The excitement that filled the room when I opened a little envelope and inside was the entire pilot episode for Fox's "Fringe", which was written and produced by the legendary J.J. Abrams ("Lost", Cloverfield, "Alias"). The show's trailer just appeared online yesterday and set off my internal hype meter, which was now off the charts. A few of my buddies gathered to watch it and inside you'll find the first ever review of the show, which debuts this fall on Fox. I'm sorry to report... not so good.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW:
The “Lost” jokes fill the room as a plane flies through a lightning storm. One passenger looks a little “off” as he’s sweating and freaking out. He pulls out his insulin pen and injects himself… then the madness ensues. The passenger begins to melt, and I mean melt… he moves up towards the cockpit where a pilot switches on autopilot. Almost instantaneously EVERYONE on the plane begins to melt - it’s some of the most gruesome special effects to ever to hit the TV. No one is getting off this plane, and thus begins the first mystery of “FRINGE”.
“FRINGE”, which debuts this fall on Fox, re-teams the “ALIAS” writing trio J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci. The show, which is also produced by J.J. Abrams (“LOST”, CLOVERFIELD), is a new take of an area of science referred to as “fringe” - or Pseudoscience, which is defined as a body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific or made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status.
The show begins with a bang, a real big bang. The room was cheering and chatter began that this could be the new “LOST”. Only five minutes in, and with a good 75-minutes to go, the evening looked to be one of promise and one filled with excitement that there could be a new show to obsess over. But as the lead investigator Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is being submerged in order to psychically connect with a loved one in a coma, the jokes began to fly that this new series was “on the fringe of being terrible.”
The show features a wide range of fantastic casting including “OZ” favorites Lance Reddick and Kirk Acevedo, along with an incredible Danny Huston impersonation by John Noble, only to be crippled by the lackluster performances of Mark Valley and Joshua Jackson (really?).
“FRINGE” features one of the most ridiculous and unbelievable concepts ever to hit the small screen, which isn’t the problem. The problem is that the show couldn’t establish itself as serious or one big hilarious (not) joke. During a intense moment John Noble, Joshua Jackson and another star join a cow (literally) in watching “SPONGE BOB” on the TV. Is this the writers’ way of saying that the viewer shouldn’t take this seriously? That’s the center of the problem and what needs to be fixed immediately if this show is going to work. The viewer needs to take this “fringe science” and Pseudoscience seriously if they’re going to continue watching the show. In “LOST” the viewer is asked to believe that the situation is not only possible, but true to this world, in “FRINGE” it’s too hammy and played over-the-top for anyone to believe. “X-FILES” worked and that show had werewolves, sludge monsters and regular alien invasions – so why can’t this? The recommendation of this reviewer is to eliminate all silliness and pull back from some of the ridiculous scenarios. When you see how the season premiere concludes you’re going to immediately want to file this one away under “no thanks”.
Continuing in its downward spiral, the show bottoms out at the conclusion as the mystery of the melting people is resolved and the set up for the series isn’t all that engaging. All sorts of questions are posed, but none of them seem to be anything worth caring about. The only question that was asked at the end of night was, “did we just watch “LOST” leftovers?”
I'm willing to give it a fair shot. Some of my favorite shows of all time started off weak in my opinion (Buffy, Star Trek TNG) but found their footing and ran towards greatness. We'll see how it develops.
You're telling us that JJ Abrams can't establish a solid story line with a rediculous scenario? NO WAY! Oh wait, I noticed this year ago, I'm not surprised.
I bet it'lll be good.... Clover was good, Lost is just amazing, and even MI:3 was good.
You want bad, and completly fake, watch INDY JONES now that is something you should talk about as beining over the top fakeness.
can't wait, JJ has created 2 of the greatest shows of all time lost and alias and created americas best monster movie (in terms of giant monster IE godzilla)
Cloverfield cannot hold water to Godzilla....no way. Godzilla is an icon. Cloverfield is gangly armed vagina faced abortion of a monster design with a boring ass plot, shitty camerea work, horrible CG, and annoying viral campaign. With this garbage he's slinging at us now after the world had X-Files, this is just going to be a fucking bore. How long before Lost is over...I can't wait for the day after that peice of shit is over and the whole world is crying because of the shitty ending.
Godzilla might be an icon, and while I can agree Clover had a weak plot and a ton of viral marketing, there is no way that CGI was bad man! They had Lucasfilm help out which did a hell of a better job on this than on Indy 4, which sucks since Lucas was apart of it.
Anyway, I found it's very hard to change people's opinions on shows and movies, so us Lost fans will wait until the end and won't be crying, but laughing at those who never gave the show a shot, especially when it turns out to be fantastic. Haven't been dissapointed so far with anything this guys done. I'm in, even if it is a cheesy X-Files ripoff.
Right on Oceanic!
At the end of the day, even JJ's FELICITY was by far the better show over the WB's overhyped DAWSON'S CREEK.
And though LOST bbegan with a spectacular first eppy, I'm not at all discouraged by the less than stellar review here for FRINGE's pilot. Hell, if I gave up on every show with a mediocre initial outing, I'd have never begun following THE X-FILES, THE OFFICE, EXTRAS, ENTOURAGE, MY NAME IS EARL & many other of my all time fav shows. Know what I mean?
Me? I think that America ( & the world ) is more than ready for another X-FILES-type show that a steady cast of characters investigating the bizarre, the offbeat & the supernatural. We've had a long enough break from Chris Carter's vision of the scenrio, now it's time to let Abrams & his peeps have a shot at it.
Once they get into their groove, I think they'll do wonders with it.
Lost sucks... all I gotta say. Any idiot can write a show about absolute non-sense that has no point or meaning or explanation -- we shall wait till the end and see if they all just suddenly... Wake Up and the whole island was a dream. LoL. Or they're all dead! yeeeahhhhhh... and MI:3 was fucking horrible shit too. imo.
I also watched it and found it to be cleverly cast, put together and in a nutshell a sci-fi show with bits and bobs taken from shows such as x-files and ReGenesis, even has a cameo appearance from Peter Outerbridge. Anna Torv is great as the lead as she was in the recent UK show Mistresses, great screen presence. Don't be put off by the original review, take it as it is meant to be, a pseudosci-fi show and not a documentary with hidden depths, comedic or otherwise
I'm looking forward to it. I kinda like the wierd shows that you don't know how to take... serious mixed with the inane, in no readily obvious ratio. The TV spots do look intriguing, at least. I think the world's ready for another relatively serious paranormal investigative show.
I thought this was a terrific first episode. Not perfect, but it was a cool story, set up a cool universe and conspiracy and even made me not hate Pacey. I definitely look forward to the series.
this series has potential. there have been many good series recently that don't draw huge audiences. i think that this show might do better leaving fox. look what fox did to arrested development. this show took time to grow and fox couldn't commit to the long haul. tv is finally getting good. i also recommend Madmen, Pushing Daisies, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad and Generation Kill.
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The “Lost” jokes fill the room as a plane flies through a lightning storm. One passenger looks a little “off” as he’s sweating and freaking out. He pulls out his insulin pen and injects himself… then the madness ensues. The passenger begins to melt, and I mean melt… he moves up towards the cockpit where a pilot switches on autopilot. Almost instantaneously EVERYONE on the plane begins to melt - it’s some of the most gruesome special effects to ever to hit the TV. No one is getting off this plane, and thus begins the first mystery of “FRINGE”. 
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