Dream Logic
Encyclopedia
"Dream Logic" is the fifth episode of the second season
Fringe (Season 2)
The second season of the American science fiction television series Fringe commenced airing on the Fox network on September 17, 2009, and concluded on May 20, 2010. The season was produced by Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, and its showrunners...

 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...

, and the 25th episode overall. It was written by Josh Singer
Josh Singer
Josh Singer is a WGA-award nominated television Writer and Producer, whose most noticeable work includes writing and producing episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, the critically acclaimed series The West Wing, the crime series Bones, and the FOX science-fiction series Fringe.- Fringe...

 and directed by Paul A. Edwards. The episode follows several people seemingly dreaming while still awake, leading the Fringe team to investigate the dangerous side effects of a sleep study.

On its initial American broadcast on October 15, 2009 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...

, "Dream Logic" was watched by an estimated 5.78 million viewers. It received mixed reviews, with multiple critics noting it was considerably worse in quality than the previous week's episode
Momentum Deferred
"Momentum Deferred" is the fourth episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. Screenwriters Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller wrote the episode, and co-executive producer Joe Chappelle directed it...

 while at the same time praising the case's ties to Peter
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...

's past as well as the return of Sam Weiss.

Plot

In Seattle a man named Greg Leiter (Jim Thorburn) hallucinates that his boss and coworkers are demons, leading Greg to attack and murder the boss. Greg is hospitalized and falls asleep for sixteen hours; when 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 Peter
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...

 (Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...

) interview him in the hospital, he tells them his boss was a demon out of a bad dream before suffering a seizure and having his hair turn white. Walter
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...

) posits that Greg died from "acute exhaustion". However, believing Seattle to be like the mental institution, Walter desires to go home in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 and run tests on the corpse from there.

Olivia and Peter learn Greg was being treated for a sleep disorder, and that his dreams had involved demons until they stopped several months ago. Another hallucinating victim turns up in Seattle and dies. The Fringe team discover that both victims had a brain–computer interface chip attached to their thalamus
Thalamus
The thalamus is a midline paired symmetrical structure within the brains of vertebrates, including humans. It is situated between the cerebral cortex and midbrain, both in terms of location and neurological connections...

, the part of the brain controlling dreams. Broyles (Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe...

) and Nina (Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...

) reveal new information leading to the sleep researcher Dr. Nayak (Ravi Kapoor
Ravi Kapoor
Ravi Kapoor is an actor of Indian heritage best known for his roles on Gideon's Crossing and Crossing Jordan. Before relocating to Los Angeles, Kapoor worked for ten years as an actor in England. He trained at East 15 Acting School...

) who implanted the chips. Another victim named Diana (Jovanna Huguet) hallucinates at a restaurant and kills a coworker before similarly dying of exhaustion.

Olivia and Peter first suspect Dr. Nayak's research assistant Zach (Jarrett Knowles) but find him dead. Back in Boston Walter believes the chips lead to mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...

 and tests this on the FBI agent assigned to him while Peter and Olivia are away. However, during these tests Walter soon changes his theory; the dreams are being stolen from their hosts to cause a "high" in Dr. Nayak, who is receiving them, and has two personalities. Peter and Olivia shut down the dream equipment before Nayak kills another victim, but the doctor dies in the process. The final scene shows Peter dreaming about his childhood when Walter kidnaps him, an event Peter normally has no memory of; Peter wakes up confused but still unaware of what his father did.

In a sideplot, Olivia is grieving for her partner Charlie (Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo is an American actor. He is primarily known for his portrayals of Miguel Alvarez in the HBO series Oz, Joe Toye in Band of Brothers and FBI Agent Charlie Francis in the science-fiction series Fringe....

), whom she discovered was murdered by a shapeshifter in the previous episode
Momentum Deferred
"Momentum Deferred" is the fourth episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. Screenwriters Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller wrote the episode, and co-executive producer Joe Chappelle directed it...

. Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Fitzgerald Corrigan is an American actor who has appeared mostly in independent films and television since the 1990s.-Life and career:Corrigan was born in The Bronx, New York to an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother...

