Fringed Concept

It's the return you've been waiting for after the hiatus you never knew you wanted!

To bring me back to the fray, I'll be picking at Fringe this week.

For those of you just as amazed as I was that J.J. Abrams is occupying another slot of prime time television in his bid for network supremacy, this show seems a bit of a turnaround from Abrams's usual tact of LOST-style writing. It does keep with his style of mystery and thrills long left in place thanks to Alias, but along for the ride this time is one wacky dose of mad scientist.

The quick and the dirty is that FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (no relation to ventriloquist Jeff) has been dragged into a series of bizarre cases thanks to the events of a rather human gooifying plane disaster. Teamed with Mad Scientist, Walter Bishop, and his crazy-to-sane translator son, Peter Bishop, Olivia wanders into the "Fringe" of science (see what they did there?) to close these strange cases and help make more sense of the ominous "Pattern."

Hailed as the next X-Files of networks, Fringe definitely doesn't shaft on the mad science and WEIRD department. Airborne bio-weapons melt skin, clone babies run around eating brains, hapless victims of experimentation develop psychic connections- all good, wacky sci-fi fun. The writers obviously aren't hurting for new ways to treat the world as one big science fair project.

Also to its credit, the series has some solid moments in its mad scientist (Dr. Bishop excitedly proclaims at one point, "Let's makes some LSD!" ), and Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop is a treat to watch (one-part smart-aleck, one-part messed-up childhood all parts played with charm and mystery), but the formulaic feel of the show drags it down horribly.

With the exception of Joshua Jackson and John Noble as Dr. Bishop, none of the other actors seem to be bringing much emotion to the fore, so locked are they on the plot, script and other writing that reads like J.J. Abrams's how-to write a show playbook. One tough FBI female loses love interest in weird way, goes to weird for answers, has help from plucky sidekicks, gets deeper into weird, weird becomes conspiracy, so on and so forth. We've been here Abrams- you're going to have to do better than that.

The formula isn't even that offensive as Abrams has proved he can dole out a plot, but when all the actors don't shine, the best formula is gonna feel formulaic.

Then there's the floating location designation. Those are a mixed bag of entertainment as every time they appear, I'm overwhelmed to yell at the screen, "Will somebody get those letters out of here? We're making a sci-fi show!" Apparently, the crew and writers felt they had to one-up X-Files's typeset updates.

All my griping aside, I do take away a little literature joy from this series. With its 19th century style mad science and premise of facing the dark armed only with a lunatic who's come and gone from it, I'm reminded of the works of H.P. Lovecraft put to a new period. You may think me mad, but c'mon! Substitute "The Pattern" for "Cthulu/Dark Gods," substitute Harvard for Miskatonic U and throw in a theme where it's logic against madness and madness already has a head start and Fringe is positively smacking with Lovecraftian airs.

Such overtones mixed with those noted moments brought about by the Bishop family gives me hope for Fringe. Until the rest of the cast catches up though, I'm not going to clamor across Bat Boy to watch this, but I'll catch the re-runs with Bigfoot.