Screenhead

So I may have just covered the first season of Fringe yesterday, but now you can get the chance to see all the madness first hand.

The folks out at Warner Brothers dropped me a line to pass on to you–all you need to do is go out to www.completethepattern.com.  Fill out the relevant entry forms and you’ll be entered one of a set of prizes.  The grand prize winner gets  a trip to Vancouver, the first place winner gets a first class home entertainment system, and five second place winners will net themselves  a copy of the complete first season on DVD.

It’s an excellent array of prizes, make no mistake, and your chances may not be that great but it’s still worth a shot.  So head on over and sign up.  If you don’t win, though, you should know that you’ll be able to lay hands on a copy of Fringe September 8.

Popularity: 1% [?]

There isn’t a whole lot of reason to watch normal network television any more.  Pretty much everything they’ve come out with lately has been just a new version of something that’s already been around for years upon anyway.  And the stuff that hasn’t already been out for years upon is involved in some kind of cinematic incest and inbreeding; seriously, how much difference is there REALLY between American Idol, America’s Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance?

So when I first heard about Fringe, the first season of which will be out on DVD in just a matter of days, I confess to some doubt.  Network TV is hardly the place to go anymore for anything more than second-rate watered-down content that fully complies with FCC regulations so draconian and nightmarish in scope that it’s a wonder we can see ANYTHING, let alone the nonsensical garbage we get these days.  What I got was actually pretty engaging with some innovative touches that brought it above the standard.

Fringe is a series about an FBI group that tackles things on the titular fringe of science.  All the stuff that’s in the process of going from science fiction to science fact, like nanotechnology and genetic engineering and assorted similar whatnot.  And the three people tracing down all these cool and sexy science terms are an FBI special agent, a literally mad scientist, and the mad scientist’s rogue wandering genius son.

If you think of Fringe as C-S-Sci-Fi, or The X-Files without the constant romantic tension, you won’t be too far from the truth of it.  The storylines are fairly deep and involved–they’re going to get all the way up to corporate conspiracy with this, involving an outfit called Massive Dynamic, which makes this some really prime sci-fi drama.  There’s any number of places they could go with this plotline. And, I love how the locations are given in three-dimensional lettering superimposed over the scene itself.  It really beats that little block of text at the bottom of the screen and is sufficient unique to catch interest.

Special warning in advance, though–Fringe can get  surrealist with its imagery and will get downright weird at points.  If you’re not game for that, stay WELL away.  Seriously.  I spent so much time watching this and wondering what bizarrity they were going to pull out next.

Maybe I have to rethink the whole “network TV is useless” concept.  The Broken Clock Theory still applies.  And as such, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives the massive seven disc collection of Fringe season one an eight out of ten for busting a hole in expectations and doing so with some style besides.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

J.J. Abrams talks about the significance and dynamics of knowing when to lay a series to rest. He’s at the  the Television Critics’ Association press tour taking questions about his series.  He talks particularly about Lost and Fringe. 

Popularity: 1% [?]