TV Tonight: Fringe

FOX

I apologize for not having a fuller review of Fringe ready for you, but I'm working on other deadlines and—with the pilot having been leaked, screened and analyzed for so long now—it seems as if the show has already been on the air for months. On the other hand, Fox hasn't sent out any subsequent episodes. Clocking in at an hour and a half and loaded with special effects, Fringe's first episode seems especially susceptible to pilotitis: the phenomenon of a mind-blowing debut that the regular run of the series cannot possibly live up to. (See also Dark Angel.) So I'm hoping to follow up with the show, here and in the print magazine, after we've seen more episodes.

That said, I'll refer you to a couple of the writeups I've done on the show so far. And I'll advise you to watch the show. It's a good time. But don't get your hopes up too high.

Despite coming from J. J. Abrams, it's not Lost. It's maybe The X-Files, with a touch of Alias. The show is much more procedural than I'd like, and I'm concerned that it will focus on the story of the week to the detriment of its larger story arc—a "Pattern" of bizarre experiments using humanity as lab rats—which so far feels pretty generic.

What gives me hope for the show are the central characters and the chemistry between them. As anyone who hasn't repressed the memory of the post-Mulder and Scully X-Files knows, that makes the difference between an obsessively engaging mystery and a decent sci-fi anthology.

The genius move of Fringe so far is to turn its Mulder-Scully pairing into a trio: FBI investigator Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv); recently institutionalized scientific genius Walter Bishop (John Noble); and his black-sheep, also-kinda-genius son Peter (Joshua Jackson). The usual move would be to pair Olivia and Peter and watch the sexual tension ensue. But with Walter, their investigations become a kind of weird chaperoned date, and Noble gets across not only Walter's mad-scientist eccentricity but his fragility, after 17 years in lockup.

The supporting characters—including Lance Reddick as Dunham's hardass supervisor, who has a checkered history with her—need much more work. But in a fall TV season of diminished expectations, it's a good start.