Fringe - Season 1

Title: Fringe

Broadcasting Station: Fox

Status: Ended

Creators: J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci

Official Site

Season 1 premise (taken from fringetelevision.com): All over the world, a series of inexplicable phenomena (coined "The Pattern") has aroused the attention of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Special Agent Philip Broyles heads up a multi-agency team called the Fringe Division to investigate the Pattern. They believe science and technology have advanced to unknown, unregulatable levels that put society at risk.    

STEPH SAID

Rating:

Review: 

When I was inquiring about fringe among my friends, the first thing I heard was that Fringe is a mash-up between Supernatural and C.S.I.. Since I like both I decided to give Fringe a chance. After watching the pilot I can say that these friends were, indeed, right.

All you need to do is watch the pilot and you will immediately get a sense of its style and tone. The pilot alone is what a whole series should be. It presents the main characters, the “antagonist” and the topics to be developed later; it had drama, action, intrigue, chases, explosions, betrayals, conspiracies, procedural processes, supernatural topics and many, many plot twists/unexpected occurrences.

However, watching the pilot and knowing it is a procedural mixed with the supernatural, won’t make things easier to decipher. Even after watching the whole first season, you won’t know exactly what is going on. I mean, a procedural show is one based on our reality, on how things are done, step-by-step; a show based on the supernatural is the total opposite, is a show based on fantasy and lore. Mixing these two together alone should be enough to let the viewer puzzled as to what to expect. Furthermore, Fringe has amazing writers that complicate matters much more. I don’t mean this in the bad way “It’s too complicated, don’t bother”. On the contrary! This series is so good at being puzzling that you have to keep watching. You want to decipher the clues and understand what is going on. I don’t want to scare you, so I’ll expand a bit more.

Like other procedurals, Fringe has stand-alone episodes in which someone dies and the focus of the episode is to catch that killer. In Fringe, however, these deaths are related to something supernatural (the ability to control electro-magnetic fields, shape shifters, vampires etc.). The Fringe team investigates and finds a theoretical scientific explanation for these supernatural events.  For example, the shape shifter changed form due to a virus that rewrote his genetic code. At the same time each episode gives you a glimpse into the story arc of the season, this is the part that is cryptic. Apparently, each death follows a “Pattern” of supernatural-related incidents, but nobody knows who is behind them or why are they doing these things. Ever since the first episode you get many clues about what’s to come, but nothing concrete. These clues will develop as the season unfolds. Your only hope is to keep watching and keep getting more clues.

This makes for a marvelous watch. It’s intriguing, captivating and though-provoking. Fringe has now become one of my favorite TV shows ever. However, I have to mention, the finale is rather anticlimactic. I was expecting a lot of answers and instead got many more questions; the episode, and thus the season, not only ends on a plot twist and a cliffhanger, but it literally finishes in the introduction of the real story arc. That’s when I realized that the arc presented in this season continues in upcoming seasons. The first season doesn’t have an arc that gets resolved in its finale; it is just a preamble of what’s to come.

I would love to keep writing and writing about why Fringe is so great, about why you should watch it and about my favorite episodes of the season (“Pilot, “In Which We Meet Mr. Jones” and “Inner Child”), but I don’t want to be accused of ranting. I trust you will make the choice of watching for yourself to see if what I’m saying is true. Hopefully, and probably, you will be hooked from the beginning as I have. That way you will understand my feelings as I wrote this review.