Fall TV Preview - Fringe

Got my grubby little hands on the premiere episode of “Fringe” which will be airing on FOX in the fall, and that means another fall TV spoiler-fest…so consider yourself warned.

“Fringe” is being talked about as the spiritual successor to “X-Files”, and for good reason, since it blends FBI action with real science and then adds it’s own twist on what is and isn’t real in the realm of science. Making all manner of pseudo-scientific strangeness up for grabs (think telepathy, teleportation, advanced robotics, anything on the “fringe” of science…), and surrounds the investigations of an FBI agent named Olivia Dunham, along with an eccentric scientist named Dr. Walter Bishop and his son Peter.

As a major science geek I tend to flock to shows that delve into scientific details with some amount of accuracy (Like “ReGenesis” for example), and get pissed when those shows start pushing mumbo-jumbo (like “Numb3rs” has been lately), but the mix is fairly easy to deal with in “Fringe” due mainly to it’s realistic approach to characters’ reactions to the stranger events or supposed science in the show, especially Peter, who is very skeptical of the less mainstream scientific research his father is into…..not quite Scully from the X-Files(for one thing he’s not a sexy redhead…) but a good balance for the personality of his father.

The pilot episode starts with everyone in a passenger plane dying mid-flight for unknown reasons, their bodies decomposed to near skeletons before the plane had a chance to land. The FBI is brought in, and Olivia and her partner (and boyfriend) John start investigating, and it leads them to a rented storage cubical full of medical equipment, computers, and caged animals…where John is exposed to a chemical explosion while chasing a suspect and starts to exhibit a slow version of whatever happened to the plane’s passengers.

Olivia tracks down an old scientific researcher that may be able to help, but he’s institutionalized and only immediate family can see him. Wanting to keep the investigation as quite as possible and not involving court orders or any other legal red tape, Olivia seeks out the researcher’s son and convinces him to bring her to his father.

His father, Dr. Walter Bishop is…to put it lightly…a few slices short of a loaf, and is quite abrasive, personality wise. He is convinced to help with the case so long as he can get his old lab again, and had a few strange requests, including a cow.

Through this Olivia is trying to find the guy from the storage unit that got away, and ends up relying on Dr. Bishop to sync her mind with John’s, who is in a coma, and degenerating fast, so she can talk to him through his subconscious and get a description of the suspect. It’s all very strange, but it’s done well within the context of the show.

She eventually gets the info and it leads her to a mega corporation called ‘Massive Dynamics’, dealing with advanced technology (much of which they have not gone public with), and though she doesn’t get much information out of the woman she talked to there, she did learn of something called “the pattern” which sounds like it will become an important element of the show in later episodes, as well as the home address of the suspect she’s looking for. ‘Massive Dynamics’ is sure to play a role in the bigger picture of the story.

Dr. Bishop works out a cure with the new information gained from a raid on the suspects house and his interrogation, and John quickly starts to heal. Long story short, in the end Olivia joins a division of the FBI and deals with strange unexplained events (serious X-Files vibe…), and there is some serious foreshadowing for future strange events, along with a fun twist I won’t give ya.

I won’t ruin every detail for you, but the story is actually fairly well written, and the acting is quite good. The pilot leaves more questions open then resolved, and hints at a larger story arch that could prove very interesting. One issue I did have with the show though; whenever the scene changed to a new location, they name the location for the audience in the form of giant 3D text made to look like it’s floating within the world of the show, and it was actually pretty damn annoying/distracting at times. For example, the image below with the large ‘Q’ floating in the sky that was left behind from a bird’s eye view shot moments earlier, when the words “BAGDAD, IRAQ” were displayed in full. Maybe it’s just me, but a giant floating letter amidst helicopters takes me out of the moment a bit too much.

I’ll definitely be checking this out when it starts to air for real in the fall. It’s got serious potiential to be my pick for best new show in the fall…though it’s hard to say with only a pilot to go by. I highly recommend this one for any fan of X-Files or Sci-fi in general…looks like it could be a good one folks!

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