Fringe?

Season 2 didn’t move that fast, but my guess is they never actually expected to get 3 seasons of renewal and had to make something up to cover giving us four episodes of back story in 23 episodes. It was the flashback episode in Season 2, where they go back to the 80s, changing the opening marquee and theme music to fit the retroage, that convinced me to stick it out through Season 3. It was geek-appropriate. Cheezy without breaking with the show’s merely moderate level of cheese.

But then, I am – god help me – living in a 4x6m university dorm watching old episodes of The Tomorrow People while surfing the net. My tastes may not be a good judge.

I think Fringe benefits from nearly all of its fans viewing it though the template of the X-files- there’s a certain expectation of any major plot developments being followed by an abrupt return to the status quo so they can start doing standalone episodes again. Fringe toyed with that until about 3/4 of the way through season two and then just rejected it about as hard as I’ve ever seen. “We’ll do half the episodes of the front half of season three in another universe” can’t have been an easy pitch.

In fact, in the early goings of season 2, you can even see what looks like the debris from a near miss retooling of the show- ex-military terrorist conspiracies and one-off monsters, plus a a character who’s just “Olivia, but also religious?” There’s a much more conventional route the show could have taken.

“We’ll do half the episodes of the front half of season three in another universe” can’t have been an easy pitch.”

Which sums up so much about what’s wrong with TV these days. Given the choice beetween yet more mystery of the week and handwavy solution, or a compelling narrative with doppelgangers and a clash of universes, why on earth should the former be easier to pitch?

I had never heard of Fringe. I just read through the plot description for all episodes seasons 1-3 on wikipedia. That’s quite enough.

Fringe lost me at the pilot because I found the ground rules for its fictitious world too unbelievable at inception. If you’re dealing with fringe science but seemingly setting a story in the present day United States with an FBI agent as a main character, some scepticism (from someone) would have helped to momentarily anchor things. Instead, a plane of disintegrating corpses doesn’t produce any Fox News hysteria about necrotizing fasciitis (or even grieving relatives), a law enforcment official pops into an immersion tank to mind-read the memories of a comatose man, and a multinational’s director wields cutting-edge technology about to nobody’s amazement.

Fringe also made me feel old. I wondered what it was doing re-treading X-Files territory so soon after the latter and then realised that it wasn’t that soon at all. Which is probably how fans of Kolchak felt when The X-Files romped across their TV screens. The only thing I liked in the pilot was a character’s observation about Spongebob Squarepants, and the only other thing that caught my interest was learning later that Darin Morgan was on board (albeit not as a writer).

Just that it is good enough to occupy the same general territory in a rather independent way

True. The fact that Fringe occupies that space badly, though, makes me wonder whether the demand for such a thing has passed.

I think somewhere in season two there is a scene in a senate hearing and one of the senators makes a passing reference to Fringe Division being the new name for the X-Files. I thought it was a nice nod but I have to agree that X-Files was better, at least until the mythology got completely out of control. Even after that there were some excellent stand alone episodes. Though I still don’t understand why Mulder didn’t ask his genie for tangible proof…

I’m a fan of Fringe, but I’m not sure where they’re going… you’ll understand when you see the finale.

Of course it’s a show that requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, but it strains me at times (I found the successful Olivia/Fauxlivia switch hard to believe, and Peter’s subsequent cluelessness was a major problem for me, given how they’ve presented his character). I’m hooked on the overall plot arc, and generally don’t care much about Monster-of-the-week. I love the alternative universe stuff. I generally like the characters (Peter, meh).

I just really hope they actually have a coherent plot they’re playing out. I watched the first season (or two?) of Lost and quickly decided they were winging it and that Lost would be to TV what The Wheel of Time was to books. So I quit on Lost. I don’t regret it. I’ve stuck with Fringe, for now.

This is formulaic rubbish, custom blended to attract those who wallow in their own bad taste. Here are the ingredients:

– Cute actress

– Guns

– Powerful government agency

– Mysterious events

– Superstition

– Incoherent story line

How many shows can you make with these ingredients?

“Form 0000” Female IRS agent works with defrocked priest to uncover cause of mysterious changes in past tax returns.

“Beyond The Border” Female INS agent works with Hopi medicine man to discover how illegal immigrants are arriving from another dimension.

“Fatal Strain” Female NIH agent works with heroic porn star to track spread of deadly STD from outer space.

You get the idea.

it’s entertaining formulaic rubbish

It’s not entertaining if you can see the wires moving the props and the wheels turning behind the plot machinery. Most of the contributors to this blog could write one of the “Fringe” scripts in an hour. Reading people praising this junk is like watching people consume jelly donuts.

I’m sceptical that this really is a modern phenomenon. As far as I can tell, right from the beginning of episodic TV executives have pushed to minimise overarching plotlines and play up standalone episodes so that casual audiences can dip in at any time without worrying that they have missed anything important. Although there have always been exceptions, as far as I can tell this is becoming less of a problem more recently: See for example Lost, 24, BSG etc.

I gave up on that show back in 2009 but I broke my leg a few months ago so I had nowhere to go and had nothing to do..One day I came across it online read the reviews and downloaded all three seasons. Started very poorly but it progressed into an great show. That John Noble guy is an amazing actor,hes the heart of the show and Anna Torv seems more comfortable with her role now and her acting improved,and Josh J. is just awesome. Love the mythology,characters,the plot etc. It’s not perfect but a very good show,I’m definitely tuning in Friday nights this fall can’t wait.