FRINGE Benefits ...

Five Reasons FRINGE Just Might Be Sort-of Awesome:

1.) John Noble - this guy freaking rules. His delivery as mad scientist Walter Bishop is 100% spot-on, and he is BY FAR the best thing about the show. In Episode #3, he was better than ever, and had a number of great lines.

2.) Cool Pseudo-Science Stuff - I love the whole idea of fringe science, and I think the show does a pretty decent job of presenting interesting sci-fi concepts as applied science. Episode 3's premise of a walled-garden psychic network controlled by metallic implants in the brain? Sweet.

3.) Lance Reddick - another kickass actor - he's already established himself as a badass on LOST, and now he's also a standout on JJ Abram's other network project. Unfortunately, Reddick is often given somewhat lame lines and exposition, but he's one of those actors with the gift of making even kinda-lame dialogue sound cool.

4.) Sweet Cold Opens - while Fringe is not yet in the same league as The X-Files, it has done a nice job so far of opening each episode with a pretty gripping intro, setting the stage for the case of the week to follow. So far, this is the aspect of the show that compares most favorably to X-Files.

5.) Potential for Crazy Plot Twists - So far, the mytharc of Fringe has been revealed only in very small doses - we know there's something called The Pattern, we know that Massive Dynamics is up to no good, and we know that there's more than meets the eye with regards to the Bishop family history. So far, the show's overarching plot isn't all that intruging. But, it could be. There's all kinds of potential - could Walter Bishop secretly be running Massive Dynamics? Is Joshua Jackson some kind of crazy cyborg mandroid? Is Ana Torv some kind of chosen one? Hmm ...

Five Reasons Why I'm Still Iffy On FRINGE:

1.) Non-Walter Bishop Characters are Boring - I want to like Olivia, but give me some characterization I can chew on. Pacey from Dawson's Creek, meanwhile, needs some personality other than "guy who makes sarcastic quip after everything his father says."

2.) Needs More Globe-Trotting - Part of what gave the X-Files' monster-of-the-week episodes their allure was the fact that they would see Mulder and Scully traveling to some new exotic (or not so exotic) locale with each new case. So far, all of Fringe has taken place in Boston. Which is cool, as Boston rocks (!), but the show has yet to create much of an epic scope with its distinct lack of diversity in locales.

3.) WTF is The Pattern? - Right now, this concept of The Pattern is too gimmicky - the idea that all of these various paranormal events are related and triggered by some all-encompassing consipracy is a bit much, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to boot. And the way that people speak about The Pattern is often unintentionally funny - like it's this Big Idea that everyone kind of takes for granted. Olivia in particular needs to have a few Scully-esque freakouts where she questions the sanity of everyone who keeps talking about this magical Pattern.

4.) Already Too Formulaic - I'm sincerely hoping that Fringe doesn't begin to suffer from Smallville syndrome, where the same cliches are used in every episode. It got old fast on Smallville when every episode had the obligatory scene of Clark Kent waltzing into Lex's office no matter how improbable it was given the context of the story. Already, every ep of Fringe has seen Olivia ominously conversing with the cagey CEO of Massive Dynamics, who are improbably directly involved in every case Olivia has thus far investigated in her new role. Now, this week's ep actually addressed this, but in a very roundabout, inconclusive, "isn't that funny?" kind of way. Whether there's some grand mysterious reason for it or not, it will get old quickly if every episode falls into the same patterns (so to speak), without at least a strong sense of self-awareness of this on the part of the characters.

5.) Lack of Great Theme Song / Music - First off, I do wish Fringe had a slightly better opening that didn't just feel like a blander version of The X-Files. I also wish its musical scoring didn't feel like leftover musical scraps from LOST. Better and more distinctive music please - it's very necessary in this type of show.


What do *you* think?


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