Fringe Begins

J. J. Abrams is back with some of the best of his Alias production team - Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci - with Fringe, the X-Files-like science fiction drama on Fox.

Actually, lead character FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (well played by Anna Torv) does look a little reminiscent of Sydney Bristow, and dropped in on Baghdad in a scene that would have fit right in Alias. And there was Lost all over tonight, from the plane in distress in the teaser, to the brooding, complex music at the end of crucial scenes.

But Fringe does have a charm all its own, from cool floating titles to John Noble, the actor with facial expressions you can't forget. He's sometimes known as John Nogle, played Markov in 24, and in Fringe he's a perfect somewhat cracked beyond-brilliant scientist Dr. Walter Bishop, who has been locked away for years. He, his son Peter (played by Joshua Jackson - Peter reminds me of Jack Shephard), and Olivia are the team, and, hey Lance Reddick (of The Wire as well as Lost) is their superior.

And what are they investigating? Something to do with a multinational megalithic corporation, run by a former classmate of Dr. Bishop, apparently into plying some of the same things in his bizarre area of expertise. Tonight the menu included getting valuable memories from comatose and even dead brains - a old science fiction gem which I explored a little in my 2003 novel, The Pixel Eye - and strange skin-dissolving toxins.

More's promised in the future, and I'm looking forward.



See also Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... Fringe 4: The Eternal Bald Observer

Further reading:

The Night that Alias Reinvented Itself

Lost: Keys to What's Really Going On