Celebrity Today

Behind the scenes romances are not unheard when it comes to movies and television series, but this one is shocking because no one really knew these two were sneaking around off set. The two in question are Mark Valley and Anna Torv. The two on the Fox science fiction series, Fringe.

In fact, fans will remember that the characters of the two dated on the series. Mark Valley’s character died early on, but he continues to visit Olivia. The two started dating shortly after work on the series began, and they tied the knot in December while the series was on a break.

These two must have kept things between them fairly low key because no word of these two being an item has leaked before now. Best of luck to the two, on and off screen. Fringe airs Tuesday nights on Fox following American Idol, which just went into Hollywood week this week!

In the last week, I started a new blog, The Paranormal World , that deals with all things paranormal and supernatural. Since these series deal with related topic, reviews of these series will now appear as episodes air on The Paranormal World . If you are a fan of my reviews for those shows, check out my posts there.

TV.com: The Dreamscape - A Massive Dynamic employee leaps to his death after hallucinating a butterfly attack. Agent Scott proves useful in investigating the case, but a frustrated Olivia wants to remove him from her consciousness once and for all. Meanwhile, Peter deals with some enemies from his past.

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Recap & Review: Fringe is really starting to win me over. I never thought I would say that after the first few episodes, but I stuck with the series to see what was next. It comes from the brain of JJ Abrams, and I have loved everything he has done over the years since Felicity. My main problems with this series have to do with Olivia, but this week’s episode showed us a passionate Olivia, and that is something new. Perhaps they need to make her crazy more often.

This week, a man employed by Massive Dynamics dies after seeing a swarm of butterflies and feeling them attack him. When they come at him, he ends up crashing through a window and to his death. Olivia and her team are brought in, and Walter goes to work on his body. Apparently, the wounds covering his body appear to have come from the inside out and not from some outside force. Walter thinks some drug has been given to him that made him hallucinate everything.

As for Olivia, she keeps seeing John Scott, and she feels close to losing her mind. He leads her to a shed full of frogs, and she is wondering if she needs time off in order to clear her head. However, she doesn’t get her wish. Walter calls her and he thinks frogs are connected to the man’s death. This leads her to tell him what lead her to finding the frogs. He thinks somehow she still has John’s memories in her head, and she pushes him to put her back under in the tank. She wants to find out the connection between John and the man that died.

Once she goes under, she first sees her first date with John, and there is a moment where she thinks John sees her. Walter tells her that this is impossible. Next, she sees a meeting with four men. One of them being John, and the other being the man that died. She watches John kill the third, and the fourth leaves. She knows he is still alive. When she is brought out, her mission is to find this man. After an extensive search, they do, and they are able to stop him from being killed.

In the hospital, he tells her all about Massive Dynamic, and how it is one big hoax. It is a front for the company and those involved to do whatever they want. There is no pattern. He says he will give her proof and tell her more for protection. However, when she leaves he suffers a similar fate as John slices his throat open in a hallucation. Their witness is gone. When Olivia asks Walter to put her under again, he will not do it. There is too much of a risk to her. When she checks her email though, there is another from John. Despite what Walter says, John’s email says he did see her in the restaurant in that dream world.

A minor subplot of this episode surrounded Peter and a woman from his past. He is hiding from someone, and she tells him if he stays in Boston they will find him. He discovers she is being abused though, and this is something he handles with a confrontation with the man responsible. This was a decent episode for Fringe. Olivia was lively this week, and I’d like to see more of this. Walter and Peter took a smaller role this week as the focus was on her. This would normally bore me with how lifeless her character usually is, but that wasn’t the case this week. What did you think of this week’s episode? For your daily listings, check here .

For more on Fringe, check SirLinksALot .

TV.com: The Equation - Walter’s former bunkmate at the mental institute is linked to the abduction of a young musical prodigy by a serial kidnapper. Peter is concerned when Walter insists on going back to the mental institute to solve the case.

