Sep 10, 2008, 09:05 AM by Gary Susman
Stuff I thought was cool in last night's pilot for J.J. Abrams' Fringe on Fox:
• Lance Reddick's spooky cranium. First thing in the ep I saw that made me cheer out loud.
• That translucent-skin ailment. Gross, but really cool.
• The cow walking through the halls of Harvard.
• The whole immersion tank scenario. I was thinking, "How very Altered States." And then, a few minutes later, who shows up but Altered States star Blair Brown. With a ROBOTIC ARM. Well played, sirs, well played.
Stuff I was less impressed with:
• Star Anna Torv, who strikes me so far as the poor person's Kelly Lynch.
• The opening midair disaster. C'mon, J.J., you've been there, done that.
• Those 3D title cards. They were novel the first time I saw them -- at the opening of Panic Room. Less so after 90 minutes of repeated use here.
• The "Pattern" conspiracy/mythology. So far, awfully thin gruel to fuel the entire plot of this series, though it's easy to see how it'll offer a plausible excuse for Torv & Co. to explore other weird X-Files-ish phenomena. I can also see how it'll be loose enough to allow for stand-alone episodes that could draw casual viewers who aren't wrapped up in the mythology.
Overall, I thought the pilot started out slow and routine, but it definitely picked up when Reddick showed up and Torv's Agt. Olivia Dunham recruited the Bishops (John Noble and Joshua Jackson, pictured). There's a lot of potential in the chemistry among the three leads -- naive but open-minded Olivia, giddy mad scientist Walter, and skeptical, street-smart Peter. The characters are going to need a lot more fleshing out; fortunately, Abrams is the king of backstory. Watch for a full, official review of Fringe from our TV critics in a forthcoming issue of EW. Meanwhile, I'll be tuning in next week. How about you?
• That translucent-skin ailment. Gross, but really cool.
• The cow walking through the halls of Harvard.
• The whole immersion tank scenario. I was thinking, "How very Altered States." And then, a few minutes later, who shows up but Altered States star Blair Brown. With a ROBOTIC ARM. Well played, sirs, well played.
Stuff I was less impressed with:
• Star Anna Torv, who strikes me so far as the poor person's Kelly Lynch.
• The opening midair disaster. C'mon, J.J., you've been there, done that.
• Those 3D title cards. They were novel the first time I saw them -- at the opening of Panic Room. Less so after 90 minutes of repeated use here.
• The "Pattern" conspiracy/mythology. So far, awfully thin gruel to fuel the entire plot of this series, though it's easy to see how it'll offer a plausible excuse for Torv & Co. to explore other weird X-Files-ish phenomena. I can also see how it'll be loose enough to allow for stand-alone episodes that could draw casual viewers who aren't wrapped up in the mythology.
Overall, I thought the pilot started out slow and routine, but it definitely picked up when Reddick showed up and Torv's Agt. Olivia Dunham recruited the Bishops (John Noble and Joshua Jackson, pictured). There's a lot of potential in the chemistry among the three leads -- naive but open-minded Olivia, giddy mad scientist Walter, and skeptical, street-smart Peter. The characters are going to need a lot more fleshing out; fortunately, Abrams is the king of backstory. Watch for a full, official review of Fringe from our TV critics in a forthcoming issue of EW. Meanwhile, I'll be tuning in next week. How about you?
7 comments:
I loved the show and have honestly heard enough of the "critics". If they weren't entertained by that type of TV, I don't know what they were expecting.
That pilot was better then most feature films I have seen over the years. The music score was fantastic, the FX top notch, acting supurb(Love Anna Torv - and anyone who says that is NOT a spot on American accent of the Aussie...nevermind. You are beyond convincing) and i won't ever get tired of the 3D animation for location. Would you prefer the typeset just like the X-Files? While not totally original, it is still novel and cool.
I don't get it? They want more reality or sit-coms? Sigh. Don't know why it bugs me so.
That is someone else's review Pa - what did you think of it?
I loved it. I didn't really like the airplane stuff since the creepy gory stuff was what turned me off on X-Files. But evrything else was awsome. I loved the whole Fringe science stuff and the secret corrperation and the secret government agency to fight them. I was confused as to what side the boyfriend was on and which side the virus guy was on, but I guess thats a mystery that will eventually be solved. I was ok with Anna Torv but I thought that the Father son dynamic was awsome. The mad scientist Father was an awsome character. And I love how the three of them worked together. I also loved Lance Riddick's moments. Great stuff!
Great to here Pa - glad i am not alone. Noble is fantastic as Dr Bishop (Let's make some LSD!).
It is a bit ambiguous who is on what side. The Massive Dynamic woman is said to be a "helpful" character as the story progresses. John is involved in the bad guy stuff, but is he "bad"? You are right - only time will tell. He alluded in his dying breath that Riddick's character is who Olivia should be wary of.
BTW, Virus guy who John smothered, Richard Stieg...
...Was Passenger 108 on the flight. Nice Lost reference right after the Tank scene.
I should say NOT the guy John smothered but his twin brother that died on the plane.
Great comments! :-)
I'll be re-tuning in this Sunday also, I missed the first few minutes so I didn't get to see the airplane and anything about how her buddy got infected.
Yes, very Altered States, etc! The LSD comments made me laugh too.
And don't forget that the invisible-man thing is like the bodies in the X-Files movie (#1, the good one), after the bodies became incubators for the aliens, they were transparent and gushy.
The cow in the lab was reminiscent of the series UFO "Dark Skies", when the main couple found the cow in the barn/lab with the human baby inside of it.
Oh, that's what those giant letters were? I've never seen that before, I guess I need to get out more. I thought that Boston just had a lot of hovering signs all around, sheesh. :-B
Yes, even when I saw the promo/preview this summer I wondered why JJ would do the airplane thing again. I caught the 108 too, neat.
I wasn't too blown away by the subject of the first ep either, but I'm looking forward to giving the show many more chances to live up to the hype. :-) Also have to remember to peruse the Massive Dynamics website, it's supposed to be like the Hanso Org site in 2006. Did you all try that yet?
We've seen a couple recent commercials with 3-D floating letters - the one with the rodeo cowboys and BMX biker bumping into and landing on them, and more recently one where a card smashes into a word and it shatters into glass fragments.
I like the locale logos - expecially the "looking up throough one" scene. But those two ads have me expecting someone to bump into one some time. Oh well, wait for the Mad parody.
I couldn't believe the level of graphic gross-out-ness, combining elements of Exorcist, Poltergiest and The Fly, in the first seven minutes of a show that aired in the eight o'clock slot. But then it is Fox and it wasn't that much more than what we get on House and Bones every week. Well, a little more.
Yeah, I liked it. A full length commentary is posted over at Jump the Shark - if you have a Yahoo! account, sign up and read it.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jumptheshark/
And if you missed it or just want to see it again, in addition to the sunday rebroadcast, you can catch it any time at Fox dot com or Hulu.
http://www.hulu.com/
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