The Arrival (Fringe)
Encyclopedia
"The Arrival" is the fourth episode of the first season
of the American science fiction
drama
television series
Fringe
. The episode was written by the series co-creator and executive producer J. J. Abrams
and executive producer and show runner Jeff Pinkner
. Paul A. Edwards directed it. The episode concerns a mysterious cylindrical object called "The Beacon" which appears at a construction site in New York City
. The story also involves the relationship between Walter Bishop
(John Noble
) and the mysterious Observer (Michael Cerveris
in his first feature appearance).
The episode first aired in the United States on September 30, 2008 on the Fox Network
to more than 10 million viewers. It received positive to mixed reviews, with many praising the new revelations about the Observers.
in Brooklyn, New York, a bald man with no eyebrows sits down at a table and orders a roast beef sandwich with eleven jalapeño
peppers and a glass of room temperature
water. When the sandwich arrives, he drowns it in Tabasco sauce
and black pepper
and wolfs it down in large, quick bites, to the bemusement of the diner staff. During this time he is also watching the construction site across the street through high-tech binoculars and taking notes from right to left in unrecognizable characters. The ground shakes and a gas main explodes at the site, toppling a crane. The bald man—the Observer—calmly pays for his sandwich and wanders to the gaping hole where the construction site was. On a wireless phone, he says "It has arrived."
In their shared hotel room Walter keeps Peter
awake by reciting the chemical formula for root beer
. The next morning Peter expresses his unhappiness with the arrangement to Olivia
(Anna Torv
) and tells her he wants to leave. She can't let him do that, telling him that Walter refuses to work without him. The Fringe Team investigates the object that arrived in Brooklyn, a cylinder that is determined to vibrate at a particular frequency. In the course of the investigation, Walter assaults and forcibly sedates Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole
) in order to hide the cylinder. He later meets with the bald man at a diner.
Meanwhile, a violent criminal named John Mosley (Michael Kelly
) is also searching for the Beacon. After killing one of Olivia's mentors, Mosley kidnaps and tortures Peter to find out the location. After he recovers the beacon from the grave of Robert Bishop, John Mosley is taken down by Olivia. The beacon escapes into the earth, and The Observer reports that its departure was "on schedule." Peter confronts The Observer about the beacon, only to have a gibberish conversation that implies that the Observer knows what Peter is going to say before he says it, or, as Peter puts it, "he knew me [...] he was inside my head." The Observer then knocks Peter out with an advanced sort of stun gun.
After being hospitalized for his injuries, Peter admits to Olivia that his experience with The Observer has caused him to start to believe in The Pattern. Peter decides that he wants to stay with the Fringe team until he gets some explanations. Walter apologizes to Astrid, who doesn't yet forgive him. Walter admits to Peter that, during an accident many years ago, a mysterious third party saved both their lives. The man was bald and had no eyebrows, who "knew my [Walter's] thoughts before I did." Walter admits that his behaviour regarding the capsule, and his desire to protect it, was motivated by his debt to this bald man, and that the capsule somehow contained instructions from this man. At the end of the episode, Olivia returns home, and sees recently deceased lover John Scott (Mark Valley
) in her kitchen. He greets her with "Hello, Liv."
. Paul A. Edwards directed the episode, his second of the season. Early in the series, actress Jasika Nicole
feared her character was going to become liked by the audience only to suddenly die. She explained that "When I was reading the script in the episode where Dr. Bishop stabs her in the neck with the sedative … and all [the script] says is, 'Dr. Bishop grabs Astrid from behind and jams the needle into her neck.' Then it fades to black. My mouth hung open for awhile and I was like, 'Oh my God, I only made it through six episodes."
While Michael Cerveris
has appeared as the Observer in the three previous episodes—and has appeared in every episode to date—his previous appearances had been brief background cameos. When initially cast for Fringe, Cerveris assumed he was a mere guest star, and that his character was "one of several nuggets dropped in" by J.J. Abrams in a manner similar to his other science fiction series, Lost
. Cerveris soon discovered that his character was "this sort of Where's Waldo thing (as) the linchpin in an overarching story of the series". He continued: Executive producer Jeff Pinkner
commented, "Our goal was to take a character who is by definition unknowable and make him someone you can connect to emotionally. He's more specifically connected with the overall character mythology of the show than we ever expected." The decision to remove his eyebrows was made an hour before he first appeared, which caused stress in the make-up department because Cerveris would not shave his eyebrows; he commented about the affair, "I've got a little too much else going on, and who knows if they would ever grow back. I have little enough hair as it is." "The Arrival" was the first episode in which the Observer had dialogue, and the first in which he was treated as a focal character. In addition to Cerveris, actor Michael Kelly
made a guest appearance in the episode.
