New Sunday Night Entertainment (Fringe)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Fringe
Date:	14/10/08 (182 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Characters & Interesting Plot.

Disadvantages: Slightly Bizarre.

Sunday nights always tend to be quite rubbish when it comes to what's on the television. That was until last Sunday when I was eagerly awaiting the start of a new show at 9.00pm which would hopefully make Sunday nights just a little more interesting. The somewhat obscurely titled first series of Fringe started on Sky One on the 5th October 2008 at 9.00pm and is produced by Fox.

The Plot

The show follows a scientist, his son and an FBI agent in their investigations of what can only be described as science. The scientist is particularly interested in what is known as "Fringe Science" which refers to things such as telepathy, invisibility, reanimation, etc. As the series progresses we will see a series of experiments that are referred to as "the Pattern" which seem to be occurring for unknown reasons, all connected to this "Fringe Science." Each show seems to focus on a different event from what I can gather that are all in some way connected to fringe science in either a paranormal or a terrorist manner.

The first episode is all that I've seen so far but in that a plane disaster occurred whereby people's skin appeared to turn translucent and eventually all their skin and organs degenerate, all in the short interim of a flight. While trying to solve this, an FBI agent gets blown up and exposed to harmful chemicals which then results in the same thing happening to his body although at a slower rate. In order to save him several fringe science occurrences must take place including something referred to as synaptic transfer whereby two minds are synchronised so despite the injured agent being in a coma he is able to talk to another FBI agent through a drug induced state.

I don't want to give too much away in case you're planning to watch this series but future episodes will focus on paranormal events such as a woman who gives birth to a baby that then ages eighty years within a matter of minutes and a man who claims that the devil is talking to him and telling him of a horrible event that will take place on a bus shortly, which then obviously occurs. From what I can gather an event will always take place at the start of the show to set the scene, this will then be investigated by the relevant people and some sort of conclusion will be drawn. At the same time there are several underlying themes that will continue in each episode.

The Cast

Anna Torv is a relatively unheard of actress plays FBI Agent Olivia Dunham who is an intelligent and tough young lady. She works closely with Dr Bishop and his son Peter so solve many of these unexplained occurrences. Joshua Jackson who formerly starred in Dawson's Creek and films such as Bobby and Gossip plays Peter Bishop. He hasn't seen his institutionalised father for many years but seems to have inherited his intelligence, and also adds a little eye candy for us girls! John Noble who has also starred in Home and Away plays Dr Walter Bishop, an eccentric yet highly intelligent doctor who was previously institutionalised for seventeen years after a lab accident resulted in manslaughter charges.

These three characters seem to be at the forefront of the show for its first episode. In addition there seems to be several other characters that feature quite frequently including Kirk Acevedo who plays Charlie Francis, a close friend of Olivia's in the FBI who often helps her. Lance Reddick plays Phillip Broyles who runs the Fringe department of the FBI and is given the task of investigating several paranormal events. Blair Brown plays Nina Sharp who is the executive director of a company called Massive Dynamic which seems to be entailed with "the Pattern" the fringe science too. Lastly Mark Valley who is an FBI agent and Olivia's lover, he appears to die in the first episode but is taken to Massive Dynamic to be revived and questioned.

My Opinion

After having only watched the first episode and read a little about future episodes I'm not entirely sure about this show. I did enjoy the first show and watched it to the very end, however I felt no sense of urgency to find out what had happened and could probably have turned off and gone to bed quite easily. The first episode was quite lengthy at nearly two hours running time which may have had something to do with my slight exasperation by the end, however apparently this was only because it was the pilot episode and future episodes will not be so long.

The plot to me seemed a little unbelievable but obviously that's the angle the producers are going for as very often the unbelievable can be very entertaining. The scientific aspect was a little mind boggling to me at times but I'm sure to other people it would be absolutely thrilling. However it did seem to have all the elements that make a good plot; there was the obvious love story which was brought to the audience's attention right at the start, the slightly corrupted dodgy theme in the form of Massive Dynamic, the urgency theme in that the clock was ticking and last but not least the eye candy theme in the form of Joshua Jackson for us girls!

The pace of the show is quite fast in that a strange occurrence will be solved within the duration of that show; this maintains the pace moving quite quickly. It's not really a show that had me on the edge of my seat, in fact at several points I had to sit back to try to fathom some of the stuff that was going on, at times it does border on the ridiculous. As I've only seen one episode so far I can't really talk about character development or anything like that but it seems that we'll only see the majority of characters in a professional capacity yet as the same characters feature in every episode I would hope that we learn more about them and can develop an opinion of them.

If I had to liken this show to others then Lost springs to mind, as does Alias and also The X Files. It's got that some paranormal, unnatural feel to it as Lost and that same crime, slightly obscure feel to it as the latter two shows had. I wasn't a particular fan of Lost, especially after the first series when I stopped watching it but this show has been likened to it quite a lot. There are also elements of 24 here, but of course 24 doesn't have the paranormal theme to it so it's not identical by any means. In fact there isn't really a show the same as this, making it a little unique.

It did leave me curious about what was going to happen next week and the episodes aren't isolated like with some shows, there are continuous themes that run throughout each episode such as the rather bizarre relationship between Dr Bishop and his son, the sexual chemistry between Olivia and Peter Bishop and the continuing secrecy revolving around Massive Dynamic and what they actually do in there. That's not to say that you couldn't turn on halfway through the series and pick up the story line quite easily as I imagine you could, you'd just have to concentrate a little harder to pick up on all the sub plots that run throughout the series.

Out of all the reviews I've read there seems to be mixed responses:

"Ultimately, Fringe is spellbinding television."

"Fringe features one of the most ridiculous and unbelievable concepts ever to hit the small screen, which isn't the problem. The problem is that the show couldn't establish itself as serious or one big hilarious (not) joke."

So all in all the jury is still out on this show, I'm giving it three out of five stars - this may go up or down in the weeks to come but for now I'm sitting on the fence.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A new show on Sky One called Fringe.