Tuned In, TV Blog, Television Reviews, James Poniewozik, TIME

June 10, 2008 11:13

Test Pilot: Fringe

Posted by James Poniewozik | Comments (22) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Torv (center, wearing brain-melding gizmo) with Noble and Jackson. / Mark Ben Holzberg/FOX

Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall's shows. These aren't reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let's get on with...

The Show: Fringe (Fox). Fox held a screening of a rough cut at its Manhattan office and a pilot screener won't go out to critics until later in the summer. But I didn't sign an NDA or anything, so I consider myself free to do a (relatively nonspoilery) writeup.

The Premise: This being a show from J. J. Abrams (Lost), it starts with a mishap on a plane and ends up in a conspiracy. A flight from Germany lands itself on autopilot at Boston's Logan airport after a virus escapes in the cabin and kind of, um, melts everyone onboard. Special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is called in to investigate, and discovers that the disease is connected to shadowy military-private research in fringe (hence the title) science. To combat the weird science, she needs a weird scientist: Walter Bishop (John Noble), an institutionalized genius whom she can only get sprung through the help/coercion of his estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson), a difficult genius himself. Their investigation in the two-hour pilot involves a cow, a corporate conspiracy, and a mind-meld procedure akin to the old Looney Tunes episodes in which a mad scientist would wire someonee up to the brain of a chicken. By pilot's end, Dunham is only beginning to investigate a series of similar, bizarre disaster/experiments worldwide, known as The Pattern. But a pattern of what?

First Impressions: While promos for the show made it seem very bleak and serious in an X-Files-y way, I was relieved that the script had excellent dialogue and a sharp sense of humor (also, come to think of it, in an X-Files-y way). The caasting has been nailed from top to bottom, from newcomer Torv to Noble (who just about steals the pilot) to Lance Reddick as a government superior who bears an old grudge against Olivia. Some early reviewers have grumbled about Jackson, but I've liked him since Dawson's Creek and I think he's a perfect match for the roguish, sarcastic Peter. (The main problem with Peter is that he doesn't have quite enough to do in the pilot—once his father gets freed from the looney bin, Peter sort of becomes luggage.) I was gripped and entertained from beginning to end. My one reservation—and it's a big one—is with the ongoing storyline, or what little I can see of it. The Pattern, and the conspiracy behind it, seem awfully generic so far; there's nothing as fresh and surprising as, say, the polar bear in the pilot of Lost. But that's a problem for future episodes to resolve (or not).

Do I Want to Watch Another One? Definitely. I'll be surprised if I see a better pilot—judged simply as a self-contained pilot—for this fall. But I think it'll be a couple episodes before we know if this is actually a great series or not.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

Reader Comments (22)

John Baker:

Any word on how Lance Reddick's spot on fringe will affect his role on Lost? He was brought in amid much fanfare and setup at the beginning of Lost season 4, then appeared in what. three or four episodes? I thought we'd see more of him in season 5 as the action on Lost moves to the, er, "present."

Then again, with Fringe also being a Abrams show, I'm hoping schedules can be coordinated.

Posted by John Baker | June 10, 2008 11:45 AM

James Poniewozik:

@John B: No word, but I was making the same assumption. JJA would have no reason to screw himself over in casting.

Posted by James Poniewozik | June 10, 2008 11:57 AM

carlos_the_dwarf:

Personally i will watch anything with Lance Reddick in it, but i think his presence is bad news for Fringe. If the island isn't done with him it might suffer the same fate as Cain.

Posted by carlos_the_dwarf | June 10, 2008 12:04 PM

Tom Shaw:

Not to derail the thread, but last I heard all Abrams "did" on Lost was read their plot outlines and occasionally offer a constructive opinion or two; he's been far too busy with M:I3/Star Trek/Fringe to do anything real with the show since halfway through Season 1.

Re:Fringe. Like Alias/X-Files, the question is how well they balance X of the week stories with the overall backstory - and that balance (especially when combined with the twin threats of cast changes and viewer memories) is easily lost.

Still, even if this turns into an abject failure, it sounds like Fox is doing everything they can on their end.

Posted by Tom Shaw | June 10, 2008 12:18 PM

Wilson:

Lt. Daniels is on Lost? Nobody tells me anything.

Posted by Wilson | June 10, 2008 12:30 PM

James Poniewozik:

@Tom: I don't dispute that, but I would assume he still knows who's in the cast and wouldn't cast (or his co-EPs wouldn't cast) someone in Fringe in such a way that it would undermine Lost. I don't know that for a fact; it simply stands to reason.

You raise an interesting point re: X-Files. My concern with Fringe is that it becomes too focused on episodic freaky-stories-of-the-week, and becomes one of those hybrid procedural serials we saw so much last fall. (K-Ville, Life, etc.) I don't *think* it will, but it could.

