Screenhead

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% [?]

About three years ago, I joined most of the rest of humanity and got cable.  Dish Network, specifically–great stuff.  But it was about that time that I pretty much stopped caring about what network TV had to offer.  It seemed like they could never put out much that wasn’t already available.  Thus, when I got my hands on a box set of the second season of Third Watch on DVD, I found myself pretty surprised by what they saw.

Third Watch, so named for the period of time between three and eleven PM, follows the lives and adventures of various cops, firefighters and paramedics in the world of first responders.  And as they tackle situations of every size and variety, from the small ones of people with a penchant for dialing 911 over the least little thing and killer parakeets run amok to the nigh-apocalyptic of cop-killing snipers and kidnapping victims buried alive, we discover that life isn’t all about chasing perps and patching wounds.  These people who we call heroes are just as human as the rest of us.  They make decisions, just like we do.  They have tragedies, just like we do.  And over the course of several months, we’ll get to see a lot of them.

Third Watch is a strange little animal.  It manages to do two things, and equally well.  It manages to humanize the men and women of the police, fire and rescue departments of New York City, and it also manages to regularly annoy the viewer with more schmaltz than a chicken ranch.  In case you’re wondering, schmaltz is both the Yiddish word for chicken fat and a colloquial term for maudlin sentimentality, at least one of the two is well represented in Third Watch.

The worst part of it all was how differently this show would make me feel WITHIN episodes.  They would literally manage to make me glad I was watching, by putting in something really exciting or something funny or even just something interesting, and then they would proceed to blow all that solid good feeling by doing something so cheesy in an attempt at a tearjerker moment  that I couldn’t help but be put off.

There’s a lot to like here–if you were fond of shows like ER and NYPD Blue and suchlike, you’ll probably be into this one.  The real advantage is that it manages to combine several different subgenres–it’s part cop show, and part doctor show, and part firefighter show and even some comedy and drama thrown in for added flavor.  The only real problem with it is that some times they’ll jack up the drama a whole lot more than I care for myself, to where it goes past a slight extra flavoring and into an overpowering force that just goes way too far.

But if you’re okay with that sort of thing–if you can handle a little extra drama in your television, and if you like cop drama and firefighter drama and medical drama with just a little extra slug of comedy and of course that extra heaping helping of drama–then you’ll definitely enjoy Third Watch.

Season two will hit your DVD players July 7th.

Popularity: unranked [?]