Fringe (TV Series) A New Day in the Old Town (2009) User Reviews

The Shapeshifter

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 12 January 2017]

In Manhattan, a man crashes with a black SUV and flees to an apartment building, where he kills a resident and takes his appearance. The Junior FBI Agent Amy Jessup is investigating the case when Peter and Dr. Bishop arrive. She questions Peter about the mystery since the SUV is locked without a driver while Dr. Bishop searches inside the car. Out of the blue, Olivia is ejected through the windshield and carried to a hospital with severe brain damages. Meanwhile Broyles travels to Washington since the senate wants to shut down the Fringe Division. The snoopy Jessup hacks the FBI system to disclose information about the Fringe Division. Out of the blue, Olivia awakes and later Peter and Jessup head to Dr. Bishop's laboratory in Harvard where he is carrying out an autopsy of the man killed by the shapeshifter. In the hospital, the shapeshifter attacks Olivia's nurse and takes her appearance. However Jessup arrives and shoots the shapeshifter that runs to the basement, but Francis kills him. But would be the man really dead?

"A New Day in the Old Town" is an engaging but flawed episode of "Fringe". The mystery of the shapeshifter is intriguing, but there are two great plot holes. The first one is why Peter discloses information of the Fringe Division to Jessup, who is a completely stranger. The second is why Dr. Bishop does not receive the body of the nurse, who is supposed to be the shapeshifter, for autopsy? The fate of Charlie is a sad moment of this show. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A New Day in the Old Town"

Fringe try to be the New X files

[nicofreezer · 8/10 · 23 May 2021]

And its just too big of a challenge, because X files is the best show of all Time. But I really enjoy all the easter eggs in this episode, 3 x files easter eggs first one Mulder appear on TV, then the commition talk about closing the X files and finally there is a Fringe version of the Bounty hunter Solid start to the second Season 8/10.

I Guess I Need to Watch the X-Files

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 29 October 2023]

That's right. Never saw it. So this is all new to me. So many reviewers feel this show was produced in order to be a new X-Files. Perhaps it was produced to be a new show with different characters and new plots. Anyway, my score reflects the frustration with the whole shape-shifter thing, where the characters can't know who is the real person or someone who has sucked the essence out of them. I knew Olivia couldn't be dead. She's the star. The second season will show us whether the show can sustain itself. I suspect it will do just fine on its own. I agree that not checking bodies (such as the nurse's) was pretty shabby. My hope is that confusion doesn't run rampant.

Olivia's Forgotten View from The Tower

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 25 March 2012]

In the Season 1 Finale - Olivia meets William Bell, who is Leonard Nimoy, and is left looking out the window of one of the Still-Standing World Trade Centre Towers.

This episode backtracks a bit the events leading up to that meeting and the events occurring right after. We had seen, in Season 1, Olivia's Ability to shift between universes. Apparently, Olivia had done this at the time of Impact: propelled herself into "The Alternate Universe."

But when she returns, she must pay back the momentum of that missed impact, and this causes her to be severely injured.

The Agent who caused the impact was also injured and he gains entry into a random building, where Luke Goss is watching the episode "Dreamland part I" of The X-files- Unfortunate for him.

Because we see now, the first Shapeshifter of Fringe: And yes, this is a story arc much like "The Hidden" but that does not act as a bad mark against this episode.

When Peter tries to see Broyles, his Special FBI ID Card is shredded by an air-brained FBI beancounter. In Steps Agent Jessup (Meghan Markle), who Peter had a slight conflict with at the scene of Olivia's Accident, who helps Peter and Walter gain access to bodies and things that they need to investigate what had happened to Olivia - In the course of Investigation, the shapeshifting nature of these agents from "The Other Side" is revealed.

As Olivia is near death, her sister Rachel (Ari Graynor) is there. Meanwhile, Broyle's has to fight for the life of his Fringe team the same way Olivia is fighting for life - And the Senators tell him that his Fringe team, and the "Former X-Designation" are indulgences no longer affordable - And that indeed, the Salad days are Over.

Unless Peter can Prove that there is a worthwhile reason for them to continue - And, just like in The X-Files, where all the tangible evidence would vanish - There seems to be not one solid piece of Evidence that can Justify the Team's continued Existence.

Not a bad start for the Second Season of Fringe. I really hoped that there would be more of Agent Jessup, but she was only in one more episode. The difficult thing for me, in this episode was the loss of Charlie Frances.

And I had no trouble believing that the Shapeshifter could have pulled off that switch, we had seen them move fast at certain points, when they needed to. This episode set in motion, arcs that took two whole seasons to finish.

Keep on the lookout for NZ Actress Simone Kessel, as "the nurse", who was in what would have been the second season premiere episode of Farscape, "Re:Union", but was released later as "dream a Little dream" where she plays second fiddle to "Ja Rubin" as "Finzzi", on a planet ruled by lawyers, where she causes a lot of trouble for Pau Zotoh Za'an... She is hardly recognizable here as a regular human person...

A very bad way for a cool character to go

[silver_blade-3 · 4/10 · 16 June 2010]

It's OK for a show to kill off one of its coolest characters for the sake of dramatic impact (and possibly contractual issues). In my opinion, Charlie was just one of the best characters in this series and he deserved better than this.

The episode in not at all bad, actually, until the very last sequences, where Charlie confronts the shape-shifter alone and gets killed. Now, the shape-shifter manages in the space of a few seconds (before help arrives) to kill Charlie, use the device to steal his appearance (a process which takes a substantial amount of time as shown in the opening sequences of the episode), hide the body, get the oh-so-conveniently- stashed corpse of the nurse, shoot it (??!) and set up the whole scene convincingly enough to fool FBI agents. Also, no one bothers to actually check if the body is indeed human or shape-shifter, which is not all that hard to do, since they bleed mercury! And the last blow: the shape- shifter actually leaves his smashed-up device for the FBI to find. Very poorly done.

Son of a shapeshifter!

[ctomvelu1 · 5/10 · 19 September 2009]

A shapeshifting supersoldier from another dimension tries to stop Olivia from attending an important meeting. He injures her but does not kill her, and is then ordered to go back and finish her before being allowed to return home. The basic premise of this season opener is derived from that cult classic, THE HIDDEN, as the soldier keeps changing physical identities with various unsuspecting people. This show tries so hard to be the new X-FILES, but the simplistic writing and amateur acting simply do not support this lofty ambition. The closing scene of this episode amply demonstrates this. But you must watch and judge for yourself.