So last week I watched the first episode of Fringe, which has been sitting on the DVR for a while. First of all, I think J. J. Abrams is great. I love Lost, and I was a big fan of Alias before it kinda crapped out at the end. Anyway, I figured I'd at least give his new show a try. I’m not going to spoil it for any of my 3 readers who may not have seen it yet, but I thought I’d provide my thoughts.
As the show opens, we’re on a German airliner as it’s going through a massive thunderstorm. Everything’s all tense, and then everyone on board has their face melt off. (Yeah, I know – pleasant way to start up a series). So the plane lands on autopilot in Boston, and in comes our intrepid hero, Olivia Dunham. She’s an FBI agent on some unnamed special task force, and she also serves as a liaison with Homeland Security, or some such babble. True, it’s not as exciting a job as working at Credit Dauphine, but what are you gonna do?
Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but it came to my attention that of the 4 really successful shows Abrams has developed, 3 of them (including Felicity) have central female characters. And given how much Jack whines on Lost, he’s pretty much a woman too! Ha Ha! Am I right, fellas? (Ah - nothing's more fun than 1950's humor!)Anyway, as the task force is investigating the creepiness, a random, phoned-in lead comes in. As Agent Liv is pretty low on the totem pole, she gets sent to investigate along with another agent, who also happens to be her Secret Lover. Of course, since this is TV, the random tip happens to lead to something pretty big, and Agent Loverboy gets hurt in an explosion which also exposes him to the same chemicals that caused all the face melting. Luckily, for some convoluted, made up reason, his symptoms are progressing slower. They may be able to save him … if they can find a remedy in time!
After our plucky Agent Cutie gets back to the office, she uses the FBI’s version of Google (Foogle? Fed-gle?) and after struggling through approximately 2 minutes of research, she manages to identify a scientist who may be able to help. He used to perform research on “fringe science” back in the day (nice of them to work the name of the show in there, huh?), but when an accident killed his lab assistant 17 years ago, they locked him up in the crazy house.Now, for an even more convoluted reason, only a blood relative can authorize a visit to Dr. Nutball (who is played by the crazy dude from Return of the King who tried to burn up his son – apparently he plays crazy well). Luckily, our intrepid heroine manages to track down his son (played by the Other Guy from Dawson’s Creek), and blackmails him to help her with this. Dawson’s Creek Dude is supposed to be some edgy, super-genius who also reluctantly helps with the investigation.
As the show goes on, Agent Not-Sidney-Bristow is told by her boss that there has been a series of weird, hard-to-explain occurrences they call “The Pattern,” and this weirdness may be part of some larger, “fringe science” plot? Of course, there also appears to be a quasi-evil corporation that may be involved. (And just like with Oceanic Airlines and the Dharma Initiative, Abrams managed to put a fake commercial for the company on the air (always a cool touch).
As this episode goes on, they work on saving Liv’s Secret Lover using weirdness (there's a cow involved). At the end, it appears Agent Cutie-Pie, Dr. Insane-o, and The Dawson Guy are going to team up in subsequent episodes to solve different problems involving extreme weirdness. I guess they’re like the A-Team, only without B. A. Baracus, which is about the worst form of the A-Team imaginable.
What did I think? Well, after watching it, I went ahead and set the DVR to record the show – so I obviously enjoyed it. It wasn’t the greatest show ever, and as it stands, it certainly hasn’t moved ahead of Heroes, Lost, or 24 in my viewing rotation. It’s not even all that original, as it’s really a mash-up of X-Files (FBI team, which includes female hottie, investigates paranormal), Alias (female agent involved in conspiracies and paranormal badness), and even some Lost (weirdness and potentially evil corporation). Unlike most of Abrams’s series, I don’t think you’ll have to watch every single one to catch it all; rather, it feels like the episodes will be pretty much stand-alone (at least for a while). I have to admit, though, it shows promise, and I think I would be stupid not to at least stick with it for the first few episodes at least. I mean, the guy gave me Milo Rambaldi and The Smoke Monster - he's going to have something interesting up his sleeve.Well, that’s all I’ve got. The Heroes premiere is waiting downstairs for me on the DVR, so I’m about to go dig into that thing. Aw yeah, baby!
Until next time,
The Jim
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