6/27/13
Subject Review: Fringe, FOX, Seasons 1-2
Well, JJ Abram's love-letter to supernatural investigation shows have ended this year with FOX pulling the plug on Fringe with the final season coming to a close just a few weeks ago. I suppose it's strange to review a show now instead of earlier when the show's still running but I see this as an opportunity to talk about what will and won't be missed with the show. Those of you who aren't familiar with the primetime drama, Fringe is a JJ Abrams TV show that can be best described as a "Hollywood" approach to the X-Files. Early in its inception, JJ Abrams cited the decade long running drama show and The Twilight Zone as his inspirations. Hiring Roberto Orci and Robert Kurtzman as co-writers (whose writing quality range from the Transformers films to Star Trek 2009), a Fringe was promised as a different and more "exciting" take on the X-Files. The fact that audiences have grown lukewarm about the series after all this time probably shows that the writers under delivered on the initial hype and not much has changed from that. For now, I'll just talk about the first few seasons and post a part two when I can fully digest the last two seasons. Right off the bat, the premise is typical. Fringe follows an FBI agent named Olivia Dunham who gets recruited into a newly formed taskforce called the "Fringe Divisions" (i.e. The X-Files) after a failed assignment that got her partner and lover killed in the line of duty. Olivia learns that the Fringe division focuses on investigating "case work related to Fringe sciences" (i.e. paranormal activities). Without me saying anymore, many of you might have caught the similarities between Fringe and Warehouse 13. Indeed, Olivia Dunham is essentially a drama version of Myka Bering from Warehouse 13. Both are very capable and talented agents, and both are have the same "tragic" backstory that kicks off the show. Let me just say that the cavalier career agent women in TV is a little boring at this point. They are still used to good effect but by the time that both Fringe and Warehouse 13 appeared, it's a fairly standard trope for the female protagonist.
I WARN YOU! I HAVE A TRAGIC BACKSTORY!
As the pilot of the series continues, Olivia tracks down a Dr. Walter Bishop, a mad scientist who is responsible for many of the Fringe technology that is causing chaos throughout the world. Bishop is locked away in an insane asylum and Olivia forces his estranged son, Peter Bishop, to release his father. When the pilot ends, the three becomes the main cast.
The character of Peter Bishop is probably the series' most uninteresting character at the early stage of the show. A "bad boy with Daddy issues that has a soft heart", Peter's development throughout the first two seasons strikes me as the most formulaic. A cynical and sarcastic but resourceful civilian, Peter starts off as the audience's eyes as he's often one to comment about how weird everything is or slow to understand FBI protocol. This is fine at first, but as the first season develops he doesn't turn into anything more than a bad boy version of Mulder.
Ok Peter...
Ironically, Dr. Walter Bishop is one of the best characters I've seen in recent TV. The mad scientist character is nothing new to fiction, especially high concept fiction. However, what makes Dr. Walter Bishop spectacular to watch is his execution. The writers consistently put Walter in a position where he has to directly face the consequences of his experiments. He's consistently charged with cleaning up his own mess and that also includes trying to make amends to his son Peter. That's a rare angle to take on the mad scientist character and it was fascinating to see how the character dealt with the consequences of his former actions. It's very reminiscent of the 1 episode character of Joe Ridley from the X-Files, who voluntarily helped Mulder and Scully out of a hinted remorse of past mad experiments. So, essentially, Walter Bishop is just an extended and developed version of Dr. Ridley, but I don't judge this as a negative aspect since the development for Bishop is so sound.
Truly a Beautiful Mind...
So really that's what we have to deal with, two standard borderline uninteresting characters but one amazing character. The episodic plots of each case were interesting enough but there are times where the violence got a little over the top. In the X-Files, the writers weren't afraid to let the mystery be a little more non-violent and it helped grounded the series. Fringe tried to do that but also made every case as violent as possible and that stretched the credibility of the world at times. Furthermore, the serial story elements ranged from ok to annoying to sit through.
Early in the show, the writers likes to use a lot of cliffhangers; which I can forgive as it's a way to try to keep the audience's interest. But it gradually became fairly consistent and that got pretty annoying to sit through. The key to writing effective cliffhangers is to have external elements hanging while fully developing the characters. If the episode relies solely on plot then it tends to be a good idea to stay away from cliffhangers as the audience always needs some sense of closure or else you basically have an incomplete story. There were occasional episodes where character development wasn't a focus and the plot ended with a cliffhanger anyway. That really got silly to sit through as it starts to feel contrived.
Rating:
Some cool mysteries here and there if you don't mind the over the top violence. Characters can range from normal to boring but Dr. Walter Bishop really saves this show from being completely forgettable.