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Recap & Review: Fringe is one of those series this season that I happen to be on the fence on still. It has been winning me over slowly, and we know that Fox has confidence in it. American Idol will preceded it on Tuesday nights when that series returns for its eighth season in January. Something just feels off to me. The main reason I continue to tune in every week is the character of Walter. You never really know what he might do next. Olivia is a dry character to me. They need her to do more with her because I don’t feel much for her a character. They have started to do more though, but they still have a long way to go.

This week’s episode starts with a young boy being kidnapped. Ben is a musical prodigy, and one night while he is out with his father during a rainstorm, his father helps to stop a woman stranded on the side of the road. When he tries to check her car, he is mesmerized by these flashing green and red lights. When he comes to the lights have stopped flashing, the rain has stopped and his son is gone. Olivia is brought onto the case with Walter and Peter.

They try to find the boy, and Walter feels some connection to the case. Before they are even mentioned, he knows about the lights, but he isn’t sure why they are important. He begins to work on this, and he figures out the lights can put people in some kind of hypnotic state. As for the boy, and why he was kidnapped. It appears he is connected to others that were also kidnapped in the past. Some type of mathematical equation is involved. Someone needs those kidnapped to try to solve the complete equation.

Walter finally figures out why he remembered the lights. Someone he knew in the mental institution had also been kidnapped. Olivia wants to question him, but he is a special case. He knows government secrets, so a court order to see him would take weeks. Her boss tries to work around this, and the only way she can ask anything of the man is if Walter is the one to go in to do it. Peter thinks it is a bad idea, and Walter doesn’t really want to go back inside the institution either. However, for the boy he will do it.

He goes in, and he meets with his former friends. Things do end up going wrong though. The man that runs the place drugs Walter, and locks him back up. He won’t even free him without a court order. Olivia goes to get this, but it will take until the morning. This does give Walter some more time with his friend, but all he can talk about is a red castle. This does become useful though. The woman who kidnapped the boy has been found, even though she is supposedly dead. With a little work, Peter finds out the name she would be living under and a city.

This narrows it down, and the team goes in. After she talks to Peter and he tells her about the red castle. She finds a house that might fit the bill. She goes in, and while looking through the home she finds the boy. The woman is still there though, and she attacks Olivia. The two fight, but the woman pulls the lights out on Olivia, and when she comes to the woman is gone. The boy is saved though. However, we do have a problem here. The man that runs the institution is threatening to keep Walter or get him institutionalised. This is something we’ll have to keep an eye on in the weeks ahead.

A good episode this week. I still feel Olivia needs more. I don’t connect with her as well as I do Peter and Walter. They are both stronger characters to me. The series is getting stronger though. Slowly but surely. What did you think of this week’s episode of Fringe? For daily television listings, check here .

For more on Fringe, check SirLinksALot .

TV.com: In Which We Meet Mr. Jones - A parasite mysteriously latches onto a dying FBI agent’s internal organs. Agent Dunham rushes to Germany to meet a prisoner for information about the threat they face.

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Recap & Review: Fringe returns after a three week break, and there is good news for fans of this series. Fringe will remain in its time slot in January when American Idol makes its return to Fox. House is the one being moved as I mentioned already on this blog in a previous review. Fox has enough confidence in Fringe to keep the series right where it is to keep the American Idol lead-in audience. This series has had me on the fence, but things had just started to pick up for me when the series took its break. Will it keep that momentum?

This week, the series follows an FBI agent. The episode begins on one of his missions, and after he returns from it and is filling in Broyles on the case, he becomes ill. Rushed to the hospital, the man is found to have some sort of parasite feeding on his stomach organs. The team is brought in, and Walter has some familiarity with it, but it is still unlike anything he has worked on in the past. Walter has the man transferred to his lab, and he works to remove the parasite from the man, but the parasite tries to kill him in the process.

