Screenhead

Is JJ Abrams the new king of Hollywood? A presence around TV and film for many years, he made his name creating Alias, and then went on to make the hugely successful Lost, with its vast viral marketing campaign (its inter-season online game The Lost Experience was even more complex and sprawling than the show itself). He followed this up with Cloverfield, another success due to the marketing, and the film’s low budget (which meant large profit). And, before his revamped Star Trek comes out, his latest creation, entitled Fringe, is a mystery TV series that starts airing in the US in September. But lucky for you we’ve managed to watch the first episode of the show, and post some thoughts.

The show starts with a shock, as the passengers of a plane are infected by a chemical that rapidly melts human flesh. The FBI are called in, and we follow agent liaison officer Agent Dunham. Hot on a trail, her partner and lover gets infected, and Dunham has to solve the case before she loses her love. She eventually tracks down a mad scientist, Dr. Bishop, and uses his son to get him out of the madhouse and into the lab. Already, the story stinks of another X-Files, but is it any more?

Its big advantage over The X-Files is its confined mythology. While The X-Files had an arc that ran throughout its entire series, that of an alien invasion, about half of each series comprised of diversions, following cases such as stretchy serial killers, possessed children, Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), etc, which often proved frustrating. Fringe, however, has linked all of its abnormalities into a single thread- that of terrorism seemingly generated by some evil corporation that is above federal powers.

However, the big disappointment is already knowing this from Episode 1. It feels as if the episode runs through everything we’re going to see, explaining origins, setting up what we know we’re going to wait and see. In one scene Dr. Bishop practically lists everything we’re going to see: telepathy, sonic weapons, talking to the deceased, etc. We also know that these weird experiments were continued by Bishop’s assistant, who now coincidentally runs one of the largest corporations in the world, who are developing new technologies. I wonder if the series will see our heroes trying to get to him… hmmmmm. Lost, on the other hand, opened with us seeing very little of the overall mythology, taking four series for us to get a broad sense of the island and its powers.

The first episode is redeemed by a trademark JJ Abrams trick. When the episode seems to wind down we’re treated to one more twist that turns the story on its head. Like Lost, which often sweeps away popular characters in one foul blow, Abrams lets us know that almost no one in the show is not expendable, nor is anyone trustworthy.

The cast are a bunch of relative unknowns, and so far the talent seen in Lost just isn’t there, but that’s not to say their abilities can’t be fleshed out somewhat. However, when Joshua “Pacey from Dawson’s Creek” Jackson turned up as Bishop junior, I had to roll my eyes. The boy cannot act, always doomed to sound like an affluent teen, and everything he’s appeared in has turned to crud.

It’s hard to tell how the first series of Fringe will turn out. So far, it is disappointingly obvious. Abrams’s claims that you don’t need to see every episode is also disheartening, as it may very well fall into The X-Files’s diversion territory, and generate pointless episodes that only frustratingly bide time until an element of the overall arc emerges. Still, you can’t help but feel Abrams’s is a man who likes to stay ahead of his audience, and perhaps has a few tricks up his sleeve.

By Eoin O’Faolain.

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