walter, who is now the owner of Massive Dynamic, finally agrees to allow Nina to begin assembly of "The Vacuum"-The Machine which Peter is intrinsically connected to. And so Fringe Division is shown driving into a Highly Secured Base where they are assembling The Machine. Walter has to ask the guard if he has any Gum.

This is the first time that we see the fully assembled machine, in all of its glory. We had seen parts of it partially assembled in the season two finale, I had assumed that was a matte painting but they actually had parts of the full machine assembled even back then. To see it here fully assembled is beyond magnificent.

When Fringe Division enters the room, all of the monitors which were dead, start coming to life, The Vacuum knows Peter is There. And so Massive Dynamic start doing all manner of tests on Peter. Walter has a problem with one scientist in particular, "Dr. James Falcon" (Charles Parnell) - Who seems overly eager to get Peter into all kinds of MRI machines.

Astrid is trying to "decode" Fauxlivia's Macbook Pro: Peter had guessed her password, but the data is in one huge file. Olivia offers to help, but she is kept away because Broyles, Walter, Peter and Astrid feel it would not do her any good to see what Fauxlivia had written.

But Shapeshifters are showing up dead with their "Hard Drives" removed. And Peter is shown, coming in very late at night, and lying to Walter about it. Does he have anything to do with this?

Mainly this episode pieces together some apparently unrelated fragments: Shapeshifters, The Machine, Fauxlivia's Macbook, etc... and Walter is concerned for Peter's state of Mind after being exposed to The Vacuum, is it "Weaponizing" him?

It is Peter who is killing the Shape-Shifters and taking their disks. Olivia finally just grabs Fauxlivia's Macbook and starts reading it, it is not as "bad" as her "protectors" thought. In fact, it is a written a lot like Olivia would write it - Fauxlivia makes sense of things exactly as Olivia would, and this allows Olivia to find a code hidden in the file, which gives the names of five Shape-Shifters.

Walter has figured out what Peter is up to, and he follows Peter to the house of the Last Shape-Shifter, who had laid a trap for Peter. But Peter gets the drop on the Shifter when Walter walks in the door, chopping off the shifter's fingers with a Butcher Knife. Mercury Splatters Everywhere. Peter explains to Walter that he is through being "reactive," he wants to be pro-active, so he began a collection of Shifter Hard drives. As he shoots the Shifter in the head, he tells Walter, "I'm not doing anything wrong, these things are not even human."

Walter thinks Peter's exposure to The Machine has changed him into something he was not, and as this episode ends, Peter is sitting alone in a room while an image of The Machine looms in an overlay behind him.

This leaves us with the question: Is Peter being Changed into something Bad?

It's getting boring

[truebatmantd · 1/10 · 2 March 2023]

It looks like writers are running out of ideas, the main story is stuck and they don't know how to move the storyline forward other than throwing bunch of old overused cliches at us and hope that people keep watching the show. We are only third season into the series and it's already getting boring and I'm losing interest. This is also when the show's ratings took a plummet so I know for a fact that I am not the only one who is getting bored of this uninspired boring storyline.

In the next few episodes either something interesting happens or I simply stop wasting my time. I should have known that this was going to happen since it literally happens with every single show produced by JJ Abrams. His shows are only good for a couple seasons and then they get stuck and go downhill.