While looking at the DNA of the parasite, Walter finds a clue that leads Dunham to Germany. She jumps on an airplane to meet the man that might be able to save the FBI agent. Everyone is working hard on this case because it is importantto Broyles. That agent has a problem with Walter and his lack of focus, but the man is focusing as much as he can. Broyles also finds out that there might be another agent giving information to outside sources. He sends agents after him, but this turns out to be the same man the German lead wants to speak to before he speaks to Dunham.

It becomes a race to see who can get to the man first. However, Peter arrives too late. Mr.Smith is killed. However, Walter might be still able to use him to help their cause. He wants to kick starts Mr. Smith’s brain. However, this might not work cause it turns out he was shot in the head. Walter continues on though, and Peter finally calls Olivia to tell her they might be able to find out some things from Mr. Smith.

She moves forward with her own meeting of Mr. Jones, but they are not ready for it yet. She has also had a bit of a romantic entanglement during her trip. During her interview with Mr. Jones, the two go back and forth. Mr. Jones then admits he is not the one behind the parasite. It becomes a race for time once again as Olivia needs the answer from Smith in the fourteen minutes she is given. Time almost runs out, but she gets the answer and Mr. Jones tells her how to save the agent.  The parasite is killed, and all is well. However, Broyles is still looking for another agent mole, and he is tricked we learn. The agent with the parasite appears to be their spy. All of this was a trick to find information. A deadly game indeed.

This episode had me off the fence and enjoying things. Everything just worked right in this episode. From Walter’s quirkiness to Olivia’s new attempt at romance. Peter being tortured was horrible to watch, but you can see the little moments where father and son get closer together. This series might end up being okay after all.

For more on Fringe, check Sir Links A Lot .

TV.com: The Cure - The team investigates a woman that re-appears after weeks of being missing, with a rare disease and she inexplicably causes pain and death to the people she meets. In the investigation dangerous level of radiation are detected. Walter obsesses about cotton candy, Peter strikes a deal with Nina Sharp and a truth about Olivia is discovered.

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Recap & Review: Fringe is one series I have been on the fence with this season.  Last week’s episode pulled me in a bit more, but now I’m looking to see if that improvement continues on. My one issue here is with the main character, Olivia. She is so closed off and distant. I don’t connect with her at all. I do find myself enjoying Walter and the interaction he has with his son. These two are what I watch when I watch this show, and I’m hoping in time Olivia pulls me in as well. They do have time. Fringe was picked up for the season by Fox.

On this week’s episode, we have a woman that causes death. The episode opens with her being dropped off by men in radiation suits. She then walks through the city until she ends up at a diner. She doesn’t look good at all. The man that serves her offers her some soup, and he asks someone in the back to call someone to help her. He sits to talk to her and find out what happened to the young woman. The man had his friend call a cop, who soon arrives at the diner. He tries to find out  what happened to her, and she says people did things to her. They also gave her a red medicine. The cop decides to arrest her, but not long after this the other in the diner start to die one by one.  She then dies herself.

The team arrives on scene within hours. Walter starts to work on the bodies, and there are high levels of radiation. One man literally had his brain boiled. Walter says like a Maine lobster. He then asks for two of the bodies to be taken to the lab, and he wants some of the onion soup as well. The woman had a fatal disease that killed all around her. Walter does his own autopsy, trying to find out the cause of her illness and what happened to everyone else around her. As it turns out, another woman was just taken as well. The people experimenting might want to try to repeat their results on another woman.

We see this woman held captive, and she is given a red medicine as well. The people holding her say the first woman was just a test. This is the real thing. Walter continues to research, and he shows the others what happened to the people by doing a demostration with a papaya. He offers to do it again with a live subject, but they stop him. Walter says the woman cooked the other alive. Olivia is determined to find the other woman. She even goes to the first victim’s house during the wake, and she starts searching through the girl’s room. As it turns out, both girls knew each other. The first girl’s mother knows of their friendship and tells Olivia. However, Claire’s husband lied and said they didn’t know the first girl. Apparently, there was a treatment involving radioactive pills. These two weren’t the only ones being treated.

