What Lies Below
Encyclopedia
"What Lies Below" is the 13th episode of the second season
of the American science fiction
drama
television series
Fringe
. Set in a quarantine
d Boston
office building, the episode revolves around a thousands-year-old virus
that infects and then influences its victims to attempt to spread the contagion outside of the building.
It was the third Fringe episode to be written by supervising producer Jeff Vlaming
, while it was director Deran Sarafian
's only credit for the series to date. After his character becomes infected, actor Joshua Jackson
commented during shooting to "just imagine the worst hangover I've ever had and multiply it by ten".
"What Lies Below" first aired in the United States on January 21, 2010 on the Fox network
. An estimated 6.90 million viewers watched the episode, and it received mixed reviews from critics, with one calling it average and predictable.
, a visibly sick man from the Netherlands
arrives at an office building, only to collapse and die. The veins in his body erupt with blood, spraying surrounding witnesses. The Fringe team arrive on site, and while interviewing the witnesses, another man also becomes sick. The sick man attempts to leave the building, only to be stopped by Walter
(John Noble
), who sees the man spray out blood and realizes there is a contagion
. The building is quarantined
with Walter's son Peter
(Joshua Jackson
), FBI agent Olivia
(Anna Torv
), and the rest of the witnesses still inside.
The CDC arrives and soon clash with Walter, who wants some blood samples to take back to his lab at Harvard. As another witness, the receptionist, falls ill, the rest begin panicking that the virus is an airborne contagion. Olivia discovers that the Dutch man was an oil consultant who arrived to meet with Mr. Ames, one of the other office workers trapped in the building.
Walter explains that viruses have forms of "personalities," that influence their hosts to act in certain ways. He postures that the virus is not airborne after all, but needs more samples for further tests. Meanwhile the infected receptionist is influenced by the virus, jumps out a window, and also scares Peter into falling into an infected pool of blood. The woman is sprayed with decontaminate spray, as Peter quickly rinses himself off. Knowing he is likely infected, Peter searches through the Dutch man's pockets, leading to the discovery of a briefcase infected by the virus.
Walter continues his theory that the virus wants to escape the building, hence the multiple escape attempts by the infected. The virus was found on a sample taken 10 miles below the earth, and may be 75,000 years old and responsible for wiping out the Ice Age
mammals. As a bio-hazard team enters the building to test people for the virus, a CDC official orders the army to prepare for a "level six eradication", because they still do not know how to contain it.
Peter manages to fake the test and hide his infection. He and Olivia begin leading a team of healthy people outside the building, but before Peter is able to leave, his nose bleeds, clearly revealing that he is infected. While the virus overtakes Peter's health and sanity, Walter becomes increasingly distressed as he fears losing his son again, and accidentally blurts out that he "can't let Peter die again" to Astrid (Jasika Nicole
). Despite the threat of eradication and death, he and Astrid remain in the building to run further tests on the Dutch man. Walter realizes that sulfuric ash killed the virus thousands of years ago, and successfully finds a cure with some horseradish
he found in the office break room.
The CDC agrees to allow Olivia to enter the building and use the air ventilation system to spread some phetonol gas, which will gain them time while the cure is synthesized. While inside, Peter attacks her, but Olivia is able to turn the air on, successfully knocking out the building's occupants. Peter and everyone else are successfully cured. Astrid later approaches Walter and asks what he meant when he said he couldn't let Peter die again, to which he responds by saying "some things are meant to be left alone."
wrote "What Lies Below", his second episode of the season. Filmmaker Deran Sarafian
served as the director, his first and only Fringe directional credit to date.
Actress Jasika Nicole
was pleased that the writers decided to let her character discover Walter's secret, commenting "Astrid finds out in a really emotional way because Walter lets it slip to her accidentally. I think that it was really nice for them to invite Astrid into the importance of that instead of keeping her in the dark. At least she knows that she's a part of this family and this affects her. I think she serves as a really important character in these later episodes because Astrid is kind of the only person that isn't directly involved with everything that is still on his side. She has to step up to the plate and be that comfort for him because if he doesn't have anyone there, he's basically going to regress and go back to the place, I think mentally, that he was in when he was in the mental institution. And of course we don't want that." Actor Joshua Jackson
, who plays an infected Peter Bishop
in the episode, noted during shooting to "just imagine the worst hangover I've ever had and multiply it by ten". The episode also featured one-time guest appearances by actors Demore Barnes
, Geoff Pierson
, Conrad Coates
, Natassia Malthe
, and David Richmond-Peck
.
