On the Fringe

I love sci-fi.  Movies, TV shows, novels, comics, whatever.  If its sci-fi, I’m interested.

I’m also a big fan of J.J. Abrams.  Not of everything he’s done, mind you.  (I certainly was never interested in Felicity, and despite sampling episodes during each of the five seasons of its run I just could never get into Alias.)  But I adore Lost, and I also really enjoyed Mission Impossible III (which Abrams directed) and Cloverfield (which he produced).

And so it was that I tuned in to the first two hours of J.J. Abrams’ new series, Fringe.  

Its been getting a lot of hype, so most of you probably know what its about, but just in case: the series features an FBI agent named Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) who, during the circumstances of the pilot, finds herself paired up with sort-of-sketchy Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his kooky-but-brilliant father, Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble, who played Denethor in The Return of The King).  Together, they investigate all sorts of strange and paranormal events, which have been nicknamed “the pattern.”

Abrams, along with writers & executive producers Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (who together wrote Transformers and the script for the upcoming Star Trek re-launch, which is being directed by Abrams), have stated that, in creating this show, they were inspired by Robin Cook’s Coma, Twin Peaks, Real Genius, and Croenberg’s The Fly among other things…but if you think the description (a male and a female investigate paranormal phenomenal) sounds a lot like The X-Files, you’re not alone.  Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The X-Files was great, so more television like that would be OK in my book.  But for Fringe to be enjoyable it would need to re-create some of what made the X-Files so enjoyable, while at the same time being new and different enough that viewers won’t feel “been there, done that.”

So does Fringe succeed in that?

While I really wanted to like it, I must say that, so far (I’ve seen the first two episodes that have aired), it doesn’t.  The lead actors are all likeable, and there’s an interesting dynamic between them.  But so far they don’t have a lot of life — they’re more vehicles for the weird, paranormal stories than they are interesting, three-dimensional characters in their own right.  Which is fine — but I can’t help but think back to our first glimpses of Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in the pilot of The X-Files (it helps that I’ve recently re-watched the first season of the show, as I wrote about here a few weeks back).  They both seemed so REAL, such interesting and distinct characters — really unlike anyone else I’d seen on TV before.  (Now, of course, The X-Files was itself inspired by a lot of its predecessors — most notable Kolchak, the Night Stalker — but The X-Files succeeded in taking its inspirations, mixing them all up and coming up with something entirely new and wonderful.)  So far Fringe hasn’t done that, at least not for me.  And the paranormal cases themselves haven’t been compelling enough to carry the show in the absence of engaging characters.  The case in the pilot was interesting, I will admit — something mysterious gets released on a plane which basically turns all of the inhabitants into goo — but again, very derivative.  When the stuff infects FBI agent John Scott, we get to watch his body slowly become all translucent and goey, in an effect extremely reminiscent of that seen in the first X-Files movie, Fight the Future.  

I am also concerned by the reliance on deus ex machina in both of the first two episodes.  In each one, nutty Dr. Bishop invents some wacky sci-fi device to solve the case.  In the pilot he figures out a way to link Agent Dunham’s brain with that of the injured Agent Scott, so that she can see the face of his assailant.  And in episode two, Bishop invents a way to see the final images recorded in the retinas of one of the dead victims, so they can figure out where she was killed and find her attacker.  Now, I can suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a show that’s all about wacky paranormal events.  But if each week the writers are going to have the characters just invent other wacky paranormal techy things to solve the case, that’s going to get real boring real fast.  Its too easy — a narrative short-cut.  I’d prefer to watch our heroes actually THINK, and WORK to puzzle out the solution to the mysteries each week, rather than a silly hey-presto-here’s-the-answer rabbit out of a hat every time.  

Lest I sound too down on the show, I should mention that the production values are absolutely fantastic.  The show takes place in a lot of different locales, and each episode has featured all kinds of weird fantastic stuff, all of which has been marvelously realized by the makers of the show.  They are very successful at selling the “world” of the show, complete with all the bizarre, unexplained phenomena of “the pattern” that take place there.  

I also really love Lance Reddick (Cedric Daniels from The Wire!!!) and Kirk Acevedo (who I first remember seeing in Band of Brothers).  Its great to see them in supporting roles here, and I’d love to see more of them.

But I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep watching.  (Well, my wife loves the show, so maybe that will cause me to stick with it for a while.)  There is potential here, and I’d like nothing more than for this to become a true successor to The X-Files.  But The Fringe better pick up soon, because otherwise I’ve got Season Two of The X-Files sitting in the “to watch” pile on my DVD shelf…