Emily’s doctor is also involved, and he tells Olivia she should just walk away. When she continues to question him, he pulls a gun out, gives her a name and then he kills himself. They look into the name, and they do find him. He is involved in gene therapy and other such areas with a drug company. Olivia goes in undercover to meet him. She soon blows her own cover, and the man threatens her. This meeting gets her trouble with her boss. He didn’t like her approach in this matter. Testing continues on Claire, and they put in a live subject to see what happens. The subject dies within moments.

As for Olivia, she tells Peter about an incident in her childhood. She almost killed her father, but she didn’t do it. He sends her a card every year on her birthday to remind her he is alive, and that day is her birthday. Peter has an idea on how to get information on David Estherbrook. He thinks they need to do to Nina Sharpe because she might have information on the man as one of his biggest competitors. He goes to her himself. However, she wants to make a deal with him. A deal that sounds like he is selling his soul to the devil.

Walter thinks he has found a way to cure the women that took the radioactive tablets to stop them from bursting. Peter does apparently deal with Nina, and he gets Claire’s location. Walter gives Olivia the cure that needs to be injected. The team heads to the location. Apparently when they arrive, the woman working on Claire starts the process that will kill her, but Olivia is able to give her the cure just in time. Afterwards, Olivia arrests David, and she figures out Peter went to Nina Sharpe to find out where Claire was. He says he did it to return the favor. He also wishes her a happy birthday. She thinks she has been spared the letter from her father, but when she returns home, she finds a card has been slipped under her door.

I really enjoyed this deeper look into Olivia’s past. It gives us a better appreciation for her, which is something we needed. She is more real. She shows more emotion. We needed this from her. Walter as always stands out, and Peter also stepped things up this week. A better episode, but we have some bad news for fans of this series. No more new episodes for three weeks. Fringe will return in November. What did you think of this week’s episode? Remember to find out what’s hot on tv before it airs, check here .

For more information on Fringe, Sir Links A Lot: Fringe .

TV.COM: Power Hungry -The team investigate the case of a man who can project electricity… and is at the center of a series of strange deaths involving electricity.

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Recap & Review: I will be the first to admit I have been on the fence with this series. The last episode completely confused me as a viewer. Many would say why didn’t I just turn the series off. I will tell you why. I am standing on the strength of the name of JJ Abrams with this series. I’m sure I am not the only one doing that. The man is known for making amazing television that doesn’t go along with the norm. When Lost first began to air, I wasn’t too keen on that series either, but I kept watching, and by mid-season it was one of my favorite television series. The same could very well happen here with Fringe. I will stick it out for now, and that means my reviews will continue.

This week, the focus is on a man who has a very interesting connection to electricity. We see this in the first few minutes of the series as he breaks item after item just by being near it. Everything from an alarm clock, to a machine at his job and a computer of a woman he is visiting. The kicker is though when he climbs into a crowded elevator. His presence sends it crashing to the ground floor, and it appears he is the only one to survive. As for Dunham, we jump to her and she tells her co-worker about her seeing John in the last episode. This sighting disturbs her. Walter and Peter also continuing having their own issues as well. Walter is still keeping his son up with his nightly antics.

Olivia and her team are giving the case about the elevator crash. All the passengers died except for one. The elevator apparently drove itself to the ground. Walter starts to inspect the bodies, and he says the victims all were electrocuted. He then proceeds to show a necklace floating in mid-air just from the electro magnetic pull in the air. Walter runs his own autopsy on one of the people that died, and he figures out it is a person that caused the elevator accident. We see this man again, and he is fired from his job. This causes another electrical mishap to occur. This time to his former boss.

Olivia’s boss puts her onto the trail of a man named Jacob Fischer. She begins to look for this man, and at this time she once again sees John. He tells her that she is on the right path, but she must find the man responsible for the elevator before Jacob does. He then leaves her, and this one leaves her with more question. As for the man responsible, he returns home only to get into an argument with his mother. This leads to another incident, one that causes his mother her life. On his way out, Jacob finds him. It is this last incident and the one at the man’s work that sends Olivia to the man’s apartment. She finds his dead mother, but he is nowhere to be found.

