Bottom Of The Barrel

Fringe - The Leak

Fringe, the new show from J.J. Abrams [Lost, Cloverfield, Star Trek] was "leaked" onto the net last week. Now knowing that Abrams doesn't do anything by accident, I am guessing this was done on purpose to help build the buzz regarding his new show, which will premiere on Fox on September 9th.


The show follows FBI Agent Agent Olivia Dunham [Anna Torv] who is now part of a super top secret government group investigating the unexplainable. Dunham will work closely with Dr. Walter Bishop [John Noble] to deal with all of the "Fringe Science" as it is called in the pilot. Dr. Bishop can only stay out of jail if his ultra-genius son Peter Bishop [Joshua Jackson] remains as his guardian. Rounding out the group of FBI types are Special Agent Phillip Broyles [Lance Reddick] who is in charge of the super group and Agent Charlie Francis [Kirk Acevedo] who appears to be one of Agent Dunham's superiors [for now].

Like other Abrams' shows, Fringe will have an overall mythology which looks to be centered on Dr. Bishop's work in the early 70's and his former partner William Bell, who is now CEO of a global company called Massive Dynamics - $50 billion-dollar organisation responsible for research, development and production in a variety of different areas include but are not limited to weapons testing, robotics, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. In the pilot they call the mythology The Pattern. In one scene Broyles explains to Dunham the kinds of incidents include missing children return 10 years later without aging, plane omits sound and an hour later an earthquake erupts in that location, or coma patient wakes up to write down the exact locations of battle cruiser around the globe. This is what the show is calling The Pattern. A worldwide experiment. The question is who is running the Pattern and why. I'm guessing Massive Dynamics will play a major part in all of it.

The pilot was estimated at a cost of $10 million to make and some of the effects are pretty good and I really liked the mind meld sequence, which included a hint of Lost-like whispers. I also like the 3D location names layered on the scenes and the fact that hey sprinkle in a few scientific sounding terms like Pearl Autopilot System and Kelvin Genetics. A big plus for the pilot being based in Boston featuring Logan, Harvard, Southie and a reference to the Boston Marathon.

Given that this show will have lead-in's like House [in the fall] and American Idol [in the spring], I don't think ratings will be a problem. So if you are a fan of The X-Files, Lost, or Twin Peaks you might just like this show. Now if Agent Dunham and Dr. Bishop can just explain with the Smoke Monster is on the island we might get somewhere.

Labels: Internet, TV

posted by TheWino @ 7:18 AM