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"Fringe" (2008)
7 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
good but not powerful............., 17 June 2008
Author: lycan_prince from India
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
Just saw the pilot and din't see any comments here. Technically the episode was sound. Good Camera-work. Sharp editing. And a commendable background score though it mostly will be altered for the actual series premiere. The story on the other hand is fairly interesting even if the science involved borders on the ridiculous. As with 'Lost', some scheme of a grand scale is hinted at leaving the writers good room to manoeuver in. The characters, each with his or her own dilemmas and troubles, are likable but the casting looks weak. Anna Trov (a watered down version of Naomi Watts imo) looks more like a lost mother than an FBI agent under stress and Joshua Jackson looks nothing like the eccentric genius he's supposed to be (and I don't mean he should be wearing thick glasses and sport a weird hairdo). All in all Fringe was good but the knockout punch that a series premiere is supposed to deliver (think Prison Break, The Black Donnellys, Life et al) was somehow missing.
36 out of 74 people found the following comment useful :-
Poor man's X-files, 21 June 2008
Author: Jack Doyle from Portsmouth, Britain
This show is by no means awful and it has been competently made and the effects and action for the most part can't be faulted (the robotic arm looked silly and out of place), but where this falls down and where it will no doubt draw unfavourable comparsions with its predecessor are with its writing, directing and acting. Not that they are by any means dire (Lance Reddick is awesome in pretty much anything he does) but its all been done better before. So lets start at the beginning, the cold open could have been lifted straight out of the X-files (in fact i think they may have done something similar) but it works well, its just unoriginal. Then we are introduced to our principles who to be honest are pretty bland, The female FBI agent is pretty dull and compares badly to Scully or even Kate from lost in the depth of character, and the actress who plays her seems to be trying to imitate Elizabeth Mitchell. Lance Reddick was given to little to work with but what he did have, he did well. The father and son scientist were at least interesting with Joshua Jackson continuing to essentially play the same character since Dawson creek, the relationship between him and his father was certainly the most interesting. However too much of the characters back story and personality were delivered via exposition from other characters, which is a sign of bad writing. As is the father and son being overly competent men who essentially know everything about every facet of science. the plot itself was mundane and has a feeling of being to much like lost or the absolutely dire alias in terms of the arc they appear to be setting up. most of the plot is telegraphed rather than unravelled as the story progress and it take a very dull mind not to see just about every twist. All in all its OK about the same quality as Stargate and Alias and certainly fine for casual bit of TV but don't expect to see the quality of Lost or The X-files in its Hey day, if you want that, then buy the box sets or try your luck with the movie in July.
38 out of 78 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the most boring, tedious television series in existence, 21 June 2008
Author: silvernightfire from Australia
Possibly the most hyped new show of the 2008-2009 season. I've been a fan of Abrams' work for a long time. LOST is one of my favourite shows and ALIAS was excellent too. I even enjoyed Six Degrees. But this series is something else entirely...just not in the same league at all. Its incredibly slow, incredibly dull, and extremely monotonous, and by 20 minutes into the pilot I was feeling bored and annoyed at being subjected to such a slow, boring show.
First off, lets get one thing straight. If you're a fan of awesome serialised story lines spanning entire seasons e.g. 24, LOST, Heroes, you will be sorely disappointed. Abrams has stated that he wished to "recapture the 90's vibe" of the X-Files and put it in the 21st century. Pretty much all the episodes will be therefore be "self-contained story lines" much like the boring by-the-numbers episodes one can find on CBS cop shows and medical shows like Grey's Anatomy.
The show seems to be at its best when it, ironically, shies away from the paranormal stuff and displays simple things like romantic conversation between Mark Valley and Anna Torv. Anna Torv is a brilliant actress and one of the few things that keeps the viewer mildly interested in an otherwise bland, tedious 85 minutes.