One of the episode's scenes involves an infected woman jumping out of the building onto a van in an attempt to spread the virus further. To simulate her 160-feet fall, stuntwoman Angela Uyeda was placed in a crane 10 to 15 feet above the van and asked to jump onto the van below. The crew removed the roof structure on the van, and carefully rigged it to cave-in upon impact but also make it as painless as possible for Uyeda. To achieve this, they modified the ribs that supported the roof by placing them on pins that would snap, and also added a three-millimeter glass plate that would snap between two sheets of black hard nylon-type plastic to further emphasize the distance she jumped.
writer Sarah Stegall considered these numbers to be "steady but stagnant ratings", as they were "not much different" from the previous week
.
contributor Todd VanDerWerff graded the episode with a B-, explaining that despite some nice moments, it was "an episode of the show that started out utterly predictably, continued along an utterly predictable path and yet somehow got fairly enjoyable by the end just through sheer force of will on the part of the cast." IGN
's Ramsey Isler also found the episode average and predictable, as it lacked "much of the quintessential storytelling elements that, once upon a time, made this one of the best shows on TV." Like many other critics, Isler thought the episode was too similar to The X-Files
, and gave it 7.0/10. TV Squad columnist Jane Boursaw thought Walter discovering a cure was a little far-fetched, and wished Broyles was a greater part of the show. Television Without Pity gave the episode a B+.
Andrew Hanson from the Los Angeles Times
thought it was a really good episode, and even wished it could have been turned into a movie, were Fringe to get into filmmaking. Josh Wigler of MTV
thought it was a "pretty cool" mystery-of-the-week, and "while not quite as strong as when the mythology is in full gear, 'What Lies Below' was nonetheless a compelling hour of television." He was however bothered that there was no further information about the parallel universe
.
category at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
. He did not receive a nomination.
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...
. Set in a quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d 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...
office building, the episode revolves around a thousands-year-old virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
that infects and then influences its victims to attempt to spread the contagion outside of the building.
It was the third Fringe episode to be written by supervising producer Jeff Vlaming
Jeff Vlaming
Jeff Vlaming is an American television Writer and Producer. He has worked on numerous series throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s...
, while it was director Deran Sarafian
Deran Sarafian
Deran Sarafian is an Armenian-American Actor, film and television Director.Sarafian has directed several episodes of the FOX series House and was made a Co-executive producer of the show for the 2007/08 season...
's only credit for the series to date. After his character becomes infected, 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...
commented during shooting to "just imagine the worst hangover I've ever had and multiply it by ten".
"What Lies Below" first aired in the United States on January 21, 2010 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...
. An estimated 6.90 million viewers watched the episode, and it received mixed reviews from critics, with one calling it average and predictable.
Plot
In BostonBoston
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...
, a visibly sick man from the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
arrives at an office building, only to collapse and die. The veins in his body erupt with blood, spraying surrounding witnesses. The Fringe team arrive on site, and while interviewing the witnesses, another man also becomes sick. The sick man attempts to leave the building, only to be stopped by 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...
), who sees the man spray out blood and realizes there is a contagion
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
. The building is quarantined
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
with Walter's son 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...
), FBI agent 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 the rest of the witnesses still inside.
The CDC arrives and soon clash with Walter, who wants some blood samples to take back to his lab at Harvard. As another witness, the receptionist, falls ill, the rest begin panicking that the virus is an airborne contagion. Olivia discovers that the Dutch man was an oil consultant who arrived to meet with Mr. Ames, one of the other office workers trapped in the building.
Walter explains that viruses have forms of "personalities," that influence their hosts to act in certain ways. He postures that the virus is not airborne after all, but needs more samples for further tests. Meanwhile the infected receptionist is influenced by the virus, jumps out a window, and also scares Peter into falling into an infected pool of blood. The woman is sprayed with decontaminate spray, as Peter quickly rinses himself off. Knowing he is likely infected, Peter searches through the Dutch man's pockets, leading to the discovery of a briefcase infected by the virus.
Walter continues his theory that the virus wants to escape the building, hence the multiple escape attempts by the infected. The virus was found on a sample taken 10 miles below the earth, and may be 75,000 years old and responsible for wiping out the Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
mammals. As a bio-hazard team enters the building to test people for the virus, a CDC official orders the army to prepare for a "level six eradication", because they still do not know how to contain it.
Peter manages to fake the test and hide his infection. He and Olivia begin leading a team of healthy people outside the building, but before Peter is able to leave, his nose bleeds, clearly revealing that he is infected. While the virus overtakes Peter's health and sanity, Walter becomes increasingly distressed as he fears losing his son again, and accidentally blurts out that he "can't let Peter die again" to Astrid (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....
). Despite the threat of eradication and death, he and Astrid remain in the building to run further tests on the Dutch man. Walter realizes that sulfuric ash killed the virus thousands of years ago, and successfully finds a cure with some horseradish
Horseradish
Horseradish is a perennial plant of the Brassicaceae family, which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, and cabbages. The plant is probably native to south eastern Europe and the Arab World , but is popular around the world today...
he found in the office break room.
The CDC agrees to allow Olivia to enter the building and use the air ventilation system to spread some phetonol gas, which will gain them time while the cure is synthesized. While inside, Peter attacks her, but Olivia is able to turn the air on, successfully knocking out the building's occupants. Peter and everyone else are successfully cured. Astrid later approaches Walter and asks what he meant when he said he couldn't let Peter die again, to which he responds by saying "some things are meant to be left alone."
