I have to admit, I do on occasion get sucked in by all the hype surrounding new TV shows. The latest example is the new paranormal thriller, Fringe. The show is co-created by J.J. Abrams, the man responsible for Lost. That should’ve made me realise what I was in for watching Fringe.
Are they serious? The first episode is a joke and the second isn’t much better. I’ll watch it a bit more but if it doesn’t get better soon then I’m out.
You’ve probably seen it so I won’t retell the whole story. It starts off ok, a plane full of passengers infected with a face melting disease. Cool effects. Visually good. It definitely got my attention.
Anyway, the FBI is on the case and their investigation isn’t going great. Bugger. Here’s where it goes loopy.
The only person who can help them is a crazy old scientist, Walter Bishop, who has been in a mental asylum for 17 years. Of course, he needs his son as his guardian and so we are reintroduced to Joshua Jackson (or Pacey from Dawson’s Creek) as Peter Bishop. Ok, what’s next? Harold Bishop and his tuba?
The crazy scientist and his son (and guardian) helping the FBI. Of course no one else could help, had to be this nutcase.
Now I have heard comparisons of Fringe and The X-Files. Come on, I don’t think we would ever see Mulder watching Spongebob or Scully milking a cow. That’s what we get with Walter Bishop. A scattered man who can’t remember people he has met three times and needs to be sung to sleep. We also get the Magic Old Man Baby and the sharing of thoughts (Vulcan mind meld comes to mind, J.J. has spent too much time on Star Trek [which he better not stuff up] between a person in a coma and FBI agent Olivia Dunham, the main character.
Fringe tries to be sort of light hearted or charming while still being serious but it doesn’t really work for me. It seems quite intentional, I mean, we have Peter asking the questions we are all thinking throughout the show. He tries to point out how ridiculous it all is.
Of course we also have the obligatory super powerful corporation, Massive Dynamic [great name, not!], and its enigmatic owner, William Bell. Not sure of the true nature of Massive Dynamic yet but evil would be an obvious choice. [too obvious, perhaps]
There is bit more which I won’t go into but I am watching on free-to-air so I have only seen the first two eps. What I will say though is that I am not glad that I skipped Criminal Minds (and Special Agent David Rossi, the best voice on tv) to watch this.
Oh, and I love this image I found.
Hi from Belgium. I see we have the same proble everywhere with TV shows.
enjoy your day
Isabeaus last blog post..C’était pas grand’chose
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sean Reply:
September 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Hi Isabeau,
thanks for visiting again. Has Fringe been shown in Belgium?
I don’t think I have seen any Belgian tv shows before.
Sean.
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As i was saying, haven`t seen Fringe yet, but I assume that, once i`ve seen Lost, it`s the same thing, isn`t it?
Confusion and confused.
I speak a not so perfect kind of english. Your brazilian is fine.
Is au for Aukland or australia?
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sean Reply:
September 29th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Hi Clara,
I don’t think that Fringe will be quite the same as Lost. But I got bored of Lost after season 2 so I don’t really know what happened except that it got weird.
Your English is very good. My Portuguese is http://translate.google.com/ lol
au is for Australia.
thankyou for visiting again.
Sean.
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This series had the opportunity to be the next generation mind warping X-Files. It had the opportunity to fill a hole in tv drivel and become something huge. Instead, the acting is poor, the scripts are TOTALLY predictable, and only the mystifying `bald man’ holds any fascination. The `Hollywood Machine’ got a hold of this, stuffed it with `tv cliches’ and wrecked it.
I was hoping it would turn to the bizarre. It didn’t. Go with `Lost’ (90 degrees to normal), or `Eureka” on Sci-Fi.
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I’m really having a hard time with this show. It has trouble keeping my attention for the full one hour it is on. With the X-Files there was also a mystery, a period of figuring it out, that kept you excited for each next episode. Sometimes when the episode Mulder and Scully didn’t even really understand what had happened. In Fringe, the old man knows every single answer no matter how weird it is. He just automatically knows it, no detective work, blah..
Also, I am so sick and tired of super evil mega corporations in Hollywood. The top 10 largest corps in the world consist of Walmart, and then mostly oil and car companies, and I really can’t see Walmart performing super secret experiments with weapons technology or biotechnology. Give me a break!
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I kept waiting for it to get better! I was still waiting when they took it off the air! If it was still on I may have still been waiting for it to get better. It had the potential to!
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Yea, I just saw this on DVD. It is beyond horrible. I watched the entire season 1 for comedic effect. You forgot to mention the horrible dialog and even the paranormal stories. Somehow all paranormal activity is the result of a couple of people. And not even creative paranormal activity but the stuff you read as a child. Teleportation, mind-reading, alternate dimensions, etc.
And of course the mad scientist is not only a doctor, scientist but he is also an expert in the unexplained.
There are some parts where I just cracked up laughing and I wasn’t supposed to. Remember the melting window glass to digital recorder scene? Seriously, wtf?
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This is the worst TV show I have ever seen. Written and acted by idiots for idiots. My IQ dropped 10 points in an hour. I accidentally tuned in to tonight’s episode on Fox and initially was intrigued by the girl mysteriously speaking Russian. Then, I was intrigued by this dude who was a detective but looked a lot like that kid who Emelio Estevez molested in Mighty Ducks. Then, I was intrigued by what I thought was a really bad spoof that turned out to be a drama. What’s with the crazy doctor with the cow in his basement – was he in Victor Victoria (the doctor, not the cow). The show was so bad I googled it and was astounded to learn that this was not a pilot episode! Morons and idiots have been watching this for more than a season.
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