Walter thinks he can find the man using a tape. He also needs birds that he thinks he can use to find the man, who we know is being held captive. Olivia also keeps seeing John, and we have birds on their way to find the man. He appears to be in the midst of being tortured, but the birds are moving towards him with Olivia and Peter close behind. They do find him, but the man has somehow broken loose, and he runs from Olivia when she spots him. Peter is able to stop him though. After his capture, Walter and Olivia share a moment where he talks to her about her seeing John.  He tries to explain to her what is happening. After this, she sees John once again. He doesn’t see her though, so she decides follow him. This leads her to an abandoned building full of files. They also find personal items of his, including an engagement ring.

Alright, I have to say this now. This episode was better than last. It was more cohesive, and I could follow it easier. Last episode bounced around a bit too much for me, and that was the main problem I had with the episode. However, this episode is less busy. They kept to basics, and that made this episode just much better in my mind. They also breathed some life into the character of Olivia, and they really need to do that more. She’s been too dry and boring. She is supposed to be the main focus of the series, and I wasn’t feeling her at all. This episode I did. What did you think of this episode of Fringe?

TV.com: The Arrival - The team investigates a strange cylinder, found in a deadly explosion at a construction site in New York City. The cylinder was in the middle of the explosion and was completely unharmed. Olivia uncovers a correlation between different disturbing events.

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Review: This week’s episode opens in New York City with the appearance of a very strange man. Every thing he does is strange. From the order of food he makes to the writing he makes in his notebook. His focus is on the construction site across the street, and all hell soon breaks loose there, and he makes a call stating something arrived. Back at the federal building, Peter is ready to leave his father behind after a difficult night. However, Olivia tells him he is needed.

This episode takes a weird turn when a device is found at the construction site. The device can only be described as alien in nature, and Walter works to figure out what it may be. An old colleague of Olivia’s warns her to stay away from it. This series taking an X-Files turn here, and this is something I don’t think quite fits the series. Fringe science is one thing, but aliens is another.

I found this series start to lose me in this episode. We have men in black, alien artifacts, aliens killing humans that know too much. I had been fighting to keep up with this series, but the fact that the science in this series wasn’t completely alien kept me going. Now we have the alien connection. We find out that Walter is protecting the cylinder found. He even speaks to the man called The Observer. Yes, the strange man from the start of the episode. He plays a big part this week.

Walter won’t tell anyone just why he needs to keep the object safe. We also see John return this week. We knew that would happen sooner or later. Peter is then taken in this episode as well. He is used to discover where Walter hid the cylinder, and we learn there is another Bishop. Olivia does find Peter, but not before the other man tries to escape with the cylinder. She is able to stop him though. The cylinder disappears, and the observer makes another call. This is witnessed by Peter, and the two have a strange exchange before he shoots Peter and gets away.

After this, Olivia tells Peter maybe he should go, but he decides to stay. It is then that Olivia gives him his federal credentials. Walter tells Peter a story about how they died and were saved by an alien, the observer. Walter protecting this capsule was repayment for saving the two of them.

This episode lost me by midway through. I wasn’t truly expecting an alien connection to pop up on this series for some reason, and that turned me off a bit. We don’t need another X-Files really. What did you think?

TV.com: The Ghost Network - A man who has visions of the future is introduced. He sees a pattern-related terror attack and the team, led by Dr. Bishop, tries to prevent this event from occurring.

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Review: On this week’s episode of Fringe, we see a man who is capable of seeing things before they happen. The events he sees are terrorists attacks.  The first event he sees is an attack on a bus. A man sets off a gas container, killing all those on the busy while he walks off with the bag of a woman on the bus. The team has its own issues including the funeral of Dunham’s lover, and the fact that Dr. Bishop is self medicating himself. The team is called in to investigate the bus attack. As it turns out, the man killed a bus full of people, and he didn’t find what he was looking for.