Today, I don't think a show whose serialization was as limited as The X-Files' was (roughly two standalones to every mythology episode) would cut it. Which I guess is a sign of how much TV has changed over the decade.

Posted by James Poniewozik | June 10, 2008 12:32 PM

Curseword69:

"Today, I don't think a show whose serialization was as limited as The X-Files' was (roughly two standalones to every mythology episode) would cut it. Which I guess is a sign of how much TV has changed over the decade."

I found this comment fascinating and would love to hear further insight as to how you draw that conclusion.

My (tentative, unprofessional) view of the tv landscape is that a more episodic/procedural show with limited arcing has a better chance of finding an audience then a more strict serial. Which would help explain the success of things like House, CSI, all the ABC dramadies, and lots of different reality shows versus the abject failure of something like The Nine.

Is it your opinion that Fringe will be a better show (or more succussful or both) if it skews towards a more serialized thing?

Posted by Curseword69 | June 10, 2008 1:00 PM

Mike:

Don't want to speak for James, but I would agree that a show like X-Files or Fringe would not be as successful without serialization in the current climate because of the premise of the show which would make it harder to bring people back week after week without a strong continuous story. I think the success of House is based more on Hugh Laurie than anything else, so it might not be a good example and CSI really came into its own before the wave of serialization. And for every The Nine there is a Lost or 24 which is wildly successful. I think different genres lend themselves to more or less serialization and I'd say the sci-fi genre definitely lends towards more serialization...

Posted by Mike | June 10, 2008 2:03 PM

James Poniewozik:

@curseword69: It's my opinion that (1) Fringe will be a better show if serialized and (2) it would have a better chance of success that way.

The episodic/procedural shows that you cite (CSI, House, etc.) as well as your Law and Order type shows are successful because the go all in with the episodic approach. Yeah, there are some story arcs on House, and to a lesser extent on the CSIs, but they're designed in essence to run self-contained episodes that you can pick up and watch any time without having to have watched a single previous episode.

There are also successful serial shows (Lost, 24, Desperate Housewives, Heroes--and most successful cable dramas--etc.) that pretty much require regular watching, but which, through that regular viewing, develop an intensely loyal fan base that returns weekly, buys DVDs, downloads on iTunes when they miss an episode, etc. There are fewer of these hits--and when they fail, they fail big--but when they hit, they are tremendously profitable, for that reason.

Last season, however, a lot of genius TV execs thought that they'd have the perfect show if they developed series that were half procedural, half-serial--the result mainly being half-assed, neither-fish-nor-flesh shows that satisfied neither procedural fans nor serial fans. K-Ville had great potential, e.g., and ended up being both a boring procedural and a boring serial. One arguable exception was Pushing Daisies—but while successful enough, it was no great ratings hit, and I'm not sure how big its "procedural" audience (i.e., viewers who don't watch every episode) is. Ditto Eli Stone, whose ratings were just OK.

I think that kind of half-way serial show is a legacy of the '80s and '90s, when network viewers were just getting to accept the idea of serialization. (Think of Wiseguy, whose "arcs" were revolutionary at the time but would seem like pretty simple stuff by today's standards.) Viewers today tend to reward a show that fully commits one way or another.

Incidentally, I'm not sure if I'm reading your comment right, but I would say that most of the ABC dramedies--if you mean Brothers & Sisters, DSM, etc.--are pretty much serial. As are a lot of reality shows, by the way.

Whew.

Posted by James Poniewozik | June 10, 2008 2:29 PM

Tom Shaw:

Guys, James' point was that the majority of The X-Files episodes were completely disconnected monster of the week episodes that didn't touch the show's mythology in the least; if they were left off a DVD set you'd never even know (and, in fact, I've seen Fox-produced DVD sets of The X-Files that just contain the mythology episodes).

If even half the Lost episodes didn't deal with any long term mysteries at all, the audience would howl; see the general hatred of Expose for an example.

In an ironic subnote, I have to mention that my favorite episodes of The X-Files are some of those standalones, namely Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Go figure.

Re: hybrid procedurals. I think they are a good formula, for general dramas. But the sci-fi/action genre seems to demand strict serialization (Heroes, 24, Lost) nowadays.

Posted by Tom Shaw | June 10, 2008 2:45 PM

Tom Shaw:

Bah, ignore me (or blame my internet cache settings).

Posted by Tom Shaw | June 10, 2008 2:47 PM

James Poniewozik:

What Tom Shaw said. There's a genre-specific factor here too. Sci-fi anthologies have not exactly been setting the world on fire in recent years.

Anyway, let me add that for all I know, Fringe will be highly serialized. It's just that the pilot sets things up in such a way that it could go wither way. I know Abrams' preference is generally for the serial, and I hope Fox doesn't try to push it the other way.

