It seems like a pretty good show. It’s nothing amazing, yet, but it could really develop into something interesting.
By the way, check this out.
Massive Dynamic
I really like the show except for the horrible blond lady who who I can’t stand. I’ve also never been a huge fan of the guy who currently has translucent skin so the ideal end to the episode is him dying and her flying off the deep end.
I’m kinda digging Joshua Jackson and his father, though.
Edit: I’m PVRing it so I’m about a 45 mins behind just in case this makes no sense.
I watched it, and am firmly in the “meh” camp.
Acting: Love the old guy, and I can even manage not to hate Joshua Jackson when I forget he’s Pacey, which is about 30% of the time. He has a bit too much of the babyface to be believable as an action hero, and Anna Torv is a bit too supermodel for the FBI, right down to the waist-length blond mane. Honestly. The leads have little to no chemistry and it did seem a little harried, but I will try to watch it for a few more episodes to see if it grabs me. I keep thinking “Pacey” and “Cate Blanchette”. Also, I remember the male agent from an NBC soap. He played Jack, although I can’t remember on which soap.
Plot: Harried. Seemed to heavily borrow from the X-Files, but I suppose those kinds of comparisons are inevitable. At least Bones put it out there from the get-go and then diverged from that show by purposely being campy and offbeat. This show is trying to appeal to that same crowd, so it’s a pretty high standard.
Cinematography: Pretty good, although the last half-hour was stronger than the first, which makes sense. I like the aerial view of the storage facility and the sequence near the beginning where Olivia comes to.
Writing: A little heavy-handed trying to make the Joshua Jackson character tough. I wish they would write more gender-neutral. It feels like that may help with character development, which is what really needs to click for this show to take off.
All in all, intriguing and not bad but not as good as I expected. Then again I was a crazy X-Files fan.
I was disappointed. At one point during the pilot, I found myself emptying the dishwasher–not a good sign. I find it slow, and the characters are just uninteresting.
The horrible blond lady is my favourite character at this point.
I really liked it. Was floored by the production value. Nothing much really bugged me. The only actor I really recognized was John Noble from LOTR, and he was great. I’m a sucker for sci-fi, so this one has me by the balls.
Look forward to more Fringe.
It didn’t click for me. I didn’t like that the crazy old guy and his son (who didn’t actually have any formal education) where experts in every conceivable field of science, as long as it was sufficiently advanced and weird. I can accept that from a superhero comic, but this has a slightly higher level of realism.
Dreadful script and goofy science. One more “sweetheart” and I was going to flip the channel.
So the premise is that scientists without some external control will become evil Frankensteins and threaten humanity. Wow how 1930s. Lets all fear those crazy science people what with their genetics and chemistry and stuff.
(BTW I loved the sciency scene right out of a 50s movie with the close ups of test tubes beakers Bunsen burners and what not)
No one spoke like a real person. The head Director guy was awful… I mean really what was with the over tough guy act when he did exactly what she demanded. It came off as extremely formulaic.
You could see a mile away by which characters got character treatments who was going to stay with the series. (OK I kinda liked Dr Bishop… good acting saved what would have been a stupid character)
Nice ick factors but how did the burns disappear on the detective when he was cured?
So Cows are close enough to humans to use for “Humane” medical experiments? What the hell does that mean?!?!?
Last things that bugged me U of T acting as Harvard as well as the 3D titles nice gimmick that gets old quick.
I’ll give it one more chance on the outside chance that as a pilot it will have rough edges but so far it seems a little craptastic. Nice production values very little in story telling skills hopefully that changes fast.
The high point of this pilot was everyone siting on a counch watching cartoons with the cow. I think I missed something; was there any explanation how she was able to get her boyfriend moved from a special quarantined ICU unit to a makeshift basement lab without a single doctor/nurse/medic/candystripper staying behind to care for him. 
IANAD, but doesn’t a patient in a drug-induced coma need to be very carefully monitored?
I thought they said the son graduated from MIT? Am I misremembering?
