Nine Muses

I watched the pilot of Fringe last night and I’m sufficiently intrigued.  I was not so deeply enamored of it that I’m sitting here waiting with bated breath for Tuesday’s next episode, but it was interesting.

The balance of science (or fringe science, actually, hence the title) with the investigative elements (Everyone knows how much I love crime and legal shows, right?) is a good mix.  Really, I keep thinking that it’s going to play out much like X-Files, which, while excellent, I never really got all that into.  I do like that it’s supposedly not supernatural stuff going on — just science that’s so advanced that it’s beyond what we think is possible.

The characters are okay — nothing too new.  The female protagonist, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv who has done plenty of things but nothing I’ve seen before), is not yet far out of the typical female detective/FBI agent mold.  You find out early on that she’s not much for sentiment, doesn’t have any close bonds with much of anyone aside from her love interest, and so on.  Her male counterpart, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson of Dawson’s Creek "fame"), is, at this point, equally cookie cutter.  He has daddy issues, is too smart for school (never finished, but is a genius), and can’t stick to any one thing in his life prior to the events in the show.  The acting was solid, however.  After the initial scene with him, I forgot all about the Dawson’s Creek days, which is a good thing generally.  It would seem to imply that he’s not the same character again, though there are some shared elements.

I found the scientist/father, Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble — yes, the guy that played Denethor in RotK) the most interesting, both as a character and from an acting standpoint.  He’s not really all that far off the absent-minded professor archetype, but he does it so well that I found myself drawn in.  His character felt more fully fleshed, not just a cardboard cutout.  I did find it a little disconcerting, however, that his symptoms from his long loony bin stay seemed to come and go depending on the need.  It is somewhat explained in the story, however, as he refers to "waking up" after all his time away from the world.  We’ll see how that goes.

As they pointed out on "Best Week Ever", some elements of the pilot are almost amusingly reminiscent of Lost.  It starts with a plane incident; the bad guys (maybe) are a big corporation, and there’s some grand mystery out there.  I’m half-inclined to believe that this is intentional on the part of J.J. Abrams, but who can say for sure.  Considering how much I loved the first two or three seasons of Felicity, Alias, and Lost, I’m okay with a little bit of formula, intentional or not, tongue-in-cheek or seriously meant.  It all works for me.

Overall, I liked it.  I’ll watch it again and we’ll see where it goes.

(That takes care of my sci-fi quotient for the season.  Now, if someone would just make another great sitcom, I’d be happy.)