7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV
MikeM
Here at SCI FI Wire, we pride ourselves on having our fingers on the
bloody pulse of SF&F geekdom, especially the televised variety. That's
why we think we're in the perfect position--i.e., out on a limb--to
proclaim that Fox's upcoming SF drama Fringe will be this fall's
breakout success: The show that will knock Heroes out of the sky and
bury Lost like Nikki and Paulo on that irritatingly populated desert
island.
From J.J. Abrams and his Star Trek writing team of Alex Kurtzman and
Roberto Orci, Fringe centers on FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna
Torv), who finds herself drawn into an investigation of a mysterious
aircraft disaster in Boston. Olivia's desperate search for help to
save her gravely injured partner leads to brilliant scientist Dr.
Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has been institutionalized for the
last 17 years. And the only way to question him requires pulling his
estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson) in to help. The investigation
gets weirder and weirder as Torv discovers that things--and science--
are not what they seem.
Herewith seven reasons why Fringe will make you forget about Mulder
and Scully and yearn for a cow of your own.
1. Anna Torv. This blond newcomer from Oz (Australia, not the Emerald
City) radiates intelligence, spunk, anguish and drop-dead sexiness
better than any federal agent since Gillian Anderson. And she's got
one of those faces that morphs her into different people entirely,
depending on the scene and scenario. One moment, she's as sunny as
Without a Trace's Poppy Montgomery. Another, she's as somber as
Galadriel. There's more going on in those blue eyes than in Teri
Hatcher's entire body.
2. Creator J.J. Abrams. We know, we know. There's a mini-backlash
against the Lost-abandoning, Tom-Cruise-loving Trek revisionist. But
he's still our guy, and when he focuses his full creative powers on
something, there's no one else who can better mash up genres, cook up
truly scary scenarios or mix the mundane and the miraculous into such
a funny, frightening, intriguing stew.
3. Mad scientist. When was the last time a show featured an honest-to-
god raving evil genius? OK, Doctor Who doesn't count: Who can tell
when an English person is being crazy or just English? In Fringe, the
mad scientist is John Noble, another Aussie, who is best known to
fanboys as the ill-fated Denethor in The Lord of the Rings: Return of
the King. Here, he's Bishop, "the Einstein of his generation." (We
thought Einstein was the Einstein of his generation, but whatever.) So
how crazy is he? When we first meet him, he rambles about butterscotch
pudding and peeing himself. When he gets sprung, he orders a live cow
installed in his lab for reasons known mainly to himself. His deadpan
non sequiturs boost Fringe into a lunar orbit of its own.
4. Altered States. Really? you ask. Who even remembers Altered States,
the prototype of all hyper-verbal wacko science fiction to come? It's
fitting that Fringe inserts its homage to the Ken Russell/Paddy
Chayefsky classic in the middle of the pilot: Fringe is a worthy
successor to the 1980 movie. It's whip-smart. It's got beautiful
intellectuals arguing about insane science fiction with the gravitas
of Shakespeare. It's psychedelic in a way that only Ivy League
mushroom-eaters can be psychedelic. And it's not afraid to take the
ridiculous and make it plausibly frightening. Oh, and Fringe even
features Altered States star Blair Brown in its cast!
5. Pacey. Wonder what happened to Dawson's Creek's cougar-loving Joey
stealer? Joshua Jackson has matured into a handsomely grizzled adult
in sharp suits. In Fringe, he functions as the exasperated Greek
chorus to Noble's mad scientist and gets many of the best punchlines
as a result. We won't spoil the fun for you.
6. Supporting cast. Genre pieces like Fringe may live or die by their
leads, but they soar on the strength of their supporting players.
Abrams, always a canny discoverer of unknown talent, struck gold with
the casts of his previous SF series Alias and Lost and again assembles
a top-flight cast of relatively unknown character actors who bring
their own quirkiness and reality to the otherworldly story. In
addition to the sinister Brown, Fringe features Lost player Lance
Reddick, prime-time soap fixture Mark Valley and all-purpose street
cop Kirk Acevedo in its solid supporting cast.
7. Goo. The opening frames of Fringe may at first suggest Lost's
Oceanic Flight 815, but that's only until the slime begins to flow.
And it doesn't stop there: There's drool. There's cow poop. There's
even an edematous body, like Scully's jelly-like fireman from The X-
Files: Fight the Future. Abrams et al. don't soft-pedal the gross-
outs, and Fox lets 'em go there, and that's why we love Fox.
See for yourself: Fringe premieres Sept. 9 and will air Tuesdays at 9
p.m. ET/PT.
Ian J. Ball
> 7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV
>
> Here at SCI FI Wire, we pride ourselves on having our fingers on the
> bloody pulse of SF&F geekdom, especially the televised variety. That's
> why we think we're in the perfect position--i.e., out on a limb--to
> proclaim that Fox's upcoming SF drama Fringe will be this fall's
> breakout success: The show that will knock Heroes out of the sky and
> bury Lost like Nikki and Paulo on that irritatingly populated desert
> island.
I'll take this bet.
Obveeus
"MikeM" <Mike...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 5. Pacey. Wonder what happened to Dawson's Creek's cougar-loving Joey
> stealer? Joshua Jackson has matured into a handsomely grizzled adult
This guy is the #1 reason the show will fail.
Ian J. Ball
On the contrary - he's the only reason I'd be tempted to watch it.
It's all the other factors lists, and the promos, that are turning me
off.
Ian (Of the two, I'm much more interested in "Eleventh Hour" than
"Fringe".)