Posted by James Poniewozik | June 10, 2008 2:49 PM

shara says:

@Tom Shaw: "In an ironic subnote, I have to mention that my favorite episodes of The X-Files are some of those standalones, namely Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Go figure."

Looking back, it is hard for me to be objective about the mythology episodes because of how all those interesting plotlines never went anywhere worthwhile. While the X-Files surely did help open doors for the serialized sci-fi drama, and is one of my most favoritest shows ever, it did an unforgivably piss-poor job of tying together the mythology in the end, and that does color how I look back on those parts of earlier seasons, so in hindsight I tend to prefer re-watching some of the excellent stand-alone episodes.

Before they totally screwed things up in the last season or so, the X-Files was a pretty awesome hybrid. Since stand-alone episodes and mythology episodes were all very sci-fi oriented, both kinds of episodes were well-integrated into the whole by the fundamental dynamic between our heroes - the woman of science working with the man of faith. That brought a cohesion and direction that more recent hybrids seem to lack, but it obviously also prevented the mythology episodes from having the necessary focus and tightness to really go somewhere significant. Ugh, its been a long day so I don't know if that makes any sense. . .

Posted by shara says | June 10, 2008 3:34 PM

Tom W:

I think at this point sci-fi series have to be serialized because the rules of its world have to be explained. Viewers want to buy into the world and the sort of sloppy inconsistencies that an episodic sci-fi/adventure series could get away with back in the '60s will lose them, e.g., if the alien can be killed by a silver bullet in episode 3 but the alien is bulletproof in episode 9.

Posted by Tom W | June 10, 2008 4:08 PM

Curseword69:

“Incidentally, I'm not sure if I'm reading your comment right, but I would say that most of the ABC dramedies--if you mean Brothers & Sisters, DSM, etc.--are pretty much serial. As are a lot of reality shows, by the way.”

I think they may be serials in the technical sense (at the risk of exposing personal information on the internets I will mention that as a native Briton “serial” to me still first conjures up “miniseries” more then it does “long ongoing interconnected story lines”) but at least with things like, Boston Legal, Pushing Daisies, or Grey’s Anatomy, you have a show that can be watched at any time in any particular order. Each episode still has its own encapsulated drama that aims to entertain, regardless of how if might effect the overall narrative structure or be related to past events. The same goes for reality tv. You certainly don’t have to watch the first episode of American Idol to appreciate the season finale. The majority of reality tv, what with their regular eliminations, are not so much related to serial dramas as they are to sporting leagues.

Personally, I use the rerun standard to determine the “serialness” of a show. Lost was criticized quite considerably in its first season when it tried to follow a more standard viewing structure with reruns during December and such. It is just not a show that can be enjoyed in disjointed viewing. True serials like 24 and Lost require a big block of uninterrupted time, they place demands on networks that procedurals don’t. For this reason, as well as ease of audience introduction, serials always struck my as the last show a network is going to want to try (this why all the good ones end up on cable).

My favorite tv show of the late 90s was unequivocally Buffy, a show that thrived mostly on an episodic nature and is still immensely watchable in reruns, even for the unconverted. It also had, however, plenty of mythology and developing arcs. I think, much like Kville, it that it was a hybrid. I would posit that the hybrids of the past failed to find an audience not because they were hybridized, but because of other reasons. (Life was poorly written, K-ville was still to recent an event to dramatized, whatever).

On pure speculation, I would say Fringe would be more successful with an Alias structure (mission of the week, with random arching of longer storyline) then a Lost structure (every episode directly related to an previous/upcoming episode). Of course, I could just be projecting.

We can agree I hope, that the market for serials is much more limited then for other forms of television. Networks are almost forced to take certain measures to not saturate the schedule. There is only so much dedicated watching a viewer can give, at some point, one show would lose out, even with DVRs.

On topic of genre pieces favoring serial, I think it can go both ways. Star Trek wasn’t a particularly serialized show for a long time, nor was Doctor Who at various points in time. In fact, even now I would say it favors more of an episodic approach then it does a serialized one.

Posted by Curseword69 | June 10, 2008 4:24 PM

Curseword69:

My favorite tv show of the late 90s was unequivocally Buffy, a show that thrived mostly on an episodic nature and is still immensely watchable in reruns, even for the unconverted. It also had plenty of mythology and developing arcs. I think, much like Kville, it that it was a hybrid. I would posit that the hybrids of the past failed to find an audience not because they were hybridized, but because of other reasons. (Life was poorly written, K-ville was still to recent an event to dramatized, whatever).

Posted by Curseword69 | June 10, 2008 4:25 PM

Curseword69:

Bollocks, sorry for the long winded double post, something happened, I know not what, use moderator powers and delete one!

