TV Review: 'Fringe'

Expectations rather than execution somewhat hamper FOX's Fringe.

The new series, hyped by the network to a near-exhaustive degree, arrives on Tuesday (Sept. 9) night with J.J. Abrams' imprimatur celebrated prominently as both co-creator and executive producer. And even if you don't believe that J.J. Abrams has singled-handedly saved television, rescued orphaned puppies and bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, you have to admit one thing: The guy does good pilots.

Lost is the single finest pilot since I began this TV writing gig and the Alias intro, with all of its red-haired fury, is in the same class. Even Felicity, poor easily mocked Felicity, introduced a whole universe of instantly defined and appealing characters in an effortless hour.

Fringe lacks the exhilaration of discovering something fresh and new, the exhilaration that three of Abrams' previous television pilots have had. It comes across as a proficient version of something familiar and reliable.

The thing I'd want to emphasize is that Fringe puts its most conventional foot forward from the beginning and gradually finds its footing throughout the the 90-minute pilot, which was directed by Alex Graves from a script by Abrams and frequent cohorts Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

After leading off with the icky and disturbing events on an international flight into Boston, Fringe quickly introduces fresh-faced FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv). She's sleeping with a coworker (Mark Valley) and her past as a special investigator in the Marines already has her at odds with her boss, Lance Reddick's Phillip Broyles. To this point, Fringe is basic procedural stuff, albeit well-shot and spiced up by 3-D title graphics that will become a series staple.

When an accident leaves her partner/boyfriend oddly transparent (literally, which is why it's so odd), Olivia is forced to seek out Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), a researcher and scientist as famous for his unorthodox methods as the decades he's spent in an institution. Because of pesky asylum regulations, though, Olivia can't get to Walter without the help of his estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson), a genius whose rebellious nature is characterized by his scruffy facial hair and sarcastic rejoinders.

It's in this unlikely trio that Fringe finds its loopy, smart and often funny rhythm, because Walter is genuinely mentally unstable, Peter is genuinely anti-social and Olivia's a perfectly capable agent who's unprepared for either of them. She's also unprepared for the discovery that the events on the plane are just part of an ongoing rash of difficult-to-explain events, events involving what one well-informed character calls "fringe science," which refers to things that probably shouldn't be possible but, in the show's universe at least, are.

Torv and Jackson very quickly fall into a rapport that's going to strike many viewers as derivative of The X-Files. And the possibility of an Evil Corporate Conspiracy will strike many viewers as derivative of Lost. And if there are people out there still watching the Altered States DVD, there's an extended sensory depravation experiment that won't feel quite fresh.

It's the injection of the father-son dynamic -- well-executed by Jackson and particularly Noble, who also did a good take on crazed as Denethor in the Lord of the Rings franchise -- that gives me the most hope for the show.

With her lack of track record, Torv is the wild card, even with Abrams' much-discussed gift for plucky ingenues from obscurity and turning them into Keri Russell or Jennifer Garner. Although the Aussie actress' flat American accent comes and goes, she grew on me throughout the pilot and I appreciated that her character has a certain amount of assertiveness built-in, that she isn't an in-over-her-head newcomer. Torv will force viewers to play the "Recognizable Actress Mash-Up" game to decide which titillating union would best produce an Anna Torv. I'm going with Poppy Montgomery plus Kiele Sanchez, but others' results may vary.

The supporting cast is also capable, especially The Wire veteran Reddick and Blair Brown, who makes those Altered States comparisons even more obvious.

The extra-long pilot has allowed FOX to event-ize the Fringe premiere, but it often feels padded and remote from what I suspect the actual week-to-week series is going to be and the set-up for those subsequent episodes is rushed through at the very end. It's still fast, fun and occasionally fascinating, but damn J.J. Abrams for making me expect just a bit more.