New Shows: Fringe

Fringe

We are not sure how we feel about this. We really liked the premiere. The second and third episodes kind of left us cold. The fourth was quite good, and the fifth wasn’t bad at all. It’s so damned hyped that that makes us a little turned off, then we try to go back the other way, but it’s under discussion if we go too far. The premise is good: It’s basically The X-Files, except that the investigations have official support, and everything is based around super-science (“fringe” science) instead of aliens AND ghosts AND technological conspiracies. The thing is, the characters are not that interesting. The three leads are an FBI agent, a crazy scientist (and we do mean crazy, he spent the last 17 years in an asylum), and the scientist’s son. The scientist is a fantastic character. It’s the guy that played Denethor, the Steward of Gondor (who jumped off a cliff while on fire, just to make sure his death was the most awesome thing in his life, or so we must assume) from Return of the King, and sharp writing and an amazing performance make his insanity completely believable as well as very entertaining. However, one character cannot a show make, as the lead is really dull, and the snarky son is underutilized (in fact, he has no job on the show other than “keep your father in line,” which means they have to really work to keep him involved in the cases). The supporting cast is simply exposition machines, and while the episode-specific characters are pretty good, the fact that they show up the lead cast is problematic.

The show has a tendency to go too far. The third episode includes two crazy super-science problems, apparently unrelated, each of which could have supported an episode on their own. And it has the highest body count of any show we can think of. Your average cop or hospital show has one, maybe two deaths per episode. An action show might have two redshirts or guest stars and a half-dozen mooks bite it. Fringe opened with an entire 747 going down, killed a busload of people in the third episode, another six in the teaser to episode five… it’s really quite absurd.

It seems like we’ve simply been bashing Fringe. But if it had only bad things, we wouldn’t still be undecided on it. It explores interesting areas of fringe science, has an interesting arc plot running along underneath the episodic, it has some nice investigative and action sequences, and, as we said, the scientist is really damn fun (and has a lot of pathos, too). So we don’t know. Jury’s still out. You might want to give it a shot.

All scores are from 1-5
Hephaestos (Plot): 3
Zeus (Character): 4 (Walter) 1 (everyone else)
Apollo (Dialogue): 2
Athena (Intelligence): 3
Dionysos (Fun): 3
Hermes (Overall): 3

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