Reviewed by Duncan Bain
Stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo,
Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole | Created by J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £49.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 1221 minutes | Directed by Brad Anderson
If you’re a fan of the supernatural or sci-fi, you could do a lot worse than make sure that Fringe is your next television box set. Created by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield, Alias) and ably assisted by co-writers Kurtzman & Orci (2009’s Star Trek reboot) the show is another new spin on the realms of the unreal.
Take a large helping of the X-Files, add a soupcon of CSI, stir a dash of Buffy and some inevitable Lost-style easter eggs. Lightly garnish with some surprisingly entertaining offbeat humour, and a sprinkle of Lone Gunmen conspiracist paranoia before serving in 20 regular 50minute chunks – voila, you have one season of Fringe. To give you some context, when the show first aired I derisorily mocked its inconsistencies – its Moulimex approach to content and storyline, its inclusion of actors like Pacey from Dawson’s Creek and a cut-price Kate Blanchett-alike. However, I was inextricably drawn back the next week – originally to mock it some more, but accidentally beginning to like it. It’s that kind of show – absurd, ridiculous, pompous, over serious, and self-inflated, yet for some incalculable reason it all falls into place. It’s the the Triple Fried Egg Chili Sauce and Chutney Sandwich* of contemporary TV.
The series has a now-familiar style of “Monster (or Mystery) of the Week” held together with a season long story arc – gently introducing peripheral characters who sometimes transpire to be the players moving the pawns. We follow the Scooby Gang as they work to solve each mystery, more often than not resolved by the most implausible absurd deii ex machinae that you never would have seen coming. This, though is what really makes the show – John Noble’s mad scientist “Dr Walter Bishop” (and he really IS mad- we initially meet him locked up in the loony bin). Dr Bishop has spent many decades working in “Fringe science” – essentially big-worded pseudo-physics explanations for spooky weirdness. Naturally, Bishop has forgotten most of his research since he went mental, and is constantly pitch perfect as a socially inappropriate, random outburst generator of a man-child. He recites Pi to 1,000 decimal points to get to sleep, he sings song lyrics that transpire to be riddle solving keys, and of course has ominous ties to a dark past and a Potentially Evil Mega Corporation known as Massive Dynamics (but I always think of as Apple Macintosh).
Without Noble / Dr Bishop, the po-faced seriousness of the rest of the show would have probably fallen flat on its face and been just another generic failed experiment in tv-land, but he certainly made me want to watch more, and I suspect he will do the same for you. Serialised TV often suffers in continuity by making the audience wait week upon week, (in fact J.J. Abrams’ Lost is the worst culprit for this), so on these long cold windy winter nights, why not treat yourself to a few evenings’ nice warm lock-in with a mad scientist, Pacey, a pretty Aussie bird, a cow (dont ask!), and all sorts of ooky kooky maguffins.
EXTRAS **** Audio commentaries by the production team, deleted scenes, featurettes and a gag reel. There is also a behind-the-scenes look into the science behind Fringe.
* Red Dwarf geek’s gag there, sorry!