Yeh, I’ll give you that. The ‘sweethearts’ were certainly forced. Not sure it’s heading in exactly the direction you mention though… time will tell. Although, I’ve seen some labs before, and they are littered with bunsens and beakers and test tubes and other sorts of iconic chemistry equippment. Why is that so hard to believe?
Perhaps a little trite, but I like the actor who played the director. I’ll let it slide for now, and hope they can write him some more depth.
Well, apparently he didn’t recieve any burns from the blast (i know, wtf?!). They said the blast showered him with some synthetic chemicals that turned his skin translucent, among other catastrophic damage.
Not sure, I think they were hinting that Dr. Bishop is all for testing on humans, and has done so in the past, so he’s now on to cows/animal testing, because testing on humans is considered inhumane. Or something.
It did get old. At first I liked it, because it felt ominous. But then, it got too heavy handed. Besides, it’s not very original (Panic Room; Heroes).
I think it’ll grow into a fantastic series. These things evolve as the writers learn from their mistakes, and get a feel for the chemistry the actors have with one another. This is one of the hardest genres to get right, but I have faith so far.
I thought this chick was the nurse who was watching him?
Nope, she was Olivia’s assistant.
Ahh 'k. Her character kinda flew under my radar.
I’m pretty much in the meh camp as well.
So a guy gets out of prison (because that’s what it technically is) as long as he’s babysat by his son? No supervision? No guards assigned to keep tabs on him? And when he’s in the cafeteria at the begining and reaches for his son’s pupil, his son jerking away and yelling “don’t touch me!” there wasn’t a peep out of ANYONE in charge?
Is the FBI regularly in the habit of granting prosecutorial immunity for the pre-meditated deaths of 137 people if you also might happen to have information on a possible cure for an agent?
The virus from the plane appeared to melt people almost instantaneously. Certainly over the span of a few minutes. But an agent who not only gets exposed to it but does so in the middle of several explosive fireballs and then left for God knows how long until help arrives, well he’s tough enough to take it so no worries.
Agent Dunham is being sent to do a thankless job on a pisspoor lead. So who does she convince that she needs two or more roundtrip tickets to Iraq?
Look, I’ll suspend my disbelief further than most everyone. But a cardinal law of writing is that you establish the rules in your universe and then you adhere to them. So far they haven’t adhered to anything they’ve created and it’s only the first episode. I wonder if I should even give it a second try.
It really didn’t click for me. I’m not even really sure what the point of the show is, except that it seems like the tagline should be, “Like the X-Files? Wish it had been dumber? Then have we got a show for you…”
The open with all of the melting people was sort of neat, but the rest of the pilot mostly shifted between silly, stupid, and boring after that.
Also, that’s the premise of this show? This blond lady and Pacey are going to go after evil corporations that do science?
I dunno; I’m probably being way overly-critical, and I’ll check out the next ep, but I didn’t like the pilot at all.
John Noble was very good in this, but I had a hard time separating him from the character of Denethor. I kept expecting him to set himself on fire.
I liked it. I liked Olivia Dunham’s character - she seemed tough, intelligent, and human to me. The Bishops were okay. Thank God for not too much shakycam; now, if we can just wean directors off of extreme close-ups for 90% of their film…
No, he lied about going to MIT.
I’m giving it a couple more episodes, but it needs to be more than a new version of the X-files. I can watch old episodes on Scifi.
My wife and I looked at each other with ‘wtf?’ expressions at the end- we came in during the scene with the cow watching SpongeBob, so we have no idea what’s going on. Anyone wants to summarize, I’d appreciate it.
I thought it was funny that they follow this dense, disjointed, hard-to-follow sci-fi drama with the most mindless, idiotic game show in history- Hole In The Wall.
I liked it - it’s enjoyably silly. And I think it knows it’s silly, and that’s why it works. I was charmed from the beginning, when the first image you see is an in-joke. I don’t think you’re meant to suspend disbelief in the same way you would for X-Files. If they try to be too serious, the ridiculous situations and monstrously preposterous “science” will sink it. But if they embrace the goofiness, I think it’ll be fun to watch.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. It wasn’t the equipment that was lauaghable it was the hackneyed and cliche (even in the 50’s) montage of sciencey equipment while they study the problem. Including bubbling beaker TM