With a new like J.J. Abrams behind it, Fringe, Fox’s newest show, gets a head start when it comes to brand recognition and hype. The question with tonight’s debut is, can the man behind Lost and Alias achieve another success?
From the looks of the Pilot, it appears so. Fringe, set in Boston, plays like a mix of X-Files and Alias with a bunch of interesting characters to boot. Like Lost, things start off in spooky fashion with an overseas flight disaster. One passenger, injects himself with some sort of toxin starts throwing up on other passengers making them turn into what looks like translucent versions of Jeff Goldblum’s Fly. The end result is even creepier. Said flight arrives at its destination with all passengers on board dead.
What ensues is detective Olivia Dunham’s (Anna Torv) effort to track down the source responsible for this madness. It doesn’t help when John Scott (Mark Valley), her co-worker and lover, becomes afflicted with the same sickness. She determines that the only person that could tell her the whats and whys of the sickness is Dr. Walter Bishop, who is currently stuck in a mental institution. In order to get access to Bishop, she first goes to his son Peter, who joins the investigation. Dunham is only able to solve the mystery after Dr. Bishop has her enter the mind of Scott through a thingamabob he created. Very cool stuff and seriously freaky.
Fringe’s success stems from its ability to serve up a good mix of Sci-Fi spookiness and suspenseful mystery with a dash of action (that car chase at the end was pretty darn good for network television). And if dry humor is your thing, then you’ll get lots of it here.
So far, Fringe has my interest. I’m sure we’re in for more character development, which Abrams excelled at with Lost. The ensemble cast works quite well with Noble, Jackson and Lance Riddick (Special Agent Broyles) doing a great job with their roles. I also like Dunham, but I think they need to get a little bit more out of her as the lead if the series is to be wildly successful.
Fringe is on Tuesday nights at 8PM on Fox.
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