However, a good lead can't save the show from the massive hole its dug itself into so early. Among other things, the dialogue is terrible, the characters are one-sided, one-dimensional mockups, the situations are laughably preposterous and the pace is so unbearably slow and boring that its better than a glass of warm milk for putting you to sleep. Fans of awesome adrenaline-filled serialised shows like LOST and Heroes will be sorely disappointed. The best way to describe it is a bad X-Files re-enactment with characters with no chemistry and a pace so horridly slow it makes watching old men play chess seem exciting. Thankfully, we still have LOST for 2 more years, as I doubt I'll be watching this series in future.
27 out of 60 people found the following comment useful :-
X Files for a new generation, 16 June 2008
Author: jocajosh from New Zealand
Great story and really good acting. The opening scene really grabbed my attention and soon I felt it was the first time I had seen a good successor to the X Files. Whilst it is a little too slick to have the atmosphere of XF and the main characters don't quite have the same chemistry as Mulder and Scully, I still thought it was on the right track. Reddick and Acevedo were excellent - guess they had my attention from when they were in Oz together. But best of all was John Noble - mad scientist of the finest genre! Jackson was a little lightweight but grew on me as the show went on. My favourite aspects of the show was the interesting camera work and special effects - oh that and a great sense of humour: "Let's make some LSD". I was really surprised and I can highly recommend it to everyone. No spoilers - just watch it!
23 out of 60 people found the following comment useful :-
Definitely Worth a Shot, go for it!, 15 June 2008
Author: ankurmisra from United States
If you are a fan of Lost, I am sure your going to like this. I will say I was skeptical at the start, because I do love lost and didn't think anything could match it, but after viewing the 85 minute Pilot I will say it was very good, nonstop, and full of mystifying intrigue. It didn't let up at all. I am very excited to see what the rest of the season has to offer. After about 10 minutes in it was almost full throttle, and at every corner there was a new twist a deeper delve into the drama and character development and more and more mystery and science. So cheers J.J. and the writers, keep up the good work, I just wish there was more.
Additionally I think that it will not be so much like the X-files as other viewers seem to think it will. I think it will deal with more real life possibilities and along the lines of corporate/government corruption which will directly impact the character development and moreover yield it to a seasonal close or a series close rather then short, separate scenarios like the x-files.
12 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Worth watching (but forget X Files), 5 July 2008
Author: rodrmar70 from Argentina
It was obvious a comparison to the X files because this ones shares some common aspects: rare phenomenons, unexplained deaths, conspiracy theory and a FBI agent teamed up with a classic ''unstable''scientist and his son (also with an IQ above average....).
If you remembers XF (specially the first season), Fringe doesn't stand a chance. But if you manage to see it with a fresh and open mind, you'll enjoy a good pilot episode, with a great (not extraordinary but really good) acting in the leading female role; and special effects that serves to the purpose of telling a story (and not to replace it).
Keep in mind that is a loosely science-based series (teleportation, etc) but this pilot accomplished the first objective: to give a shred of credibility to the story. We will see if the writers manage to sustain this or fells in ridiculous premises like some other science based series.
I recommended this one, let's see how good or bad goes the first season.
11 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
CSI meets The X Files, 3 July 2008
Author: BettyChampagne from United States
Just caught the pilot episode tonight. It was pretty good for a scifi/drama.
The acting was decent, the direction was top-notch and the special effect were pretty good. I was really caught up in the story line and on the edge of my seat for MOST of the show... however, there are few scenes that could have done with a bit of editing and some of the dialog was straight from the "how-to write a script, for dummies" hand book!
Overall the suspense and mystery carried the story along and I'm looking forward to seeing more episodes this fall. The audience for this show won't be on the fringe for long!
Cheers,
Betty
5 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
X-Files II? No. Promising show? Probably., 8 July 2008
Author: voltumna
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
Premise: female FBI agent reluctantly joins bureau division charged with investigating the paranormal.
Sound familiar? I thought so.
Fringe has viewers drawing the inevitable parallels between it and the X-Files, and with good reason. JJ Abrams himself stated that he wanted to bring back the X-Files vibe, but in a modernised form. This new show has a mythology, speaks of secret experiments done on humans, and, of course, the female FBI lead--all elements common to it and the X-Files.
