Fringe (TV Series) Subject 13 (2011) User Reviews

Sequel to last season's "Peter"

[godzilla77 · 9/10 · 9 August 2017]

This is one of the series of really emotionally tender and marvelous episodes of this season, so very tender in its treatment of Peter and Olivia's relationship. It's as obvious as can be, though, that most of the user reviewers here missed the emotional centers of the episode in Olivia's childhood relationship with Peter tying in with his and Walter's very dark ongoing connection to the coming apocalypse. And it's all based in this relationship.

Peter and Olivia as children center the story, with two universes' different take on Peter's really sad and mythic displacement. A story of two tender and awesome orphans, basically, is what it becomes. With the previous episode we got the notion that "spooky action at a distance" (Einstein) can keep kids from two universes connected the same as two old lovers. Epic and lovely sci-fi premises, lovingly explored here.

Also, without too much for spoilers, it's clear that this episode shows how Walternate actually figured out what to do to get his son back long ago. Nifty-tifty.

Some reviewers may see this stuff as soap opera. I see it as fantastic sci-fi opera.

Chandler Canterbury (Young Peter) is a star!

[JasonQck · 9/10 · 10 April 2019]

A fresh episode that gives crucial background on Olivia, and Peter. We learn how their paths originally crossed. We see several of the the experiments that Dr. Bishop performed on Olivia, the discovery he makes, and how the loss of Peter affected Walternate and Alter-Elizabeth.

A soft video filter was applied to the episode. Overall I think it worked quite well, though it was borderline blurry on some occasions.

The main thing to point out is the outstanding acting by Chandler Canterbury, who plays a young Peter Bishop! Such an incredible, gifted young man who portrayed a wide array of emotions in such a convincing manner.

The Beginning of the New Life of Peter

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 17 March 2017]

"Subject 13" is a filler episode of "Fringe" dedicated to Peter and his parents. "Subject 13" shows how Peter reacted to his new family; how Elizabeth Bishop convinced the boy that she is his mother; how Peter met Olivia for the first time; and how Walternate learns what happened to his beloved son. This corny and unnecessary episode breaks the engaging sequence of "Fringe" and should have been presented when the audiences learned that Peter is from the Parallel Universe. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Subject 13"

Don't Walter know he's got LUCY BUTLER workin for him!

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 18 April 2012]

This Excellent Fringe Ep shows how Peter, still confused after Walter brought him back to the "Blue" verse, is trying to make sense of the world.

Peter thinks his home is on the bottom of Reiden Lake. This episode starts, in 1985, with him trying to get back to "The World under the Lake."

Walter is desperately trying to find a way to get Peter back home. And so his Cortexiphan experiments with Children, including one Olivia Dunham, are at a critical juncture.

But in the middle of this, Elizabeth is at Reiden Lake with Peter ALL THE TIME - And you can tell, she's losing it. Her hair is not brushed, she has to look after Peter every minute of every day - Or else he'll drop a rock into Reiden Lake and try to follow it to the bottom where he thinks his "real mother and father are."

The Ironic thing of course, is he's right! Those ARE not his "real" parents-Green Lantern and Arrow SHOULD be Red - In The "Red" 'Verse! But Elizabeth has to suck it all in and LIE to Peter, or else certain calamitous events would ensue.

Meanwhile, in the "Red" 'Verse, "Walternate" and "Elizabethernate" are on the verse of eating each other's heads off-Walternate has taken to Drinking his problems away, while telling his Elizabeth his new Theories on where Peter is and he pulls out the wildest imaginations- A Man got Facial Surgery. Aliens took Peter. Clones. He just does not know what happened. But his Elizabeth is stronger than the Blue Verse Elizabeth, and she holds Walternate Together. And she supports Walternate, who is not the easiest person to live with at that point.

This episode shows these conflicts with great acting from John Noble as both Walter and Walternate and Orla Brady who plays the forlorn Elizabeth in Two Universes.

The Child versions of Peter and Olivia, played by Chandler Canterbury and Karley Scott Collins respectively, are great Child representations of these people who we know as Peter and Olivia.

This episode shows clearly the incident where Olivia makes a fire and almost kills another child - Also her budding talents in moving herself between universes, which is a way to get away from her tortuous Stepfather.

Of course it is a Soap Opera, but without this ep, none of these things are ever explained. I like that the exposition of these events takes place at the time they took place, rather than having the older actors try to explain and expound on it.

It's a hard Episode to swallow, we have known about the events shown here, by inference earlier in S2 and S3. Here, we have a first hand account of events that are important to the Fringeline of seasons 1-3.

And we have a treat in this episode in the form of Water's assistant at the Day-Care Centre - Ashley, played by the great Sarah-Jane Redmond, who was "Lucy Butler" in the Chris Carter Fox Series "MillenniuM" - Walter! Don't you know WHO you got workin for you! Watch Out! It's the Evil Lucy Butler!

Scattered Background

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 10 November 2023]

I did enjoy this but after reading several reviews, there are all kinds of confusing elements involving the time when things take place. What we are shown is the unbalanced Walter and his cruelty to his wife and the son that is not his son. We see his fixations with alcohol and drugs while he uses his genius to accomplish incredible science. Peter is a pawn in the game throughout and eventually allows himself to be loved by his "mother." Olivia is the product of an abusive stepfather whose ugliness goes on. I'm sure that had Walter not intervened, she would have been reduced to a bloody pulp. We know from previous episodes what happened with her, her mother, and the stepfather. The whole thing is precious on the one hand and confusing on the other.

