“Fringe:” Season 3, Episode 8

• Courtesy of Fox
• WHO AM I HERE? “Fringe’s” Anna Torv as Olivia. Or is that Fauxlivia?

With the rationale that lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for, I hereby commence “Fringe” recaps. After next week’s episode, it goes on holiday hiatus and will return at the 9 p.m. Fridays in early 2011. It’s an irony that the original timeslot for “The X-Files” is considered tantamount to death for “Fringe,” given how much of Mulder and Scully’s DNA is in the current show.

“Fringe” has one advantage over “The X-Files” and Bad Robot’s “Lost” before it, in that the show’s overarching conflict is relatively simple. Compared to “The X-Files” conspiratorial aliens and “Lost’s” mythos of The Others, Jacob, et al, “Fringe” has built to a relatively straightforward cold war between alternate universes. The new episode, “Entrada,” seems to conclude the current arc with the two Agent Dunhams on opposite Earths, but the essential tensions remain, with ample potential for new stories. And you don’t need to consult Wikipedia to keep up to speed.

I’ll borrow the popular on-line nicknames “Ourlivia” and “Fauxlivia” for the each universe’s respective Agent Dunham. “Entrada” opens with Peter taking the fateful late-night phone message that reveals that Ourlivia is on the wrong side, implying that he’s sharing a bed with her imposter. Peter and Fauxlivia engage in a tense (and probably post-coital) game of cat-and-mouse and Peter tries to confirm Fauxlivia’s identity, and catches her with the Greek phrase she spoke on the Season 2 premiere. But she’s got a gun and a syringe full of a nasty paralytic substance.