But there, I would argue, the similarities end. As a huge X-Files fan, I went into this expecting something, if not identical to the X-Files, at least very similar. After viewing the 85-min trailer online, I realised that if I wanted to enjoy this new show I had to approach it on its own terms and forget about the X-Files altogether. True, the premises are extraordinarily similar, but that does not make the shows the same. The X-Files, after all, is the telling of Mulder's great quest, which, over the years, becomes Scully's as well--to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial beings with a plan to colonise the Earth, and to expose the shadowy government organisation that has been helping them for the past forty years.
After watching the pilot, it was clear that Fringe would be following different lines. The paranormal here is defined as "fringe science"--re-animation, teleportation, transmogrification, the ability to read the minds of corpses--and aliens are not mentioned at all. If there is a shadowy force at work, it is solely human. Even the Fringe Division is a far cry from Mulder's beloved basement office--it is headed by a man with obvious good standing within the FBI, and contains evidence classified, as the show itself says, "above Top Secret". There is no man with a quest here, no personal reasons for investigating the fringe science. It seems that someone said, "Hey, there's all this weird stuff going on--let's start a division to investigate!" The character dynamics are different, too, with three leads instead of two (though admittedly the role of one seems to begin and end with snarky one-liners and a desperate need for money). The Mulder/Scully relationship is famous for its subtleties, for how it changed each one over the course of nine years, for the sexual tension that went unresolved for so long. Anna Torv's Agent Dunham seems to be a character destined to investigate mostly on her own, with help from her pet mad scientist and his sarcastic son--I see no promise for a relationship anywhere close to the level of Mulder/Scully's here.
It may sound like I'm degrading the show here, but I'm truly not. I thought that the pilot, while not the most original, was mildly intriguing, and the mythology seems solid. The leads fleshed out in the pilot were interesting, and there were some notable supporting characters. The cinematography was above-average, and the special effects were exceptional--as expected, given its $10 mil budget. John Noble turned in an excellent performance as the mad scientist, and the other actors weren't shabby either. Fringe shows the potential to grow into a good show in its own right, and I hope it does. It's just that, if you go into it expecting the X-Files, you'll be disappointed.
5 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
I will watch more, 19 June 2008
Author: pagen from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
I think there is room to improve. But if you go back and watch the first X Files, you will see they had similar trouble at the start.
The good: Graphics and Special Effects were excellent. Horror factor and what they allowed on TV was great. Attractive cast. Wide range of plot ideas introduced early (like Eureka). Great sense of humor in general and comic timing in dialog. Good SciFi! There is sex in this show! Smart bad guys and smarter good girls. Something bigger going on - bad and good or perhaps the same entity. Excellent homage to X-Files with "The Truth . . ."
The Bad: No Chemistry between the leads. Not enough humor. Dark but too slick (as one other commenter noted). The first Indiana Jones used the same horror scene with the face melting. To much the average viewer had to fill in. Pacing was not consistent throughout. Chase scene was wasteful in viewer time and as a plot device. Poor choice of plot devices in general (perhaps I am just jaded). Sex in the pilot may leave us wanting more but perhaps not in a good way if there is no more for a while. And wanting a sexual relationship between the leads is a TIRED plot device for this genre - (Saving Grace is a nice contrast). The dramatic dialog felt stale and very direct. Needed to steal some dialog styles from X-Files (Cryptic) and Millennium (Prophetic).
I will watch the next one!
6 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Love it, 19 June 2008
Author: projct from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
I absolutely love this show. It's a fantastic remix of all of the shows I am used to watching, and in an awesome format.
I'm tired of 45 minute shows. bring on more 85 minute ones! :)
I particularly enjoyed the time taken for character development. Lost (and other shows like it) feel like the character development is forced, this show does not.
I also was fond of the way the titles are integrated into the landscape, it looked a bit like a Cinepaint effect.
"Get him a cow" was great.
Bring on the fringe!
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