Fringe - Season 1 Holiday Break Assessment

It's not surprising that the new J.J. Abrams series Fringe is doing as well as it is. With hits like Alias (first two seasons anyways) and LOST under his belt, this new age horror/sci-fi/mystery hybrid with the dynamic sensibilities of the X-Files of yesteryear has become the mainstay in my Fall season primetime TV watching routine; and not a moment too soon with the slipping integrity of former prodigal series Heroes.

While the similarities to X-Files are present (and sometimes just plain rampant) within each episode, Fringe manages to serve as more of an homage than a rip-off or clone. Replacing the aliens and unexplainable monsters is the seemingly untapped realm of "fringe science" (keep a record, how many times will I say Fringe in this whole thing? Four so far) or more appropriately "theoretical science," yet unproven phenomena such as ESP, cloning, teleportation, etc. There's the FBI, the interdepartmental division involved with the "out there" cases, and a company called Massive Dynamic which may or may not be involved in (wait for it...) a series of bizarre occurances being refered to as "the Pattern." In comparison to the inner workings of the island on LOST this sounds pretty simplistic, but with each new episode the mysteries seem to connect in the least likely of places creating a dark, mysterious and ominous atmosphere that's been missing from serialized drama over the last six or seven years.

Olivia Dunham, FBI (Aussie blonde newcomer Anna Torv) is called in on a case where a terrorist attack has just taken place on an incoming flight to Boston (no, not Oceanic flight 815, Glatterflug flight 627 to be exact but just for fun, Glatterflug is German for "Smooth Flight.") As it appears, all the passengers, including the terrorist, have seemingly melted. The big boss Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick, aka LOST's mystery man, Matthew Abadon) warns that this is part of something bigger and of course she doesn't believe him (but we all know that it's true.) However, in the midst of the case, Agent Dunham's boytoy/work partner, Agent John Scott is pretty much blown up and infected with the contagion from the Hamburg flight. This leads Dunham to her series cohorts Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble, Return of the King's evil madman Denethor) and his wanderlusting, arms dealing, swindler of an estranged son, Peter (Joshua Jackson, in a significant departure from Dawson's Creek's resident whatever-guy, Pacey.) Walter, having experienced a psychotic break in an undisclosed, work related accident alongside Massive Dynamic's founder Dr. William Bell, has spent the past 17 years in a mental institution. Dunham tracks down Peter and with his reluctant help, Walter is released to find a cure for Agent Scott's condition as he may have been familiar with the contagion. And this is just the first 20 minutes of a two hour pilot episode.

This week's episode, entitled "Safe" marks the last episode before the holiday break (not returning until late January, as most shows do in the winter months) leaving us with a pretty hefty cliffhanger. While some smaller questions were answered, like most of Abram's series, these just led to even larger, more prominent questions. Questions I don't think I can wait to be answered (but wait, I will.) I am also predicting some substantially cliffhanging season finales in the coming years.

Thanks to the nice timeslot, following House M.D, enough viewership warranted a full season order from cancellation mongers FOX and it continues to receive positive reviews from those who choose to write-up every week (ahem, Jeff Jensen... where's my Fringe TV Watch on EW already?) While it's proven to be a much more new-viewer friendly series for the most part, keeping the mythology heavy episodes fewer and farther between, I wouldn't be surprised if
the over-arcing storyline takes the lead should the show manage to stay on the air for more than two or three seasons.

Until its return I will likely be rewatching all 10 episodes, not to catch up per se, simply because the show is so damned fun to experience. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor.