I’m on my last day of prep for tomorrow’s LSAT, but I’ve taken a break this morning to catch the newest episode of Fringe, a series that draws on the best elements of the X-Files mixed with a whole lot of pop cultural gestalt (minus the alien conspiracy theory.)
This season, Fringe has been exploring a parallel alterna-verse, which must pose some confusion for those who haven’t been keeping up. Last night’s ep “The Plateau” wandered straight into the Twilight Zone with an homage to the Rod Serling classic “What You Need” (based on the 1945 short story by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore) — featuring a character who can foresee the “domino effect” of future events and the one piece needed to start the chain reaction.
A pair of slippery shoes gets crooked Renard run down by a car in "What You Need"
An earlier rendition of this idea appeared in a 1952 episode of the ABC anthology Tales of Tomorrow available to be seen at the Archive.org.
More recently, such prescient vision formed the basis for 2007′s Nick Cage flick Next.
Other points:
- The story mixed in the ideas behind the classic novella Flowers for Algernon, in particular, the 1968 adaptation Charly.
- The one-off character Milo seems to be channeling an autistic Ethan Hawke.