TV Review: Fringe
The new series, Fringe, by J J Abrams is thought provoking and dramatic. J J Abrams was writer, producer or director of TV Series Alias and Lost and also Movies Armageddon (with Bruce Willis), Cloverfield and the upcoming Star Trek movie. My girlfriend swears by anything he does (well, except maybe Cloverfield, she’s not into horror/apocalypic shows.)
The actors were mostly unknowns to me, although I’ve seen Joshua Jackson before somewhere (either Dawson’s Creek, which I only caught a couple of episodes of, or Ocean’s 11 which I’ve seen several times). John Noble I vaguely recalled seeing, and his bio says Lord of the Rings. Of course, Abrams has a tendancy to draw on the regulars from his earlier programs and Lance Reddick fits the stereotype (as is a semi-regular on Abrams’ Lost series.)
The plot was very much how it was described, a sort of X-Files meets Twilight Zone. The topics are very modern, they even go so far as to put the words “Dark Matter” and “Nanotechnology” in to the title sequence. While not yet part of mainstream science (ergo, they must be part of Fringe science) they are certainly fast approaching the realm of mainstream. Other topics are not as near mainstream, such as Pyschokinesis, Precognition, Artificial Intelligence (we have expert systems, not no true AI), Cybernetics, Suspended Animation and more.
The Pilot episode ran an odd 135 minutes with commercial interruptions, although those interruptions were kept very brief which is surprising when you consider that the Pilot episode ran a $10 million dollar price tag for it’s creation. But, after watching it, I’d say we got our money’s worth. Amazingly, Metacritic currently rates it a 67/100.
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We watched it a little a day or two later and enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s going on our routinely watch list. I hope the series keeps the quality up, instead of getting lost and muddling around.