Production
Supervising producer Jeff VlamingJeff Vlaming
Jeff Vlaming is an American television Writer and Producer. He has worked on numerous series throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s...
wrote "What Lies Below", his second episode of the season. Filmmaker Deran Sarafian
Deran Sarafian
Deran Sarafian is an Armenian-American Actor, film and television Director.Sarafian has directed several episodes of the FOX series House and was made a Co-executive producer of the show for the 2007/08 season...
served as the director, his first and only Fringe directional credit to date.
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....
was pleased that the writers decided to let her character discover Walter's secret, commenting "Astrid finds out in a really emotional way because Walter lets it slip to her accidentally. I think that it was really nice for them to invite Astrid into the importance of that instead of keeping her in the dark. At least she knows that she's a part of this family and this affects her. I think she serves as a really important character in these later episodes because Astrid is kind of the only person that isn't directly involved with everything that is still on his side. She has to step up to the plate and be that comfort for him because if he doesn't have anyone there, he's basically going to regress and go back to the place, I think mentally, that he was in when he was in the mental institution. And of course we don't want that." 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...
, who plays an infected Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...
in the episode, noted during shooting to "just imagine the worst hangover I've ever had and multiply it by ten". The episode also featured one-time guest appearances by actors Demore Barnes
Demore Barnes
Demore Barnes is a Canadian film and television actor who is best known for his role in the American television show, The Unit as Hector Williams aka Hammerhead....
, Geoff Pierson
Geoff Pierson
Geoff Pierson is an American actor known for his role on The WB series Unhappily Ever After as Jack Malloy, the father of a dysfunctional family whose best friend is a stuffed animal rabbit named Mr. Floppy...
, Conrad Coates
Conrad Coates
Conrad Coates is a Canadian actor. He has primarily been cast as bit parts, but has carried supporting character roles in several television series, including Dresden Files, Kyle XY, The Zack Files, Le Femme Nikita, and These Arms of Mine. He appeared in Degrassi: The Next Generation as Jimmy...
, Natassia Malthe
Natassia Malthe
Natassia Malthe is a Norwegian model and actress.-Biography:Natassia is the younger of two daughters. She was born in Oslo, Norway. She is half Filipino. She is usually credited by her birth name however is sometime credited as 'Lina Teal'...
, and David Richmond-Peck
David Richmond-Peck
David Richmond-Peck is a Canadian actor who has appeared in over 50 film and television roles in Canada and the United States since 2000.-Acting career:...
.
One of the episode's scenes involves an infected woman jumping out of the building onto a van in an attempt to spread the virus further. To simulate her 160-feet fall, stuntwoman Angela Uyeda was placed in a crane 10 to 15 feet above the van and asked to jump onto the van below. The crew removed the roof structure on the van, and carefully rigged it to cave-in upon impact but also make it as painless as possible for Uyeda. To achieve this, they modified the ribs that supported the roof by placing them on pins that would snap, and also added a three-millimeter glass plate that would snap between two sheets of black hard nylon-type plastic to further emphasize the distance she jumped.
Ratings
The first airing of "What Lies Below" was watched by an estimated 6.90 million viewers in the United States, with a 2.6/7 rating for those aged 18–49. SFScopeSFScope
SFScope is an online trade journal devoted to entertainment news concerning speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It was founded by Ian Randal Strock in early 2007....
writer Sarah Stegall considered these numbers to be "steady but stagnant ratings", as they were "not much different" from the previous week
Johari Window (Fringe)
"Johari Window" is the 12th episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. The episode was written by co-executive producer Josh Singer, and directed by filmmaker Joe Chappelle. The episode is set in a fictional upstate New York town, and begins with...
.
Reviews
The A.V. ClubThe 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...
contributor Todd VanDerWerff graded the episode with a B-, explaining that despite some nice moments, it was "an episode of the show that started out utterly predictably, continued along an utterly predictable path and yet somehow got fairly enjoyable by the end just through sheer force of will on the part of the cast." 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 also found the episode average and predictable, as it lacked "much of the quintessential storytelling elements that, once upon a time, made this one of the best shows on TV." Like many other critics, Isler thought the episode was too similar 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...
, and gave it 7.0/10. TV Squad columnist Jane Boursaw thought Walter discovering a cure was a little far-fetched, and wished Broyles was a greater part of the show. Television Without Pity gave the episode a B+.
Andrew Hanson from the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
thought it was a really good episode, and even wished it could have been turned into a movie, were Fringe to get into filmmaking. Josh Wigler of 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....
thought it was a "pretty cool" mystery-of-the-week, and "while not quite as strong as when the mythology is in full gear, 'What Lies Below' was nonetheless a compelling hour of television." He was however bothered that there was no further information about 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...
.
Awards and nominations
Director Deran Sarafian submitted "What Lies Below" for consideration in the Outstanding Directing for a Drama SeriesPrimetime 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
- "What Lies Below" 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...