) helps her work through it by giving her a "project" that requires her to collect business cards from people wearing the color red. She is told to grab random letters from the names, that once unscrambled read "you're gonna be fine".

Production

"Dream Logic" was written by co-executive producer Josh Singer
Josh Singer
Josh Singer is a WGA-award nominated television Writer and Producer, whose most noticeable work includes writing and producing episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, the critically acclaimed series The West Wing, the crime series Bones, and the FOX science-fiction series Fringe.- Fringe...

 and was directed by cinematographer Paul A. Edwards. It was filmed in August 2009. Shooting partly took place in the basement of a semi-functioning mental hospital in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, leading actress 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:...

 to remark during filming, "I heard this is where they kept dead bodies. Bad vibes in this place." Actor Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...

 noted that the hospital's "patients are known to wander through a shot. This has the potential for being a very interesting day."

"Dream Logic" featured a guest appearance by recurring guest star Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Fitzgerald Corrigan is an American actor who has appeared mostly in independent films and television since the 1990s.-Life and career:Corrigan was born in The Bronx, New York to an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother...

, as well as one time guest actors Ravi Kapoor
Ravi Kapoor
Ravi Kapoor is an actor of Indian heritage best known for his roles on Gideon's Crossing and Crossing Jordan. Before relocating to Los Angeles, Kapoor worked for ten years as an actor in England. He trained at East 15 Acting School...

, Jim Thorburn, Travis Schuldt
Travis Schuldt
Travis Schuldt is an American actor. He originated the role of Ethan Winthrop on the NBC soap opera Passions from 1999 to 2002, and played a recurring role of Keith Dudemeister in the sitcom Scrubs from 2006-2008.-Career:...

, Drew Nelson, and Alex Zahara
Alex Zahara
Alex Zahara is a Canadian actor & a voice actor.Alex was born in Northern Alberta, and, according to his mother, has always enjoyed performing for others. He grew up loving the classics in acting, Bogart, Cagney, etc. Got involved with theatre while still in school, performing in a stage version of...

.

Music and cultural references

"Dream Logic" featured the song "From the Beginning" by the progressive rock trio Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...

. Dr. Nayak's lab assistant is named Zack Miller, which was perceived by some media outlets to be a reference to frequent Fringe writing partners Zack Stentz
Zack Stentz
Zack Stentz is an American Screenwriter and Producer. He often collaborates with Screenwriter/Producer Ashley Edward Miller.-Filmography:Writer* Andromeda * The Twilight Zone...

 and Ashley Edward Miller
Ashley Edward Miller
Ashley Edward Miller is an American Screenwriter and Producer best known for his work on the TV shows Andromeda, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Fringe. As well as for his work on the films Thor and X-Men: First Class...

. In the final scene set in the young Peter's bedroom in the parallel universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

, a poster depicts the Space Shuttle Challenger
Space Shuttle Challenger
Space Shuttle Challenger was NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, Columbia having been the first. The shuttle was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California...

 in its 11th mission (1984). However, in the prime universe the Challenger exploded in its 10th mission two years later. One viewer noted this as yet another sign that the parallel universe is more technologically advanced than ours, as they began their space program earlier than ours.

Ratings

On its initial American broadcast on October 15, 2009, an estimated 5.78 million viewers watched "Dream Logic", helping it earn a 3.5/6 ratings share among all households and a 2.2/6 ratings share in the important 18–49 demographic.

Reviews

AOL TV
AOL TV
AOL TV was the name of both a thin client which uses a television for display , and the online service that supports it, both of which were launched in June 2000 to compete with WebTV....

 writer Jane Boursaw wrote, "The whole storyline with the creepy dual-personality doc and the mind-control-dreams was good, though I sort of knew the doc must be involved from the beginning. I also wonder how it fits in with the alternate universe." The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...

's Zack Handlen graded the episode with a B-. Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

believed that "in some ways, this was one of the less-distinctive, more 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...

