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A Severe Case Of Scullyosis
A condition first diagnosed in a female FBI agent in the mid-nineties, Scullyosis prevents the subject from accepting the strange and paranormal despite clear supporting evidence or strong personal experience. Sufferers of Scullyosis will deny the existence of aliens, for example, even after being abducted, probed, having their DNA harvested, meeting their alien-hybrid baby, taking it to the first day of kindergarten, watching it graduate, sending it to a good 4 year college, attending its wedding and holding their own 1/4 alien grand child. It’s a powerful condition that turns potentially dynamic and interesting characters into one dimensional, broken record skeptics.
If the producers of Fringe don’t do something with Peter in season 2 besides have him blurt out “that’s my father ladies and gentlemen” after every time Walter says something inappropriately sexual, they might as well write him out of the show.
[actually that sentiment was conceived BEFORE I saw the season 1 finale last night. Holy shit, was it good. Peter's story just opened all the way up. If they can lose the cheesy skepticism, and it's going to be pretty hard not to after that ep, he might just turn into a character that I can care about.]
Fringe tried a little too hard at the beginning of the season to distinguish itself from LOST by giving us self contained episodes. The main story arch was touched on, but not significantly. The show really picks up around the last 6 episodes of the season. I hope they continue that momentum going forward. It’s really an excellent show and John Noble as Walter Bishop is one of the most interesting characters on TV (if you like House, you will LOVE Walter).
Tags: fringe, j.j. abrams, scifi, tv
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May 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Perfect Walter. I love that old son of a bitch.Also: fucking great strip!
PS: You should do a Walter/Fringe t-shirt. I'd buy one!
May 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Awesome strip, Joel. I haven't been watching fringe since the mid season break, but if you think it's worth picking back up, then I think i can devote a few hours to it.
Also, sorry about this, but, typo in panel 3…."Corpse", not "Coarpse"
May 13th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Great strip. I was of the same opinion of Peter until I saw last night's episode. My jaw hit the floor. I really hope they manage to move his character along while keeping Walter the crazy/paranoid genius that he is
May 13th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Man, excellent job on Walter. You really captured his likeness.
Loved the season finale BTW.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
This is the first time you've done a comic on a TV show that I've never watched. I don't like it… I feel alone, and cold. And scared.
Bottom line – do I need to start watching this? Is it online somewhere where I can catch up?
May 13th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I'm honestly not crazy about Walter (though I don't watch the show anymore) because although I think he's an incredible actor, his script just doesn't interest me beyond "Oh garsh ah wonder what he's goanna say t'day! Hope it's wuh-wuh-wacky!" and that can only last a very short time before it just starts to annoy me. I AM a super aristocratic TV watcher though (Dollhouse is the only thing I give enough of a shite about to actually watch as it comes on, and now, you know, it's over) so I've no doubt it's a good show, I just can't appreciate it through the recycled quirks and that stupid, stupid, stupid woman.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
That's a very good John Noble right there. Also, funny comic – and I haven't watched a single episode of "Fringe" yet…
May 13th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
HAHAHAHA! Love it. Personally, I love Fringe. histumness, hulu.com has episodes 10-20 up right now.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I've never seen this either but, after reading Joel's gray note in the middle of the post, I *need* to. Even if it's utter horsepoop, it would be horsepoop that turns into a magical butterfly and I need to experience that for myself.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Fringe rulez!!! I literally just finished watching last nights episode before seeing this. Very nice. Although the final shot/twist with the building was kind of cheesy or i don't know. Maybe they will have a crazy explanation for it.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Regarding somewhere online to watch Fringe:
Officially: You can watch the whole season on Fox.com – http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=fringe# – but that requires you to install the Move Player, which I guess is some sort of Flash overlay, and that kinda sucks.
Unofficially: Torrents. isohunt.com. I'm not sayin', but I'm sayin'.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Nice! I haven't seen Fringe, but I first started recognizing Scullyosis back in the 90s, when Captains Picard and Sheridan both had incidents of "wow, my vision suddenly went hazy and I hallucinated something strange! Oh, but I better not tell the doctor, because he would never believe an alien consciousness is trying to contact me! That would be implausible, despite all the times it's happened!"
May 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Yeah I have to admit that Peter's refusal to believe gets annoying. Really I think it would make more sense if he had different theories that just differed from his father rather than always being the skeptic against all experience.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
http://www.TVfreeload.com.use the megaupload link.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:59 am
For those who have not seen this show, good for you. As for the person who claims they must watch it even if it is a huge pile of horse poop, well, you won't be disappointed.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Another winner, Joel! This comic had the funniest lines I read!
