The first time I found myself liking science fiction was when a friend introduced me to what is now one of my all-time favorite television shows (short-lived though it was): Firefly.
I never got on the LOST bandwagon–particularly because I didn’t hear about it until the series was already underway and I was too lazy and too booked up with other shows to take the trouble to catch up. I’ll get to it eventually.
I wish I’d started watching Fringe from its pilot. Sadly, I had the false impression that it was too creepy and graphic for my tastes. A (different) friend of mine kept insisting I give it a chance anyway. I ignored her for a full season.
Flash forward through the summer and the first two episodes of Season 2 in the fall of 2009. Bored. Sifting through shows on Hulu. Fringe? Why not?
Why not indeed! I raced through DVDs of Season 1 in a flash and added Fringe to my Thursday-night lineup–conveniently situated after another favorite, Bones.
Fringe, in a word, is brilliant. It really hit its stride midway through Season 2, at which point it has grown in genius with each episode.
The Cast
Three foreigners lead an incredibly talented and diverse cast: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Jasika Nicole, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Kirk Acevedo (Season 1, now recurring), and Mark Valley (Season 1).
Aussie Anna Torv has really stepped up her game this season, playing two versions of FBI Agent Olivia Dunham with conviction and apparant ease. She was very good in the first two seasons; now she is great–or even better. It’s all in the eyes, and she manages to convey a million emotions and thoughts with those tools alone. The first two episodes of Season 3 should get her some Emmy consideration. A slightly altered walk, a different expression in the eyes, a decided coldness when in soldier mode–subtle differences she adds to Alternate Olivia that make a world of difference.
Canadian Joshua Jackson has been in the business for quite some time, and he has never been better. Like Anna Torv, he’s certainly easy on the eyes, but it’s his acting that takes top marks. He takes the layers the writers give to Peter Bishop and weaves them together into a remarkable tapestry, showcasing the growth in his character with aplomb while giving us glimpses at his for-now dormant darker, rebellious side. His microexpressions and headshakes are fabulous.
If Aussie John Noble is snubbed again in the Emmy race (and indeed, in the Golden Globe race), it will be more mindboggling than Fringe‘s mythology. How the man can transition from rage to childlike meekness and excitment, from lucidity to insanity and back again in the blink of an eye is masterful–sheer art. He turns a once morally and ethically challenged brilliant scientist into an endearing, mentally unstable man who loves his son more than anything in the world. And then adjusts his posture, his expression, his entire demeanor to play Walter Bishop’s alternate-universe self.
Blair Brown is not a stranger to television, and she manages to humanize her mysterious Nina Sharp, fluctuating between a secretive and powerful businesswoman and a lonely and burdened woman who could actually have the world’s best interest at heart. Or does she? Blair, you are fascinating.
Lance Reddick may never crack a smile as Agent Broyles, but his character’s job is grave and Broyles’s personal life fell apart because of it. Reddick takes a serious character and injects life into him. He’s serious, but Reddick ensures he is not rigid or flat, and that he makes for an essential member–leader–of the Fringe Division. And the subtle differences he gives to Broyles’s alternate are a credit to his skills.
Jasika Nicole does not have a lot of back story to work with for her Agent Astrid Farnsworth, but she makes certain Astrid is not just background. And the chemistry she shares with John Noble gives warmth to their characters’ working relationship. I hope we learn more about Astrid, because Jasika could surely stretch her talents even further. At least she gets an alternate character as well.
Oh, Kirk Acevedo. How we missed you. A regular cast member until four episodes into Season 2 when his character was killed off (well, his character’s body…go watch), he was a gruff and grounded delight. It has been wonderful having him back to play his alternate-universe Agent Charlie Francis. Acevedo gives Francis a pleasing mixture of tough, intelligent agent and interesting, considerate friend. I hope they can find a way to bring him back full-time. Anything is possible in the Fringe universe(s), yes?