While the investigation begins, the team learns the one woman who had her bag taken was a Federal employee that was working undercover. When Olivia returns to the lab, Walter has recreated the compound that killed the people on the bus. The components of the compound are made by Massive Dynamic.  A call comes in, and Olivia learns of the man that saw the incident on the bus before it happened. They go to his home, and they find that this isn’t the first incident he has seen before it actually happened.

The man is brought in for questioning, but the team leader doesn’t believe the man is a psychic. Walter has an idea to prove that he is. When he sends the man in for a scan, the man has some kind of attack. It is discovered that he has metal in his blood for some reason. That reason becomes clear as the younger Bishop figures out the man was once a part of one of Walter’s experiments with the owner of Massive Dynamic. This is something Walter had forgotten, and it nearly cost the man his life.

Walter tells Olivia and Peter that Roy is listening into a special ghost network, and with a simple brain surgery they can see what he sees. However, he needs a special tool that is hidden in his old home. Olivia and Peter go to retrieve it, and they break into the house to do so. Once they find it, they return to the lab, and the procedure moves forward. They find out that another attack or something to do with it will be happening within the hour.  They also learn that the item the men were looking for was inside the woman the whole time.

Olivia goes to the meeting point, and Roy once again picks up what is happening.  Using him, they find the meeting. However, the man involved has been shot before Olivia arrives. They do find the shooter, but he kills himself. They find what he was looking for as well, and after a meeting with her boss, he takes the item to his contact at Massive Dynamic. We also learn that John Scott isn’t dead.

This episode was a bit better than the previous two for me, but I am still not fully invested in this series yet. There is too much going on with Dunham, and it confuses me. I’m going to keep on though, and see where this series takes us in the weeks ahead. What did you think of this week’s episode?

TV.com: The Same Old Story - Olivia, along with Peter and Walter Bishop, investigates the strange death of a woman who had an even stranger child. The woman was pregnant for only hours, yet the baby she birthed was fully developed - and also aged eighty years in the span of a few minutes. Olivia asks Nina Sharp of Massive Dynamic for help.

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Review: This week’s episode of the Fringe starts with what appears to be a prostitute and a man. Things seem normal at first, but then things happen. The woman goes from not pregnant to pregnant in a matter of seconds.  She dies giving birth, and her baby ages to the age of eighty in a matter of minutes. Olivia and her team is called in to research. Walter Bishop begins to work immediately on both bodies.

Olivia does find the woman’s hotel room, and she takes Peter along to investigate the location. Olivia discovers that the man that spent the last moments Lorraine Daisy was alive is a killer Olivia has dealt with before. However, it isn’t quite known how the man is connected to the baby born. The killer does take another woman captive. He performs his own brain operation on her, which was just painful to watch. Meanwhile, Walter becomes more increasingly strange as well.

The killer takes her pituitary gland, and Walter figures out why. It goes back to his former research, where they were trying to create the perfect soldier.  Instantly born and aged. However, they don’t stop aging. That is why the woman gave birth to a baby that aged eighty years in a minutes. The killer is one of these soldiers, and he needs the gland to slow down his aging in order to live. The team works to find his identity using a special camera that will let them see the last thing the previous victim saw. They use this to find the killer’s location before he can kill his next victim.

They are successful, and they stop him from killing the girl. Peter stays behind with her, while Olivia goes after the soldier. Because he wasn’t able to get the needed gland, he ages quickly and dies. After this case is solved. we learn more about The Pattern and the people Olivia is working with. We also learn from Walter there is something wrong with Peter, but we have no idea what.

This series is strange. I’m still not buying into it. In fact, this week dragged a bit for me. I really didn’t feel any real connection to the series, and I know I’m not the only one that has problems with this series. Some are already saying that some changes need to be made, and I would agree. Fox has already halted production on two of its series, 24 and Dollhouse. Those series won’t hit Fox until the midseason though. Right now, Fringe is weighing heavily on the name of JJ Abrams to keep it on air.