In the episode, a character introduced as "the Rogue" has a specialized weapon that fires massive amounts of energy. To simulate the energy gun the Rogue fires at Olivia in the forest, the crew placed pyrotechnic charges near the trees to make it appear large blasts were close to hitting her. In a DVD special feature, one of the crew commented it was "challenging" to choreograph the fight scene between The Observer and Peter, because the former does not fight back as he is only there to observe.
The DVD special features include a deleted scene, where Peter emphatically denies the existence of parallel universes after Walter implies their existence in a quote from Shakespeare
's Hamlet
.
, but let's not quibble)." Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
found "The Arrival" a noticeable improvement over previous episodes. "...After being more than prepared to give "Fringe That's It For Me! status going into the episode, I enjoyed the strangeness of it -- The Observer's hairlessness and diet, Capt. Patterson from "Generation Kill" toting around a futuristic-looking ray gun and a retro-looking mind-reading machine, Walter casually injecting whatsername with a sedative -- that I think I'll be sticking around for a bit... If I can brace myself for the probability that this will all lead to nonsense, I can groove on all the atmospherics along the way. And, if nothing else, Abrams is great at atmosphere."
Also seeing improvement was Jane Boursaw of AOL's TV Squad, commenting "Tonight's episode definitely got me intrigued about fringe science, and this is the first time I can really say I'm looking forward to the next episode. It's a combination of things, and of course, Walter's scattered ramblings about whatever strikes him at any particular moment." Less impressed was Noel Murray of The Onion
s A. V. Club, who gave the episode a grade of C+. Murray wrote, "'The Arrival' was the weirdest episode of Fringe yet–a deep-down sci-fi spookfest that minimized the show's procedural side and instead raised far more questions than it answered. In fact, I can't think of any questions that "The Arrival" satisfactorily answered–not even 'What happened in the Fringe episode entitled 'The Arrival'?'... The shock and awe factor of "The Arrival" was strong, but as a piece of storytelling, the episode felt slight and soggy, and hardly the satisfying standalone experience that the creators promised each Fringe chapter would be." IGN
contributor Travis Fickett rated the episode 7.5/10, explaining that he liked the "attention to bits of logic that work as the glue, holding the show together" such as Peter's security clearance, but was skeptical of the episode's fringe science. Fickett also noticed many similarities to The X-Files
, writing "not enough is being done to move the show into its own direction"; he concluded "The production values are exceptional, the acting is top notch, and it certainly seems to be going somewhere. Where, is another matter all together, but there does seem to be momentum." Website blogger io9
highlighted "The Arrival" as one of the "crucial" episodes new viewers must watch to understand the show.
Fringe (Season 1)
The first season of the American science fiction television series Fringe commenced airing on September 9, 2008, and concluded on May 12, 2009. The season contained 21 episodes, although only 20 of them aired as part of the first season...
of the American science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Fringe
Fringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
. The episode was written by the series co-creator and executive producer J. J. Abrams
J. J. Abrams
Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, director, actor, and composer. He wrote and produced feature films before co-creating the television series Felicity...
and executive producer and show runner Jeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner is an American television writer and producer. He graduated from Pikesville High School in Baltimore Maryland in 1983. He is known for his work on Alias where he served as executive producer. In 2006 and 2007, he worked as an executive producer and writer for the mystery series Lost...
. Paul A. Edwards directed it. The episode concerns a mysterious cylindrical object called "The Beacon" which appears at a construction site in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The story also involves the relationship between Walter Bishop
Walter Bishop (Fringe)
Walter Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parallel universe, who is referred to in the show as Walternate.-Arc:...
(John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
) and the mysterious Observer (Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...
in his first feature appearance).
The episode first aired in the United States on September 30, 2008 on the Fox Network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
to more than 10 million viewers. It received positive to mixed reviews, with many praising the new revelations about the Observers.
Plot
At a dinerDiner
A diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...
in Brooklyn, New York, a bald man with no eyebrows sits down at a table and orders a roast beef sandwich with eleven jalapeño
Jalapeño
The jalapeño is a medium-sized chili pepper that has a warm, burning sensation when eaten. A mature jalapeño fruit is 2–3½ inches long and is commonly picked and consumed while still green, but occasionally it is allowed to fully ripen and turn crimson red...
peppers and a glass of room temperature
Room temperature
-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...
water. When the sandwich arrives, he drowns it in Tabasco sauce
Tabasco sauce
Tabasco sauce is the brand name for a hot sauce produced by US-based McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana. Tabasco sauce is made from tabasco peppers , vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. It has a hot, spicy flavor...
and black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
and wolfs it down in large, quick bites, to the bemusement of the diner staff. During this time he is also watching the construction site across the street through high-tech binoculars and taking notes from right to left in unrecognizable characters. The ground shakes and a gas main explodes at the site, toppling a crane. The bald man—the Observer—calmly pays for his sandwich and wanders to the gaping hole where the construction site was. On a wireless phone, he says "It has arrived."