Posted by Curseword69 | June 10, 2008 4:26 PM

Wilson:

Is Fox going to try to launch this during postseason baseball?

Posted by Wilson | June 10, 2008 5:30 PM

James Poniewozik:

@wilson: Debuts Sept. 9.

Posted by James Poniewozik | June 10, 2008 5:40 PM

Chris Kw.:

I am commenting little late on this post because of Sunday's storm in Michigan (a lot of down trees and power outages). But just to clarify something. J.J. Abrams created Lost along with Damon Lindelof. Carlton Cuse is NOT a creator. J.J. did a lot more than just review ideas. He wrote the pilot and detailed out the entire mythology of the show along with Damon. And that it what I think he did here. And I am sure one of the reasons they cast Lance was in order to control his schedule on both shows.

Don't forget that Fringe's show runner will be Jeff Pinkner, a writer on Lost up until now.

Posted by Chris Kw. | June 11, 2008 1:00 PM

goldstonesoft:

M4V Converter free download center- ALL M4V conversion tools which help you feel free to convert M4V to MP3, AVI, WMV, MPEG, FLV, 3GP, WMA. And useful Guide on How to Deal with M4V files.
m4v converter
convert m4v
Ultra Quicktime M4V converter currently is the best M4V converter which can convert Quicktime movie M4V to AVI, MPEG, MP4, MPG, WMV, ASF and Vob. As we know Quicktime movie usually has the video formats of M4V, MOV, QT, MP4, and M4V, With this M4V Converter, you can feel free to Convert them all with fast speed and high output quality.
m4v to avi
m4v to wmv
With the fast and powerful QuickTime video decoder inside, Ultra QuickTime M4V Converter supports almost all MOV, QT, MP4, M4V files, even QuickTime Player has not been installed. Integrated High-speed MPEG-2 encoder which let you convert M4V to DVD-Video files(VIDEO_TS, AUDIO_TS) and VCD/SVCD, so you can burn VCD/SVCD/DVD disc easily from QuickTime files by using third-party buring tools. It is a software program for converting video formats at fast speeds and high quality. Very user-friendly interface and Quality Profiles.
m4v to mpeg
m4v to mp4

Posted by goldstonesoft | July 17, 2008 2:49 AM

paramegsoft:

العاب طبخ
العاب باربي
العاب بنات جديدة
العاب
موقع العاب
العاب سيارات
العاب سبيستون
العاب براتز
العاب اولاد
العاب بنات فقط
العاب قص شعر
العاب مجانيه
العاب ستروبري شورت كيك

العاب رقص

العاب تلبيس زفاف
العاب سونك
العاب
العاب ماريو
العاب
العاب باربي
العاب مكياج و ميك اب
العاب طبخ
العاب تلبيس بنات
العاب ترتيب
العاب ديكور
العاب بنات
العاب اطفال
العاب كرتون
العاب سيارات
العاب اكشن
العاب ذكاء
العاب دراجات
العاب رياضية
العاب قتالية
العاب بازل و متاهات
العاب ورق
العاب تصويب ونشان
العاب حربية
العاب فلاش
العاب مغامرات
العاب تلوين
العاب عربية
العاب قص الشعر
العاب تلبيس فنانات و مشاهير celebrity

صور
فيديو

اسلام تيوب
افلام
افلام و مسلسلات كرتون وانمى
افلام وفيديو العاب
دروس و شروحات فيديو
عالم حواء المراة
فيديوهات رياضية
مقاطع فيديو
يوتيوب

اعلانات افلام
اعلانات طريفة
اعلانات ميلودى
اغانى المسلسلات و الافلام
افلام اجنبى
افلام عربي
افلام وثائقية و تاريخية
مسلسلات

اغانى واناشيد اطفال
اناشيد طيور الجنة
توم وجيرى القط و الفار
كرتون كوكب زمردة سبيستون
مسلسلات كرتون mbc3

ادعية
القران الكريم
اناشد مشاري العفاسي
اناشيد احمد بو خاطر
اناشيد و اغانى اسلامية
برامج دينية
قصص الانبياء

اغانى
حفلات
سياسة و اخبار

العاب بنات جدة
girls games
العاب g9g
العاب براتز
العاب اولاد
hguhf
عيش سفارى
العاب تلبيس باربي
العاب براتس
العاب بنات شمس

Posted by paramegsoft | September 6, 2008 10:19 PM

About Tuned In

James Poniewozik writes TIME magazine's Tuned In column, about pop culture and society. Tuned In, the blog version, is about the stuff we used to call "TV," whether it's in your living room, on your computer or--once the networks figure out the technology and line up the advertisers--in your dreams themselves.