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Basic Facts:

Episodes: 20
Runtime: 42 min.
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Premiered: 2008

Format:

Series

Genres:

Drama, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Created By:

Alex Kurtzman, J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci

Actors:

Anna Torv, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole, John Noble, Joshua Jackson, Kirk Acevedo, Lance Reddick, Mark Valley

Made In:

USA

Premiered at:

FOX

J.J. Abrams is a co-​creator of this new sci­ence fic­tion series. But Fringe is not only Sci-​Fi, it’s much more diverse and can’t be cat­e­go­rized by only one genre. In the same time this is a hor­ror and police thriller that deals with para­nor­mal events. After the huge suc­cess with Alias and more recent Lost, every­one antic­i­pated what this new series is going to be. And at first Fringe was kind of a disappointment.

Story and characters

Anna Torv stars as an FBI agent Olivia Dun­ham that due to the strange cir­cum­stances ends up in a spe­cial divi­sion that deals with unex­plained phe­nom­ena. She has a unique help from the mad sci­en­tist Wal­ter Bishop (great work by John Noble) and his son Peter (Joshua Jack­son). The con­cept is not unique, but writ­ers man­aged to add some new ele­ments into the mix and few really inter­est­ing cases. Also, main sto­ry­line that con­nects the events is also well written.

Major prob­lems

The first half of the series is inco­her­ent and at moments bor­ing with very lit­tle traces of what the point of the series is. Bad char­ac­ter devel­op­ment is also a prob­lem for the first half, and the only note­wor­thy thing was per­for­mances by Torv and Noble. Also, most of the ‘sci­ence’ looked just bad and very unbe­liev­able and that also added to over­all bad start for Fringe.

Fringe cast

But, series had decent rat­ings, and FOX decided to give it a chance order­ing a full sea­son. And after that things began to change. More of the char­ac­ters back sto­ries emerge, they con­nec­tions to the events and main sto­ry­line finally began tak­ing shape. Now, with new found focus episodes got bet­ter and much more inter­est­ing to watch. But still, over­all I had to give it much lower rat­ing because of the first half. Much bet­ter end­ing ensured that series is picked for another sea­son and in a few weeks sea­son 2 will start.

Pro­duc­tion and visuals

As expected from Abrams, Fringe is done very well. Spe­cial effects are really excel­lent and so is the music. Only prob­lem with the music is that sound too much as the music of Lost, most likely due to the fact that is com­posed by the same man, and I expected to hear some­thing new and different.

Con­clu­sion

All in all, Fringe is good. I am look­ing for­ward to the sec­ond sea­son to see if the improve­ments we saw in the sec­ond half of the first sea­son will con­tinue. In the mean­time, grab Blu­Ray or DVD of the sea­son 1 and give it a try.