“Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11” is a wonderfully quirky sci-fi name name for an otherwise lackluster episode of Fringe. The season premier picks up where last season’s glimpse into the future, “Letters of Transit“, left off. We now find ourselves in the year 2036, where Observers have taken control of the world. Walter has the one shot, sure fire, plan to defeat the Observers scrambled in his head and needs the titular sci-fi MacGuffin to fix things. By the end of the episode he has conveniently had his memory erased and needs to rebuild the plan from scratch. Setting up the plot for the rest of the season.
It’s not a bad episode, per say but Walter having a memory problem, preventing the construction of some indescribable sci-fi contraption are tropes we’ve all seen before. The only difference here is that instead of dealing with an investigation, the hero and consequently the viewer is now a member of the resistance. We have been given something totally different from Fringe’s basic formula that is in truth something entirely the same. Fringe has gotten away from its roots. Only time will tell if the story functions as well in the new capacity. Letters of Transit left us with a cliffhanger, Olivia is nowhere to be seen. This episode resolves that hanging plot rather unceremoniously.
I’m still not sold on the Observers as the final big bad of the series. Anytime we’ve seen them before their conquest of the 21st century they’ve been so odd, and alien. Now they are fascist dictators instead of mysterious scientists. Worse yet they come from the future and are changing their own past. It creates a huge predestination paradox. I could be more accepting of the evil Observer story line if they were still largely scientific based. I want to more experiments, more future technology. They are very reminiscent of Nazis, down to their soldiers’ costumes. It makes them smaller, and more human. I have higher expectations of Fringe.
On a Scale of 1 to Epic (Epic = 10): 
“Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11” Gets a 7