-ish episodes of Fringe on Thursday night... But as usual, there was another narrative layer at work here" involving a grieving Olivia. 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...

's Ramsey Isler rated the episode 7.4/10, explaining the case-of-the-week
Villain of the week
"Villain of the week" is a term that describes the nature of one-use antagonists in episodic fiction, especially ongoing American genre-based television series...

 failed to have "excitement, surprise, and suspense" and lacked "what makes a typical Fringe episode unique and intriguing". While calling certain parts "kind of boring", Isler did however praise the episode's directing, acting, sets, and other technical aspects. He concluded his review by noting the best part of "Dream Logic" was the ending depicting a young Peter, "It's a haunting scene, and it adds yet another stone in this long pathway to revelation that the Fringe team is building up to... But besides that great little scene at the end, I thought this was an average episode. Granted, Fringes 'average' episodes are still better than a lot of the other stuff on TV."
MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 writer Josh Wigler thought the episode "nearly put [him] to sleep," as it was "bland" and "a bit of a dud". The episode however did lead Wigler to "start dig[ging]" Sam Weiss, and also to enjoying Olivia's subplot, but believed the episode's monster-of-the-week
Villain of the week
"Villain of the week" is a term that describes the nature of one-use antagonists in episodic fiction, especially ongoing American genre-based television series...

 could have been used to actually parallel her trauma; Wigler appreciated how the Fringe case tied into Walter and Peter's backstories. He concluded, "It wasn't bad enough to make me concerned for the future of Fringe or anything, but it certainly didn't keep me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next crazy twist like last week. I'm still loving this season, but tonight's episode was one of the weaker outings." Newsarama
Newsarama
Newsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews and essays about the American comic book industry.-History:Newsarama began in Summer 1995 as a series of Internet forum postings on the Prodigy comic-book message boards by fan Mike Doran. In these short messages. Doran shared...

's Chanel Reeder stated "Dream Logic" "certainly put the brakes on the speed that Fringe had gained in the previous" episode, but praised the connection with Peter's past as "one of the most interesting underlying parts". Reeder's favorite part was Sam Weiss, calling him "a fantastic dimension to the show". Josie Kafka of Open Salon
Open Salon
Open Salon is a hybrid blogging platform and social network site started by the Salon Media Group, Inc. According to Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh "Open Salon gets rid of traditional gatekeepers, and makes our smart, creative audience full partners in Salon's publishing future." After...

 was more positive than other reviewers, and in particular highlighted the episode's humor, "Almost all of the Cambridge scenes were funny: Astrid and Walter have a great rapport, especially when there's a rube in the room for them to play with." She concluded "I liked this one, more for the great Peter/Olivia and Walter/Astrid stuff than the plot of the week," and gave the episode "Three out of four anagrams".

After the episode's broadcast, Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...

published an article analyzing the science depicted. They concluded that the Brain–computer interface (BCI) chips, like the ones used in the episode to tie the victims' brains to the computer used by Dr. Laxmeesh Nayak, have also been used on real-life human subjects, though not in relation to controlling sleep cycles. However, the article continued that it is "not currently possible" for BCI chips to "facilitate direct transfer of understandable information from one person's brain to another", nor is it possible for the chips to "directly read another person's thoughts or dreams" and steal them. In addition, Popular Mechanics noted that Walter's theory of the victims' deaths being caused by exhaustion is "pure bunk", as there are many long-term experiments that have safely tested humans' deprivation of REM sleep. According to one scientist interviewed, though chips shown in "Dream Logic" cause hallucinations, paranoid thoughts, and a disconnect from reality, these traits are "not even remotely possible" outside of fiction.

Awards and nominations

Director Paul A. Edwards submitted "Dream Logic" for consideration in the Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series is an Emmy presented to the best directing of a television drama series.-Best Direction of a Single Program of a Drama Series:*1959: Jack Smight – Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre ...

 category at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
The 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, took place on August 29, 2010, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California beginning at 5:00 p.m. PDT...

. He did not receive a nomination.

External links

  • "Dream Logic" at Fox
    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...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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