The Relationships
Walter and Peter
Walter Bishop loves his son so much that he has traveled twice to an alternate universe to save him. Unfortunately, both trips resulted in grave consequences that are still being and perhaps will always have to be dealt with. And back when he was sane, he would not have won any Father of the Year awards. But he’s doing what he can to make up for it now, difficult though it is. And Peter, to make up for not visiting his father during the seventeen years the latter was institutionalized, has become the best caretaker anyone could wish for. Just when he was to the point where he could again call Walter “Dad,” a dark discovery blasts a giant hole in their progress. But the mending process is what is so poignant and beautiful; and we’ll be seeing a lot of that to come. The depth of feeling for one another is so obvious and so tortured that it never fails to be moving.
Peter and Olivia
If you think your romance is complicated, take a number. Just when these good friends finally take a step toward something wonderful, they get separated by an entire universe. To make matters worse, he doesn’t know it (and her infiltrating, manipulative alternate is doing her best to make certain he never will) and she, almost successfully brainwashed, isn’t aware of it either. I know not everyone likes the overused plot device of throwing two attractive leads together romantically. But really, if you are secretly fighting against an enemy the world at large doesn’t know–and probably shouldn’t know–exists and investigating scientific experiments that threaten human life as we know it, could you reasonably expect to maintain a normal relationship with someone who isn’t privvy to your knowledge, your awareness, your work? And if you’re daily working and fighting side-by-side with someone who is rather wonderful, and someone for whom you can’t help but care, can we reasonably expect they wouldn’t naturally fall for one another? Or at least give it a shot? I say no, we couldn’t. Could be the hopeless romantic in me speaking, but that doesn’t make the argument any less viable.
Walter and Astrid
Agent Farnsworth could never in a million years have guessed what she would end up doing when she joined the FBI. But, alas, she has for the past two-plus years been working alongside a mentally unstable, often-high scientist fresh out of the looney bin with an IQ off the charts and an obsession with food, dissecting animate objects and human hybrids that are not at all natural and assisting with experiments that are, if not merely dangerous, insane. The flip side of her duties as assistant is bodyguard and babysitter. And even though he can never remember her name correctly, she has formed a sweet bond with Walter that is touching and should be addressed even more frequently.
The Mythology
Forgive me. I never watched The X Files and as a relatively non-sci-fi person, I can’t point my finger to certain monster-of-the-week cases on Fringe and say, “I’ve seen this before.” And I don’t know details of the actual theories of mind control, spontaneous combustion, pyrokinetics(?), and alternate universes. They say–pulled from the Bible–that there is nothing new under the sun. But J.J. Abrams and company sure as heck try to create and explore something new. And perhaps some of it has been done before on televsion, or in movies. But that doesn’t mean a fresh angle, a fresh perspective, isn’t just as entertaining, or even more so. And the Fringe take on fringe science is definitely entertaining. It’s engaging, it’s fun, it’s breathtaking, it’s mindboggling, it’s insanity personified, it’s cutting-edge, it’s technologically and scientifically advanced, it’s mysterious, it’s emotional, it’s frightening, and it is, for fictional intents and purposes, believable. It even manages to be relatively cohesive and consistent.
And for a girl like me, it takes me on a journey through someone’s imagination–an imagination that differs so decidedly from my own rather vivid and active one. My stories are more or less confined to this universe–and to the laws of this universe. I might bend the latter a little, but the Fringe puppetmasters manipulate them in an exciting fashion I myself would never attempt–or think to attempt.
And for that–and for presenting it through exceptional writers, cast, and crew–I send a rather gushing thank you.
It isn’t perfect. No piece of fiction is–or even could be. But it’s near enough to warrant praise. If you haven’t given Fringe a shot, I encourage you to do so. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD (for rent, likely, and for purchase). Season 3 is available for viewing on fox.com/fod and on hulu.com/fringe. We’re only four episodes in, and there is a three-week break coming up for the World Series. Fringe airs Thursday nights at 9/8c on FOX (just after Bones, which, if you’ve read any more of this blog, you’ll know I also highly recommend).
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