In their shared hotel room Walter keeps Peter
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...
awake by reciting the chemical formula for root beer
Root beer
Root beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage, originally made using the root of a sassafras plant as the primary flavor. Root beer, popularized in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and soft drink. The historical root beer was analogous to small beer in that the process provided a drink...
. The next morning Peter expresses his unhappiness with the arrangement to Olivia
Olivia Dunham
FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series Fringe . Olivia first appeared in the pilot episode on September 9, 2008. She is portrayed by actress Anna Torv....
(Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
) and tells her he wants to leave. She can't let him do that, telling him that Walter refuses to work without him. The Fringe Team investigates the object that arrived in Brooklyn, a cylinder that is determined to vibrate at a particular frequency. In the course of the investigation, Walter assaults and forcibly sedates Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is most famous for portraying the character of Astrid Farnsworth in the TV series Fringe....
) in order to hide the cylinder. He later meets with the bald man at a diner.
Meanwhile, a violent criminal named John Mosley (Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly (American actor)
Michael Joseph Kelly is an American actor.-Early life:Kelly was born in Philadelphia and raised in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the son of Maureen and Michael Kelly. He has one brother and two sisters . He graduated from Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia...
) is also searching for the Beacon. After killing one of Olivia's mentors, Mosley kidnaps and tortures Peter to find out the location. After he recovers the beacon from the grave of Robert Bishop, John Mosley is taken down by Olivia. The beacon escapes into the earth, and The Observer reports that its departure was "on schedule." Peter confronts The Observer about the beacon, only to have a gibberish conversation that implies that the Observer knows what Peter is going to say before he says it, or, as Peter puts it, "he knew me [...] he was inside my head." The Observer then knocks Peter out with an advanced sort of stun gun.
After being hospitalized for his injuries, Peter admits to Olivia that his experience with The Observer has caused him to start to believe in The Pattern. Peter decides that he wants to stay with the Fringe team until he gets some explanations. Walter apologizes to Astrid, who doesn't yet forgive him. Walter admits to Peter that, during an accident many years ago, a mysterious third party saved both their lives. The man was bald and had no eyebrows, who "knew my [Walter's] thoughts before I did." Walter admits that his behaviour regarding the capsule, and his desire to protect it, was motivated by his debt to this bald man, and that the capsule somehow contained instructions from this man. At the end of the episode, Olivia returns home, and sees recently deceased lover John Scott (Mark Valley
Mark Valley
Mark Thomas Valley is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Brad Chase on the TV drama Boston Legal and Christopher Chance in Fox's action/drama Human Target.-Personal life:...
) in her kitchen. He greets her with "Hello, Liv."
Production
"The Arrival" was written by co-creator J.J. Abrams and executive producer Jeff PinknerJeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner is an American television writer and producer. He graduated from Pikesville High School in Baltimore Maryland in 1983. He is known for his work on Alias where he served as executive producer. In 2006 and 2007, he worked as an executive producer and writer for the mystery series Lost...
. Paul A. Edwards directed the episode, his second of the season. Early in the series, actress Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is most famous for portraying the character of Astrid Farnsworth in the TV series Fringe....
feared her character was going to become liked by the audience only to suddenly die. She explained that "When I was reading the script in the episode where Dr. Bishop stabs her in the neck with the sedative … and all [the script] says is, 'Dr. Bishop grabs Astrid from behind and jams the needle into her neck.' Then it fades to black. My mouth hung open for awhile and I was like, 'Oh my God, I only made it through six episodes."
While Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...
has appeared as the Observer in the three previous episodes—and has appeared in every episode to date—his previous appearances had been brief background cameos. When initially cast for Fringe, Cerveris assumed he was a mere guest star, and that his character was "one of several nuggets dropped in" by J.J. Abrams in a manner similar to his other science fiction series, Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. Cerveris soon discovered that his character was "this sort of Where's Waldo thing (as) the linchpin in an overarching story of the series". He continued: Executive producer Jeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner is an American television writer and producer. He graduated from Pikesville High School in Baltimore Maryland in 1983. He is known for his work on Alias where he served as executive producer. In 2006 and 2007, he worked as an executive producer and writer for the mystery series Lost...
commented, "Our goal was to take a character who is by definition unknowable and make him someone you can connect to emotionally. He's more specifically connected with the overall character mythology of the show than we ever expected." The decision to remove his eyebrows was made an hour before he first appeared, which caused stress in the make-up department because Cerveris would not shave his eyebrows; he commented about the affair, "I've got a little too much else going on, and who knows if they would ever grow back. I have little enough hair as it is." "The Arrival" was the first episode in which the Observer had dialogue, and the first in which he was treated as a focal character. In addition to Cerveris, actor Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly (American actor)
Michael Joseph Kelly is an American actor.-Early life:Kelly was born in Philadelphia and raised in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the son of Maureen and Michael Kelly. He has one brother and two sisters . He graduated from Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia...
made a guest appearance in the episode.
In the episode, a character introduced as "the Rogue" has a specialized weapon that fires massive amounts of energy. To simulate the energy gun the Rogue fires at Olivia in the forest, the crew placed pyrotechnic charges near the trees to make it appear large blasts were close to hitting her. In a DVD special feature, one of the crew commented it was "challenging" to choreograph the fight scene between The Observer and Peter, because the former does not fight back as he is only there to observe.
The DVD special features include a deleted scene, where Peter emphatically denies the existence of parallel universes after Walter implies their existence in a quote from Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
.
Ratings
More than 10.04 million viewers watched "The Arrival" as it was broadcast in the United States, for a 4.3/11 share among viewers 18–49. At the point the episode aired, Fringe was the most watched new show on television in the important 18-49 demographic. Several days after its airing, Fox announced on October 1, 2008 that Fringe had been picked up for a full season order.Reviews
The episode's reception ranged from positive to mixed. Critic Maureen Ryan was very positive about the episode in her blog at The Chicago Tribune, writing, "I liked this week's episode, and for once, it wasn't a case of really wanting to like it and trying to find reasons to see past various flaws. I just enjoyed the hour and felt it had just the right mixture of creepiness and character development (plus, the Observer was awesome. If only they'd called him the WatcherWatcher (comics)
The Watchers are a fictional race of extraterrestrials that appear in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the first Watcher - named Uatu - appears in Fantastic Four #13 .-Fictional history:...
, but let's not quibble)." Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
found "The Arrival" a noticeable improvement over previous episodes. "...After being more than prepared to give "Fringe That's It For Me! status going into the episode, I enjoyed the strangeness of it -- The Observer's hairlessness and diet, Capt. Patterson from "Generation Kill" toting around a futuristic-looking ray gun and a retro-looking mind-reading machine, Walter casually injecting whatsername with a sedative -- that I think I'll be sticking around for a bit... If I can brace myself for the probability that this will all lead to nonsense, I can groove on all the atmospherics along the way. And, if nothing else, Abrams is great at atmosphere."
Also seeing improvement was Jane Boursaw of AOL's TV Squad, commenting "Tonight's episode definitely got me intrigued about fringe science, and this is the first time I can really say I'm looking forward to the next episode. It's a combination of things, and of course, Walter's scattered ramblings about whatever strikes him at any particular moment." Less impressed was Noel Murray of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
s A. V. Club, who gave the episode a grade of C+. Murray wrote, "'The Arrival' was the weirdest episode of Fringe yet–a deep-down sci-fi spookfest that minimized the show's procedural side and instead raised far more questions than it answered. In fact, I can't think of any questions that "The Arrival" satisfactorily answered–not even 'What happened in the Fringe episode entitled 'The Arrival'?'... The shock and awe factor of "The Arrival" was strong, but as a piece of storytelling, the episode felt slight and soggy, and hardly the satisfying standalone experience that the creators promised each Fringe chapter would be." IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
contributor Travis Fickett rated the episode 7.5/10, explaining that he liked the "attention to bits of logic that work as the glue, holding the show together" such as Peter's security clearance, but was skeptical of the episode's fringe science. Fickett also noticed many similarities to The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, writing "not enough is being done to move the show into its own direction"; he concluded "The production values are exceptional, the acting is top notch, and it certainly seems to be going somewhere. Where, is another matter all together, but there does seem to be momentum." Website blogger io9
Io9
io9 is a blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The blog focuses on the subjects of science fiction, futurism, and advancements in the fields of science and technology....
highlighted "The Arrival" as one of the "crucial" episodes new viewers must watch to understand the show.
External links
- "The Arrival" at FoxFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...