Fringe: Discussion Thread

[Sylph]

It has a whopping 11 acts.

[EricMontreal22]

It was 2 hours (with commercials--) that's why I think.

I didn't liek tonigth's ep all that much again (and it was another Abrams penned one! so much for him being the best writer on the show...) The object was way too vague and silly, I think Michael Ceveris is a great Broadway performer (his Sweeney was one of the most intense and he's wonderful in the rock musicals he's done with his contemporary vocals and look) but I already find his character, The Observer, too X Files and not in a good way, and I was just left indifferent. great last scene though if that counts for much.

[Sylph]

I wonder how much Abrams outlined, given that e.g. the hatch on Lost was his idea, and so were the numbers.

And I wonder when will Pinkner start being in charge.

[EricMontreal22]

THis ep was written by the two of them. The last ep (which I liked best) had no involvement--although it does sound liek Abrams came up with the overall year long plot (of which he promised there wouldn't be much, bringing in more casual vieers, but already it looks like it could go more complicated than Alias did lol)

[Sylph]

Fox picks up ‘Fringe’ for full season

Solid performance leads to back nine order for freshman

By James Hibberd

Fox has picked up a full-season order of J.J. Abrams' sci-fi thriller "Fringe."

The network has ordered the back-nine episodes of the Tuesday night drama, which should come as no surprise to those following its performance in the Nielsens.

After an OK two-hour premiere Aug. 26, the show jumped significantly in Week 2 when paired with Fox's top-rated drama "House." Both shows took a hit when competition increased during broadcast premiere week, then demonstrated stability by growing slightly Tuesday night.

Season-to-date, "Fringe" has averaged a 4.2 rating/11 share among adults 18-49 and 10.7 million total viewers and ranks as the top freshman series in the adult demo.

"The series has really taken off creatively, and it's exciting to see that the audience is responding," Fox's entertainment president Kevin Reilly said.

Added "Fringe" exec producer JJ Abrams, "As with many new series, 'Fringe' is just starting to find its groove. Knowing we'll be around beyond the first thirteen episodes means we'll get to realize the full potential of the show, and for that we are extremely grateful."

"Fringe" stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble as investigators of paranormal crimes. It's the second freshman series to receive a full order after CW's "90210."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i37b62a68b259c939e42df0c22225871b

[YRBB]

I was interested in the premiere, but haven't watched it since.... Is it worth it trying to catch up?

[EricMontreal22]

I change my mind from episode to episode lol. If you liked the premiere, though than yeah give it a chance.

[rhinohide]

I really like it. But it's one of 4 primetime must see's for me and it doesn't hurt that it follows House which is #1 on my list. It's a kind of X-files meets Criminal Minds. I also loved the movie "Altered States" which coincidentially co-starred Blair Brown who also appears in Fringe, and there are themes IMO that are carried over from that movie. The good/bad part, depending on your perspective, is each episode is pretty self contained, so you're not absolutely "Lost" if you didn't catch the preceding episodes.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah Abrams has said that Altered States (great movie) was a huge influence--as was the late 70's era of "body horror" In general (stuff like Cronenberg's films of the time--horror that deforms or affects our bodies)

ABrams has said a number of times how making the show more self contained is important--but already last week with all that about The Observer, etc, already is gettign fairly complex

[Toups]

That sonic wave gun or whatever it was, was so cool!!

Well, if they're starting with this Observer arc, they gotta start somewhere right.

[EricMontreal22]

Oh I agree but I do think already for the "casual viewer" it may be getting too complex lol--after 3 or 4 eps. That said, I think Abrams' strength is with these complex, even sometimes silly stories so...

[EricMontreal22]

And after all my complaining I'm grumpy that it was pre empted tonite or whatever-- boo

[EricMontreal22]

An ok episode. I found the father really annoying this week--none of his quirks came off as too funny--maybe I was just in a bad mood, but the episode had a few kinda fun scare moments, and I felt bad for the victim/perpetrator. I loved the explanation for why she's hallucinating her partner though--he's not quite fully back from the dead--but when they did that mind meld thing some of him leaked into her. Hoakey yes--but it surrpised me and made sense. No evil robotic arm woman though

[Sylph]

Beyond the Fringe

The creator of Alias and Lost is back with an eagerly awaited TV series 'for the weirdos'. But why, with its history of great writers, has the UK not produced its own JJ Abrams?

Stephen Armstrong



"I wrote this show for the weirdos," says JJ Abrams, the man who helped bring sci-fi into television's mainstream and creator of Alias and Lost, on the phone from LA. "I like telling stories that have other layers, so that one audience can watch the show and investigate the other levels whilst another can just enjoy the show. Like Lost." He pauses. "Although I'm trying to make Fringe a little easier to follow."

