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Fringe: Pilot

By fred | June 17, 2008

(PreAir) This is so cool !! I have not hidden the fact that of all the new series coming up next season, there weren’t that many that I was really excited about. In fact, only two of them really sound truly exciting, both are new sci-ci shows to air on Fox, and both come from people we know and trust : J.J. Abrams (Fringe) and Joss Whedon (Dollhouse).

And recently, I was lucky enough to put my eyes on a screener of one of those, J.J. Abrams’ latest creation : Fringe. This show is the show everyone is talking about, this is the show everyone thinks might be the next big hit, next season’s top new series, and with the names associated behind it, pushed by the promo Fox is making about the show and thanks to the $10 million budget for the two-hour pilot only, needless to say there are enormous hype and expectations when it comes to Fringe.

I got to sit and watch this two-hour pilot, and while I’ll try as much as possible to remain spoiler-free not to ruin things for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, let me tell you this : I’m still incredibly excited about the show !!

Yes, I had tremendous expectations for the show, before I even saw the first frame from the episode, I was excited like crazy, because this was freakin’ Fringe, the new show form the minds who brought us Lost (amongst other great series) !! And once it was over, I was still incredibly excited about the show, I was still thrilled about what I had just seen, and I couldn’t wait to see more or it.

That’s a testament to the show’s strength : it does live up to the hype. Of course, if you were to expect to see something brand new, something like you’ve never seen before, almost revolutionary, you would be disappointed. But the show has everything it takes to be a great show, it is captivating and will get you hooked in less time than you’d imagine.

Of course one episode isn’t enough to judge what the series will be like, especially given the enormous budget allowed for this one episode. It’s not that it’s all shinning everywhere, but you can see the money on the screen. They spent what was required to construct some great stories and back great writing and terrific acting with special effects like you’d usually see in movies.

Nothing as gigantic as a plane wreckage on a beach, like Lost had, but there’s lots of action as well as plenty of special effects all the way through the episode, and everything is at least top-notch. The scene on the air-plane surpasses most horror movie that tries to do the same, and there is one scene where people are rushed into a hospital, and the way it was directed and edited together was simply brilliant. It perfectly conveys the emotion of the scene and will leave you speechless.

Don’t get it wrong though, the show knows not to take itself too seriously and shows a sharp sense of humor. Watching this pilot felt like watching a feature film, a pretty good one, except that when it ends it doesn’t really end, you know there’s more to come, and you can’t wait. In fact, you want to keep sitting right where you are and ask for the next fix right away, because it felt like it just started two minutes ago, it’s that good!

If you’re a Lost addict, if you love The X-Files, or simply if you love a good story filled with sci-fi elements, you will go crazy for this show. The pilot introduces every character and starts the engine of what the show will become, so it’s still unclear how every episode will be constructed, but while there’s definitely an on-going mythology that will be played out through the entire series, the show won’t be a new Lost, and it’s been said that each episode should include self-contained stories, with a beginning and an end.

As everybody knows by now, at the center of Fringe is the brilliant, but quite possibly crazy, research scientist Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble). Back in the days, he used to work for the government on what’s being referred to as “Fringe science”, a science that deals with things such as teleportation, genetic manipulation, clones, telepathy, biological weapons, reanimation of the dead…

Posted in Reviews
Shows: Fringe