On the 'Fringe' of Fun

New Abram's show will entertain fans...barely

If you are a fan of Lost, Alias or any of TV-legend J.J. Abram's other works, you probably saw the pilot of his new "tales of the paranormal" show, "Fringe" on the Fox network.  If you are not a fan of his other works, maybe you caught it by accident while waiting for the highly anticipated new Fox gameshow "Hole in the Wall".  ...Maybe not.  Either way, if you did catch Abrams' latest attempt to fill his Emmy cabinet, you were probably struck, as I was, by two very startling revelations: Scully is now a blonde, and Mulder hails from Dawson's Creek.

                                                             Ah...that's much better

Ok, so maybe I'm being a little unfair, but the first thought I had after the end of the 90 minute long pilot was "It's the X-files...wearing a J.J. Abrams mask."  The show's premise, or at least what its premise appears to be (you never know with J.J. Sneakypants), will revolve around an FBI agent (see) who in the most unlikely and expedient way possible gets offered a position working to uncover paranormal goings on (SEE) for a post-9/11 government agency after succesfully sleuthing a mysterious plague on downed passenger jet (SE..well, I'm sure there was an X-files episode close to that premise...).

The truth is out there, it just isn't very compelling.

The show's opener did have its high points, most notably the inclusion of a mad scientist restored to his former position of unearthing the unknown through "fringe" science, and played by none other than a certain former Steward of Gondor (John Noble).  The pilot was also wrought with classic Abrams-y moments, including several well constructed dialog-less FX-centric scenes, any excuse to get blonde-Scully (ok, ok, "Agent Farnsworth") out of her clothes, and a well placed twist or two along the way.  The visual style is also top notch, selling its near future sterile whites along with its basement lab grungy greens and browns.  It's hard to knock Abrams on his style, or even his story for that matter.  If only the execution of this particular story could have seen a few more rounds of sanity checks.  

From here down it gets "Spoilerific" so skip to the end if you don't want anything spoiled for you.

While I would argue the real problems are with its over used premise, a less biased argument would at least have to admit there were story execution problems in this first episode.  Shows like these require you to suspend disbelief in order to even approach their subject matter, and I'm OK with that, just make sure you are stretching they audience's logic box in the right places.  The whole episode felt like a series of uncompelling conveniencies.  Why didn't the plane crash? Oh it has one of only a few existing land-by-itself-thingies, gee that's lucky.   How did Mr. Whiteboy terrorist survive the plane plague?  Oh he's got a twin who is the real terrorist.  Mr. Crazy Scientist wants a cow and a bunch of other junk for his hasn't-been-used-in-three-decades-but-still-works lab in a Harvard basement.  No problem!  And on, and on it goes.

Also, there's that same stupid monitor showing the same stupid molecule screen with the same stupid radio chatter and the same stupid caged, bald ferrets in storage lockers number 1, 2, and the guy's attic/basement thing.  Did they just pick up those props, move them over, reassemble them exactly as they were in the previous scene and starting shooting?  Come on!

 I almost think I would have been happier if it were just the old X-files with actors from Lost.  Wait a tick...

Guess they've already been there and done that...

To be fair, I did like the floating titles interlaced as objects in each environment.

End of "Spoilerific" section.

So should you watch Fringe?  Being a huge fan of previous Abrams material, I really wanted to like this show, but unless episode two is surprisingly compelling, and with a title like "The Same Old Story" my hopes aren't high, I can't recommend going out of your way to catch it as it comes out.  TiVO it or watch it online if you are interested, but don't miss your kid's piano recital for this one.  I think the concept of a modern take on the X-files is actually an incredibly cool idea, and there's no one better suited to do it than Abrams, but sometimes even a diehard Lost fan has call it like he sees it.  But you know JJ, he's "always got a plan."