Having recovered enough from the events of the previous episode, Olivia is released from the hospital, and is watched by the shapeshifter who has killed Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) and adopted his appearance.
Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) talks with Olivia, and recommends she see a friend, Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan) "who helped put [her] back together" after she was diagnosed with cancer.
The final scene shows the shapeshifted Charlie communicating with someone from the parallel universe, who tells him to help make Olivia remember her experience crossing over.
They decided to voice the creature using Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) "because his range of actions and emotions was simply too broad for a library monster vocal set to cover".
[1] Sound editor Bruce Tanis cut "creepy moans and breaths" when the creature was heard but not seen, and added "a layer of vicious attack growls and wounded screams" for when it died.
[1] For Olivia's scenes with superhearing, Tanis made ordinary, far off items like phones, typewriters, and cars "sound a little beefier than normal and kept them a bit more up in the mix than they usually would be," as these things were not in the same room as her.
Fringe faced tough competition from CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and ABC's Grey's Anatomy, causing Fox to place fourth for the night.
[11] Ramsey Isler from IGN rated the episode 8.1/10, writing that despite its "relative insignificance" at explaining more show mythology, it "was still very well done, creepy as hell, and pretty entertaining".
[12] Andrew Hanson of the Los Angeles Times wrote he recognizes the show is trying to define itself, and compared Peter's newfound leadership to The X-Files' Fox Mulder, praised Acevedo's performance as "evil Charlie," but found some of Walter's mannerisms to be "cheesy".
[13] SFScope writer Sarah Stegall lauded the premise of multiple universes, and called the episode's horror elements the reason she is now "a devoted fan of this show".
[2] Stegall also praised Kirk Acevedo's performance as well as the parallels between Andrea Hughes and Walter; she concluded "This may have been the best episode of this entire series, second perhaps to last season's finale, and certainly better than anything the anemic Grey's Anatomy or the aging CSI can offer".
[2] On the other hand, MTV's Josh Wigler thought the episode's mystery was "barely compelling" when compared to the aftereffects of Olivia's journey to the parallel universe, and wished that more time had been focused on this.
[14] Though he understood that Fringe "rides a fine line between an ongoing drama and a series of stand-alone stories," Wigler believed the show would have to choose one soon, and wanted the focus to be on the former and its parallel universe storyline.
[14] UGO Networks writer Alex Zalben later compared "Night of Desirable Objects" to the similarly plotted episodes "Johari Window" of Fringe and "Home" of The X-Files.