'Fringe' 'Brave New World Part 1': Guess who's still alive!

Someone isn't dead, and if you don't want to know who it is, stop here until you've watched the episode. There is no going back now. Yes, "Fringe" fans. Part one of the season finale has brought back a character we didn't know was out of amber. William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) is alive!

Source: Zap2It

Fringe Shockers: David Robert Jones' Boss Is Revealed! And Is [Spoiler] Dead?!

If Fox had not renewed Fringe last week, the Internet would be on fire right now, torched to the ground, given the jaw-dropping events of Season 4′s penultimate hour.

For starters, very early into the episode it was revealed that the devious, deviant David Robert Jones in fact does answer to someone. And that someone is no less than… William Bell, played by a not-very-retired Leonard Nimoy.

“Don’t confuse a winning move with a winning game,” Belly told his cohort in the wake of the Fringe team snuffing their plan to infect humans with nanobots.

Of course, TVLine just days ago sought to confirm Nimoy’s return, given the wealth of recent hints at Bell’s resurrection. After reminding that the Star Trek alum has a standing invitation to return, EP Joel Wyman said, “Once you kind of realize the extent of everything, it will probably become clear why we’re not [writing ourselves into a corner]” with all the clues.

Source: TV Line

Fringe Review: Olivia Dunham, Superhero!

I have to give credit to producers who can hold a press conference and successfully retain the big secrets. As a writer, I've come to trust Joel Wyman and Jeff Pinkner when they say something, so I didn't think twice during a recent Fringe interview when they said they had so far been unsuccessful in begging Leonard Nimoy to return to acting and had resorted to planting signs in his yard. A slight exaggeration, maybe.

But when a legend in his field retires, to come back is one hell of a nod the material being written for him.

Source: TV Fanatic

FRINGE 4.21 'Brave New World, Part 1'

First off, I have to give the producers of "Fringe" credit for bringing back Leonard Nimoy as William Bell without hyping it in the press. They even hinted at it two weeks ago during the flashforward episode, "Letters of Transit." But unless this story was broken on a spoiler site somewhere, I don't think anyone expected to see Nimoy back on the show so quickly... or at all after his self-proclaimed retirement from on-camera acting two years ago.

In retrospect, it makes complete sense that William Bell is still alive in this timeline. Without Peter around, Jones must have crossed over to the other universe and made contact with Bell as he planned to in the first season. But somehow, instead of killing Bell, Jones ended up as his acolyte in this mad scheme to recreate the universe in their image. Likewise, the events of the second season finale must not have played out as we remember them, otherwise Bell would still be dead.

Source: Crave Online

‘Fringe’ recap: Surprise, surprise

While Walter investigates the smoking corpses of the nanobot victims, he runs into surprise No. 2: guest star Rebecca Mader. Another “Lost” alum visiting “Fringe.” Mader plays Jessica Holt, one of the people infected with the tiny robots who volunteers to be Walter’s guinea pig. Walter is able to use her to come up with a cure, but more importantly, Olivia triggers more of her Cortexiphan powers trying to save Jessica from overheating. Olivia is quickly becoming the superhuman Walter and William Bell experimented to create.

Fringe Division connects the nanobots to David Robert Jones, but Walter recognizes their design. They practically have William Bell’s signature all over them, which leads to probably the biggest surprise of the night: the return of Leonard Nimoy. “Fringe” hinted in the past few episodes to William Bell’s involvement, but I was certain Nimoy had retired from acting after his last “Fringe” appearance. Though I should have seen it coming. He did lend his voice to an episode of “Big Bang Theory” this year as well. In a world of spoilers, it was a happy thrill.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Fringe 4.21 "Brave New World: Part One" Review

Even though “Letters of Transit” hinted at Leonard Nimoy’s return as William Bell, I didn’t really expect to see Nimoy so fully reprise his role as the enigmatic Belly. I think it’s a credit to everyone involved that they were able to keep such a big secret so completely under wraps.

I love the juxtaposition of the fact that Olivia spent season 1 hell-bent on proving an innocent Bell guilty with the fact that a guilty Bell now seems to be the one behind Jones’ scheming. Fringe always has excelled at symmetry. This does make me wonder, though, if perhaps Bell was more involved in the Pattern than we thought he was, which casts something of a shadow on the Belly we’ve gotten to know and love. That being said, this version of Bell who is willing to destroy two universes to create a third of his own design doesn’t exactly mesh with the version who would sacrifice himself to send Peter, Walter, and Olivia back home across universes. I’ve always loved the dynamic between Walter and Bell, and I think John Noble and Leonard Nimoy play off one another wonderfully. I honestly never thought we’d get another chance to see the two on screen together again – not least of all because Mr. Nimoy was retired – but I’ve never been so glad to be proven wrong!

Source: TV Overmind

On Fringe, confronting your demons is just what the bad guy wants you to do

Belly is back! And our heroes are heading into the belly of the beast! Sorry, couldn't resist.

William Bell is still alive in this timeline, because he didn't sacrifice his life during the effort to rescue Peter Bishop from the Other Side. (Because there was no Peter Bishop.) And he's a full-fledged baddie, who's apparently been behind the whole evil scheme involving David Robert Jones, alt-Nina, alt-Broyles, the new-fangled shapeshifters, Cortexiphan kids, amphilicite, merging the two universes, and all the rest. This makes a lot of sense — William Bell developed the shapeshifters the first time around, so it's not surprising he's the real culprit again. And he was instrumental in the Cortexiphan trials.

This also explains why David Robert Jones always seemed a bit aimless as a villain this season — he wasn't the one really pulling the strings. He was just another puppet. (Of course, if Leonard Nimoy had turned out not to be available after all, then no doubt Jones would have been the big bad in any case. And it's great that Nimoy comes back in an episode called "Brave New World, Part 1," since he starred in one of the few adaptations of Huxley's novel.)

In any case, in last night's episode William Bell does things that apparently are designed to make our heroes confront their terrible pasts, in very specific ways.

Source: io9

Fringe: Yeah Science!

However, I have to hand it to the Fringe showrunners. It was just Wednesday that they dodged questions about Leonard Nimoy's future role in the series to the tune of "we're trying to get him back," so I wasn't expecting Bell to return so soon, if at all. And you know what? It was great to see Nimoy on-screen even though I'm convinced he's actually the animatronic Abraham Lincoln that escaped from Disneyland's Hall of Presidents. Plus, he makes a kick-ass enemy (if indeed he is an enemy). Good villains don't think they're villains, but believe they're doing something good. This could be the case with Bell, because I believed Nina when she said Bell would never do something as crazy as destroy two universes to create a third universe. Or maybe he has a God complex and really does want to press the reset button on life as we know it.

Source: TV.com

Fringe: "Brave New World, Part 1" Review

Following up on the big surprise in "Letters of Transit", Leonard Nimoy appears to reprise his role as William Bell. It's not CGI, it's not just a voice role for him, it's the real deal in the flesh and on the screen, despite his previous vow that he was done with on-camera appearances. Nimoy pulled a Brett Favre on us.

- FOX
But, just like Favre, every time Nimoy comes back he changes the face of the game. With Nimoy in the mix a lot more questions pop up along with a new story behind his death. Despite having a new "timeline" to use to explain Bell's aliveness, the producers chose instead to keep him supposedly dead. In an interesting twist, in this version of events Bell died in a car accident. Or... did he? I'm happy to have Bell back, hell I wish he never left, but I still feel like the circumstances surrounding his returns get odder each time.

Still, his presence really kicks things up a notch and makes all the mystery even more enticing. An "evil" William Bell should make the perfect character foil for Walter as we wrap up the series.

Source: IGN