Dream Logic
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| "Dream Logic" | |
|---|---|
| Fringe episode | |
 In the opening scene, a man hallucinates his boss as a deformed monster, leading to the boss' murder | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 5 |
| Directed by | Paul A. Edwards |
| Written by | Josh Singer |
| Production code | 3X5105 |
| Original air date | October 15, 2009 |
| Guest appearances | |
| |
"Dream Logic" is the fifth episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe, and the 25th episode overall. It was written by Josh Singer 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, "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 while at the same time praising the case's ties to Peter's past as well as the return of Sam Weiss.
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 (Anna Torv) and Peter (Joshua Jackson) 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 (John Noble) posits that Greg died from "acute exhaustion". However, believing Seattle to be like the mental institution, Walter desires to go home to Boston 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, the part of the brain controlling dreams. Broyles (Lance Reddick) and Nina (Blair Brown) reveal new information leading to the sleep researcher Dr. Nayak (Ravi Kapoor) 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 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, whom she discovered in previous episode was murdered by a shapeshifter. Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan) 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 the first and last letters from the names, that once unscrambled read "you're gonna be fine". There is also a mention in this episode when Olivia tells Peter how Charlie helped her when she was a rookie to regain her confidence with handling her gun. Charlie told her, "you're gonna be fine".
Production
"Dream Logic" was written by co-executive producer Josh Singer and was directed by cinematographer Paul A. Edwards.[2] It was filmed in August 2009. Shooting partly took place in the basement of a semi-functioning mental hospital in Vancouver, leading actress Anna Torv to remark during filming, "I heard this is where they kept dead bodies. Bad vibes in this place."[3] Actor Joshua Jackson noted that the hospital's "patients are known to wander through a shot. This has the potential for being a very interesting day."[3]
"Dream Logic" featured a guest appearance by recurring guest star Kevin Corrigan, as well as one time guest actors Ravi Kapoor, Jim Thorburn, Travis Schuldt, Drew Nelson, and Alex Zahara.[4]
Music and cultural references
"Dream Logic" featured the song "From the Beginning" by the progressive rock trio Emerson, Lake & Palmer.[5] 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 and Ashley Edward Miller.[2] In the final scene set in the young Peter's bedroom in the parallel universe, a poster depicts the Space Shuttle Challenger 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.[6]