Lost, of course, is notorious for storylines so complex that it is almost impossible for first-time viewers to pick up the show without prior reference to the DVD box set. As a result, US viewers are trickling away at the rate of roughly 1 million a season. Fringe, Abrams says, is episodic, allowing viewers to dip in and out.

It does, however, have a certain similarity to Lost, in that it starts with a plane crash - although the show is based in the US rather than Hawaii, where FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv of Mistresses fame), scientist Walter Bishop and his son Peter investigate mind-reading, levitation, invisibility and reanimation of the dead.

Hype has been intense, from both fans and broadcasters - although that has, of course, got its downsides. The pilot was leaked online long before it was finished in the edit. "The problem with this download age is that everyone thinks they have a right to every piece of information in a form where it's impossible to understand its true complexity," Abrams grumbles.

"They also feel they have the right to information and spoilers. My problem isn't really the spoilers - there was a best-selling book of Jaws before the movie so people could find out how it ended - but I would prefer people to see the show as I had intended rather than entirely unfinished. I think this will only increase though."

And when Abrams talks about the show as he had intended, he really is talking about his creative view. Abrams - the JJ stands for Jeffrey Jacob - is all over Fringe, even composing the theme music. At the same time he has a Star Trek prequel movie in post-production, and two other films in development. It's amazing he has time to pick his son up from school.

But what is really curious is that Abrams is by no means an oddity in today's LA. Writers such as Judd Apatow, Tim Kring and Tina Fey are producing TV shows and movies, getting green lights for every project. In the UK, however, which prides itself on a history of great writers, there is almost no one as fecund or powerful in the TV and film industries. So what's going on?

Take Abrams's meteoric career. His film school script Taking Care of Business was snapped up by Hollywood Pictures - a subdivision of Disney - and released in 1990 starring Charles Grodin and James Belushi. By the late 90s he was writing for überproducer Jerry Bruckheimer on films such as the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon and - unusually for a movie writer at that time - branching out into TV, where he wrote, directed and produced Felicity, a glossy college drama.

These days, the migration of big-screen US talent on to the small screen is commonplace - with actors, writers and directors making high-quality extended shows such as The Sopranos without having to meet the demands of Hollywood studios. Fringe, for example, is not exactly short on ambition. Abrams describes the series as inspired by the likes of The X Files, The Twilight Zone and David Cronenberg films - although he warns it is not about aliens and monsters.

"Every episode speaks to the love-hate relationship we all have with technology," he explains. "The fear of nanotechnology, of GM foods, of the US government developing invisibility as a military tool - the possibilities are crazy and terrifying but also attractive. It's heaven and hell."

This level of complexity and vision is what we now expect from television, but in the last decade, top film writers were not also penning for the small screen - Abrams was something of a pioneer.

The reason Abrams managed to straddle both the film and TV worlds, says Simon Pegg, who appeared in Abrams's Mission: Impossible III and plays Scotty in the new Star Trek film, is down to his geekiness and enthusiasm. "He's an absolute fan of film and TV," Pegg explains. "He's part of the generation who are now starting to take over Hollywood. They are the people that grew up with video - loving film and TV, renting it, recording it - and they are now controlling what's being made. It's basically the rise of the geeks."

But where are the British equivalents? Our television boasts few multi-talented, multi-tasking creators and they are mostly from the world of comedy. There's Pegg and his director-collaborator Edgar Wright, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Richard Curtis and - the drama exception - Russell T Davies. Gervais, Pegg and Curtis are now largely making movies for Hollywood and, unlike Abrams, seem disinclined to return to television.

"One reason is the budgets," explains Drew Pearce, creator of ITV2's well-received superhero sitcom No Heroics. "A lot of the ideas that Abrams, Kring and the like have are really genre ideas dressed up as mainstream drama. There's a cost point where British TV just loses interest."

Fear of cost isn't just an issue in drama. Nick Park's forthcoming Wallace and Gromit Christmas short, A Matter Of Loaf and Death, was initially rejected by the BBC for being too expensive, only for the corporation to relent when ITV entered the picture with chequebook in hand. But this cost-cutting attitude means we're in danger of losing the chance to have teams of great show-runners.

Pearce, for instance, is part of a young community of would-be Abramses including Alice Lowe - whose new sitcom, LifeSpam, will be piloted on BBC3 later this year - and the Guardian's Charlie Brooker, whose E4 horror series Dead Set, filmed in the Big Brother house, starts on October 27. When we spoke, however, Pearce was already in LA. US producers had liked No Heroics and invited him over. We may have lost him already.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/29/jj.abrams.television.fringe

[applcin]

Anybody still watching? I have to catch up on the last few online episodes since the show came back.

I just read that life has imitated art. Anna Torv and Mark Valley got married in December.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=350808&GT1=28103