TV Review: Fringe

Is the TV viewing audience getting tired of TV series centering around elaborate conspiracy theories, plot elements that don’t pay off for months or years, and procedural government investigations about the truth and whether it’s out there?

Maybe so, which may be why Fringe got pretty low ratings (albeit good ones in some key demographics). Margie and I finally watched the premiere episode of the series on the DVR last night.

1. JJ Abrams channels Chris Carter to do an X-Files series with an Alias-like quirky cast and multi-layered conspiracies.
2. The cast was okay, but the intro to the characters was weak — the female FBI agent (Anna Torv) who’s in love with a colleague (who clearly will have to be gotten out of the way in some fashion or another, and so is), the rebellious trouble-maker with a heart of gold (Joshua Jackson) who is coerced into helping, the mysterious and obnoxious Homeland Security director (Lance Reddick) who’s manipulating things behind the scenes, the erstwhile government-funded polymath genius (John Noble) who’s been in a mental institution for years … with the exception of the latter (by far the best character on the show), there’s nothing new or particularly here.
3. The setting — investigation of “fringe” science events, all possibly part of a pattern of experimentation, all possibly tied to the Bill Gates-like head of a massive hi-tech corporation, who just happens to have been the former lab partner of the crazy genius — has promise, but doesn’t feel all that ground-breaking, either.
4. Production values were good, though the shaky-cam bits got a bit much. I liked integrating the “where we are” text into the landscape (Margie thinks that will get annoying quickly).

It’s still early to tell too much — a two hour premiere doesn’t really tell us conclusively what the series will or won’t be like. Overall, it enough to make me come back for the next episode, but if I somehow lose track of it, I don’t (yet) feel I need to go to heroic efforts to play catch-up.