Amber 31422

Plot

Olivia, still trapped in the parallel universe and conditioned by Walternate to believe she is her doppelgänger, participates in tests in a sensory-deprivation tank on Liberty Island to stimulate her Cortexiphan abilities. One test succeeds, briefly placing her in a gift shop on Liberty Island in the prime universe. Hallucinations of Peter continue to bother her. The Fringe team investigates an incident at a quarantine site where amber has been cut and a body removed.

The missing body is Joshua Rose, a former bank robber who previously used a molecular destabilization device to break into banks. Colonel Broyles is privately cautioned by Walternate that those trapped in amber are still alive, a fact Walternate does not want made public. Broyles relays this to his team, requesting they find Rose quickly. At Joshua's apartment, they discover a twin brother Matthew and equipment for a negative matter ring.

Their investigation is cut short by a rigged bomb that destroys the apartment. Olivia, possibly retaining enhanced hearing from a previous episode, hears the bomb while Lee and Francis do not. They travel to Matthew's home, where Matthew professes no knowledge of Joshua's location. Olivia is suspicious but does not explore further.

It is revealed that Matthew was the one trapped in amber, having tried to warn his brother about the quarantine. Joshua, posing as Matthew for years, freed him and spoke to Fringe. The brothers switch places again when Olivia requests a more detailed identity check from Matthew, which he passes.

Production

The third season of Fringe moved between two universes, and this episode took place in the parallel one. Josh Singer and Ethan Gross wrote it, with David Straiton directing. For the first time in fifteen years, real-life brothers Shawn and Aaron Ashmore acted together on a project. Shawn Ashmore noted that Fringe’s high quality and the episode’s smart characters made it fun.

Holly Dignard appeared as Danielle Rose, while Amy Madigan and Ryan McDonald returned as Marilyn Dunham and Brandon Fayette. Seth Gabel and former series regular Kirk Acevedo also came back as alternate-universe Fringe agents Lincoln Lee and Charlie Francis. The episode was originally set to air three weeks after the previous one because of the MLB playoffs, but since the World Series ended without needing a sixth or seventh game, it moved up a week to November 4.

As with other episodes, Fox worked with Science Olympiad to create a classroom lesson plan for grade schoolers. That plan used the science in the episode to teach students about fossilization and how to identify species from incomplete evidence.

Cultural references

In the alternate universe, Lincoln Lee notes that Cary Grant played the lead in The Maltese Falcon, not Humphrey Bogart. When Olivia arrives late to a crime scene, Lincoln scolds her for taking the Nixon Parkway, a road named after the former president. The tank used by Walternate to submerge Olivia is often compared by critics to a similar device from the 1980 film Altered States, which featured Fringe actress Blair Brown. Walternate informs Broyles that he initiated the amber protocol on October 17, 1989, the same date as the Loma Prieta earthquake in our San Francisco Bay Area.

Reception

An estimated 4.97 million viewers watched the episode in the United States, a season low rating of 1.8/5 among viewers 18–49, down 10% from the previous episode. Between Fringe and its lead-in show Bones, Fox finished in third place for the night. Critics attributed the low ratings to the unexpected end of the 2010 World Series, which caused the episode to air a week earlier than expected. Den of Geek columnist Billy Grifter attributed the low ratings to the parallel universe focus, noting that new viewers might not follow the story.

Time shifted viewing increased the episode's ratings by 44 percent among adults, from 1.8 to 2.6. The episode received mostly positive reviews. Noel Murray of The A.V. Club graded it a B−, calling it a semi-dud due to a dull case-of-the-week and flat dialogue, but considered it essential viewing for fans due to revelations about people being alive in amber and the plot moving toward an Olivia-Altlivia confrontation. Andrew Hanson of the Los Angeles Times thought it was a good episode, praising the cool science and moral questions.

Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly found it enthralling and enjoyed the brothers' emotional story, praising Anna Torv's acting. TV Squad reviewer Jason Hughes enjoyed the parallel universe and character Lincoln Lee, believing he was too rich to abandon once the series stopped alternating between universes.