Completely screwed up the entire series continuity

[MacV216-1 · 5/10 · 10 September 2020]

This being nine years after the episode premiered and the middle of a pandemic there are probably more important things to be concerned about but after frequent rewatchings of this series over the last decade I have become of the opinion that whatever the strength of this episode, the glaring spotlight it shines on what had always been a very shaky timeline regarding Olivia and the Jacksonville Drug trials in relation to when Peter was taken from the other side. We are initially told that Olivia was exposed to Cortexiphan when she was in daycare when she was 4 years old. This placed the trials somewhere in the early 80s. Then we are told that the trials happen after Peter came over from the other side when he was 8 years old in 1985. Then we see this episode where we are treated to a 13 year old Peter who has been in this universe for six months and a 12 year old Olivia who has recently been treated with Cortexiphan discovering her abilities. As nice as it is to have this interlude about a pre-pubescent Peter and Olivia meeting up and profoundly impacting each other's lives in a way that they do not recall when they meet again decades later, the story just creates more confusion about the past and how it exactly played out. Obviously this episode could have been acted out by an 8 or 9 year old Peter working with a 4 or 5 year old Olivia but it wouldn't have landed the romantic through line as effectively because of the age difference and creep factor and all sorts of things but at the very least it would have maintained some fidelity to what the chronology would have to be to stay consistent with everything we had learned up to that point. But really they should have just gotten rid of this episode and given us the flashback episode we never got that sketches out Peter's past in some way that isn't just vague story lines about Big Eddie that go nowhere. Let us see him running a con, let us see him working in a meat packing plant, let us see him meet Markham and tell us that story., how did he become this Jack of all trades? Instead we are treaty to what is essentially an episode of The Muppet Babies, what Peter and Olivia would be like as kids together even though we have never had any prior expectation that they met as children. And we get the fake uplifting ending of Walter confronting Olivia's stepfather ever though we know that the Olivia stepfather story ends with him nearly beating Olivia's mother to death, Olivia shooting him, him surviving and sending her birthday cards every year. Episode is not great but better than most television.

Loved it when it first aired, rewatching the series 10 years later I found it confusing.

[Shikady · 5/10 · 9 March 2021]

I watched the series back then when it aired, and I found it to be a perfect episode. "Shock" was my state after watching this. 10 years later, I'm rewatching the whole series because It'll always have a place in my hearth and wanted to revive good times. The show is GREAT, but this episode just confuses me and there's some plotholes in this I don't get.

In hindsight everything is easier to see. The whole thing started ironically with the best rated episode of the series, "Peter".

So...Walter and Belly started the Jacksonville drug trials to defend the world from the other side. Olivia was there, she was a child and she didn't remember a thing. That's fine. Then there was "Peter" where we are shown that Walter crossed to the other side to save Peter when he was about 10, starting the decay of the other world, Walternate seeking revenge and wanting his son back and stuff. That episode is a masterpiece in my mind, but it creates plotholes I don't remember being answered ( luckily I have the worst memory and I'm enjoying the show almost like it's the first time watching maybe they're fixed in the future but I gladly don't remember ).

The plothole would be hardly noticed but there's "Subject 13" that adds to the plotholes. And if you waited 2 years to see the episode you might not remember. But I've watched 3 and a Half seasons in like a week and it's all fresh in my mind. So...Peter and Olivia are about the same age. In theory Olivia is getting cortexiphan since a 3, 4 years old girl as shown in "Jacksonville"...but then "Peter" came and the whole age thing doesn't make sense...If Olivia and Peter are about the same age, and Walter is doing the trials to protect the world and to take Peter to the other side, why the trials started when Olivia was a child? If Peter was a smallchild in Peter that would make sense, but he was like 9, or 10. Also neither Peter nor Olivia remember a thing...the dude was traumatized in this episode KNOWING this was not his world, . Yeah, I hardly remember thing from my childhood but I think I'd remember knowing I'm not from this world. Also I'd remember my father beating me and crossing to the other universe. Maybe it's fixed in the future I don't remember...I just remember loving this episode but on second watch it just profundice the plotholes Peter created. It was a 9/10 episode when it aired. Now it's a 5/10.

Still a great show and these plotholes doesn't affect my enjoyment of the series.

I guess I liked it

[rwk2 · 5/10 · 28 February 2011]

That is to say, it wasn't terrible, or annoying, or bad in any way. The characters were well developed and their motivation was explored in both universes. But it's also to say it wasn't edge-of-your-seat, or engrossing, or great in any way, either. At best it flushed out details from Peter's abduction decades ago. Including the first time Peter and Olivia met. We get to see more of both Walters, and their respective wives, as well as peeks into Olivia's and Peter's upbringing. All of which are key to the characters' histories but ultimately aren't really fascinating for the audience. Probably because by the time we come along to the story, now, 3/4 of this has either been forgotten or repressed by the people involved. Everything shown in this episode we could have extrapolated from what we already knew if we cared to think about it.

That being said, the most memorable scenes were Peter in the toy store looking over the Ecto-500, the first Joust joystick game for the ATARI, and a model of the original Battlestar Galactica. Now THOSE took me back a-ways!

Yikes

[ShakaNui · 5/10 · 13 March 2011]

No helpful info intended but rather just an opinion. Two bland soapy episodes in a row of a great series. I hope it doesn't continue or I may end up with more time on my hand for my kaiju flicks. I do not have the same patience that I do with flicks. Still a great series and I ain't giving up yet. TORCHWOOD was great for a season and a half until it fell completely off the shakanui map.

When we first started watching this series in season one we feared the writers taking it in the same direction as all the other shows seem to take it keying on a love relationship between the leads. Unfortunately this seems to be meat of the main story line. I have the new episode on the dvr and am hoping for much better as this has been a fantastic series with few blemishes like these last two snoring episodes.