Obveeus
"Ian J. Ball" <ib...@san.rr.com> wrote:
>"Obveeus" <Obve...@aol.com> wrote:
>> "MikeM" <MikePa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 5. Pacey. Wonder what happened to Dawson's Creek's cougar-loving Joey
>> > stealer? Joshua Jackson has matured into a handsomely grizzled adult
>>
>> This guy is the #1 reason the show will fail.
>On the contrary - he's the only reason I'd be tempted to watch it.
You do understand that you just helped prove my point, don't you?
>Ian (Of the two, I'm much more interested in "Eleventh Hour" than
>"Fringe".)
I'll choose ER and Life on Mars over 11th Hour.
Fringe doesn't look good, but neither does anything else on the networks
during that hour.
Rob Jensen
wrote:
>7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV
>
>Here at SCI FI Wire, we pride ourselves on having our fingers on the
>bloody pulse of SF&F geekdom, especially the televised variety. That's
>why we think we're in the perfect position--i.e., out on a limb--to
>proclaim that Fox's upcoming SF drama Fringe will be this fall's
>breakout success: The show that will knock Heroes out of the sky and
>bury Lost like Nikki and Paulo on that irritatingly populated desert
>island.
Obviously, the people at SCI FI Wire didn't actually see the Fringe
pilot at Comic-Con (or even a screening room at the TCAs). The
X-Files-Meets-Numb3rs-meets-Lost is so derivative that, unless future
episodes *vastly* improve over the pilot (yes, I'm allowing for the
chance), it's going to be the biggest flop of the season.
* Strengths: Joshua Jackson & John Noble have great, quirky father-son
chemistry (Don and Charlie Epps of Numb3rs minus the law enforcement
aspect -- did I mention thatthe show is derivative?) and they both
bring *much* needed humor to the show. Torv is competent but not
outstanding as the show's Dana Scully (did I mention that the show is
derivative?)
* Weaknesses: did I mention that the show is derivative? Not one
surpring moment whatsoever. We get symbols at the end of every act
break and even if we didn't, it comes as absolutely no surprise that
at the end of the episode a symbol, one of *those* symbols, denotes a
lab within a supersecret military-medical industry lab complex ala the
Dharma Initiative and its stations. (Did I mention that the show is
derivative?)
That the show is highly derivative of three other shows, one of which
is a modern classic and the other of which is a modern classic that
Bad Robot actually produces, is so fundamentally a bad sign about the
show that it'll require fundamental restructuring of the overall
conspiracy arc and the formula of how the case-of-the-week is handled.
As opposed to the relatively minor pacing and other technical issues
regarding the visual aspects of Chuck, which, IMO, that show
eventually fixed (I may review each s1 episode as penance when the DVD
comes out in a few weeks), Fringe's macrostructural issues are so
fundamental, there's really no way I can see fixing them than turning
the show into an entirely different show.
My recommendation: Pacey fans should enjoy the show while it lasts,
which won't be long.
-- Rob
--
LORELAI: I am so done with plans. I am never, ever making one again.
It never works. I spend the day obsessing over why it didn't work
and what I could've done differently. I'm analyzing all my shortcomings
when all I really need to be doing is vowing to never, ever make a plan
ever again, which I'm doing now, having once again been the innocent
victim of my own stupid plans. God, I need some coffee.
Patient Zero 2.0.....Last WCW/ECW TV champion!
"MikeM" <Mike...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:15cd9b16-58c9-4fdb...@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
they forgot to list "It's a better X-files ripoff than Eleventh Hour??
Anim8rFSK
<6dd7b3be-b69a-40c9...@1g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
"Ian J. Ball" <ib...@san.rr.com> wrote:
It's bad enough to succeed.
--
Multiple root canals; hopped up on multiple pain drugs.
It's an explanation, not an excuse!
Rob Jensen
TV champion!" <noona...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>they forgot to list "It's a better X-files ripoff than Eleventh Hour??
Eleventh Hour is *that* bad?! Jinkies!
Rob Jensen
wrote:
>In article
><6dd7b3be-b69a-40c9...@1g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
> "Ian J. Ball" <ib...@san.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> On Aug 13, 12:24 pm, MikeM <MikePa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV
>> >
>> > Here at SCI FI Wire, we pride ourselves on having our fingers on the
>> > bloody pulse of SF&F geekdom, especially the televised variety. That's
>> > why we think we're in the perfect position--i.e., out on a limb--to
>> > proclaim that Fox's upcoming SF drama Fringe will be this fall's
>> > breakout success: The show that will knock Heroes out of the sky and
>> > bury Lost like Nikki and Paulo on that irritatingly populated desert
>> > island.
>>
>> I'll take this bet.
>
>It's bad enough to succeed.
It's not even Prison Break-level it's-good-BECAUSE-it's-so-bad bad.
It's just bad. The kind of bad where, in live theater, you go to a
show that a friend is in or working on and it's so bad that when said
friend asks you how it was, you say, "The costumes looked *great.*"
Which, is, of course, the universal sign for "It sucked and when we
get to the cast party, steer me away from the cast members who are
either full of themselves and/or suicidally depressed." Because,
like, neither group can handle the truth.
And that, of course, is why anyone on a show that sucks should hang
around the stage crew. They always know when and why the show sucks
and they're usually the ones playing poker and/or ingesting
mind-altering substances, too. I'm just speculating here, but I'm
pretty sure that the stage crew for Fringe are saying variations of
"It's not worth watching while you're stoned, either."