"psychic bovine flatulence"
"spine eating vampire"
"alien techno-larva"
And you are right, Walter is a pimp and Peter's gotta get with the program and drop the skepticism. He's seen and fought this weirdness just as much as Olivia-no-facial-expression! Does Walter have that unique kind of genius that comes from being batshit bonkers, or is the crazies a side-affect of being a super-genius?
May 14th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Interesting that you hold opinion of Dollhouse over that of Fringe. Although I very much enjoy Dollhouse and will be disappointed when it's officially binned, I must say that even at its best (i.e. episodes 6, 9, 11) it didn't grab me by the scrotum and force my eyes to remain TV-fixed as much as Fringe has.
Fringe found its feet and learned to move on from repetitive things (other than Peter's Scullyosis) very early on – I was dreading the Star Trek Effect of wrapping up an episode with 3 minutes left on the clock by way of some Deus Ex theory or piece of equipment that Walter/Massive Dynamic just so have lying around the place, but they kicked that within about 3 or 4 episodes. Dollhouse meandered with FOX intervention and too slow a build for half its season.
Fringe has spent the first 13 episodes laying the groundwork before the big arc could advance but has the benefit of another 7 episodes to run with it – that's the entire length of Dollhouse's run.
Personally I think Dollhouse should be fantastic in a second season (assuming FOX don't meddle with that one as well should it happen) now that the pieces are in place, but I'd strongly suggest re-watching the whole of Fringe in a sitting or two – it really is so much better than you've felt so far, especially when the arc properly kicks in with episode 14.
Of course we're 2 episodes behind in the UK so nobody talk about the Fringe finale any more lol
May 14th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You don't need to start watching it, but it's kind of a fun ride. It straddles the line between SciFi and horror most of the time, which is fun, and has the Big Bad Corporation™ as a major character/plotpoint, too.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
heh, I think I'm blind to Picard's Scullyosis—this calls for a rewatch of the whole run, woo!
May 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Yeah, and didn't he start out being the guy who explained all this weirdness to Olivia's Scully? Maybe Massive Dynamic took over his consciousness and replaced it with that of a skeptic…
May 14th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I'm so out of the loop! but thats because I live in europe, which by my calculations means i'll get a sniff at Dollhouse and Fringe sometime in 2015. Ah well, Don't really need to see it, i'll get the required fix here.
Great artwork as always, keep up the good work!
May 14th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Personally I don't have anything against the show, but I also don't have anything invested in the show. The Mentalist on CBS airs opposite, and I find it more entertaining.
My biggest problem with the show? Peter. But not for the same reason. That guy can't act. He doesn't know how to deliver lines. It throws me out of every episode I start getting into. Stop trying to act and act already! (I do love Walter. I wish we could just watch The Walter Show.)
May 15th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Some found the shot of the building at the end to be corny or something. It blew me away. The visual was perfect, as was the person who introduced it.
I'm guessing Walter is only half crazy; that is, somehow he left half his mind in another place, or forced himself to go crazy so that his role would go unnoticed by everyone until it's too late.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:05 am
Interesting idea. The crazy IS his hiding place. A self-imposed lobotomy as it were. I thought the building shot was great too.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:57 am
In all honesty, it was Pacey's constant "My father, everyone" and "Let me get this straight, we ARE talking about [insert supernatural phenomenon here], right?" that really caused me to stop watching this show. Not to mention the insanely prevalent formula in the first chunk of episodes really turned me off it as well.
In short, awesome comic.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
To those who watched a few shows and thought the characters were superficial – you missed out! Shows got better, and characters are "people" now. The best quote of the year for me was when someone told Walter, "I know who you are!" and Walter replied, "Well, that makes one of us…" That was genious!
Walter has become much more multi-dimensional and interesting. So has Agent Dunham. Plus, she's hot.
How can @jim above NOT get the building part? It was self-explanatory. It is a different dimension! In that dimension, those buildings still stand. How can that not make you want to see what that other "place" is like? I'm old enough to remember the famous Statue of Liberty buried in the sand scene from Planet of the Apes, and the Fringe scene gave me the same eerie feeling. This show has so much potential. I hope Fox doesn'y give up on it.
If you haven't seen it – watch whatever Fox has out there (not a different source) so they can guage the interest. If you like sci-fi, horror and creepy stuff – you need to be watching Fringe!
May 20th, 2009 at 7:36 am
In Europe there is this free software called Limewire, and another called Vuze..it opens alternate possibilities to electronic P2P contact. You can actually wrap TV-timelines by recording your Tv-show and offering it digitally to somebody on another TV-timeline. This electronic contact enables you to share files. Need I say more?