No major spoilers please…
Im just about to watch the second episode. I am in love with Abrams’ Lost, and decided to check out his other Baby, Fringe. Is it worth it? Does it have the same developing mythology that makes Lost so much fun? Or is it just X-Files '08?
I havn’t heard anything good or bad about the show, and I’m interested in Dopers’ impressions. Let me know what you think.
We’re enjoying it. It’s like a modernized version of X Files, sort of. My husband gives it around an 8 and I give it a solid 7.5.
My wife watches it, and seems to enjoy it, but I was completely unable to get into it. The pseudo-science falls heavily on the pseudo side and the conspiracy never really took off for me. I do like Pacey and the Dad, but the female lead leaves me cold every time I watch.
It’s pleasantly diverting, not more than that. It’s nowhere as intricate or as intelligent as LOST (which Abrams reportedly hasn’t had much to do with since the very beginning). IMO, it started off clunky and got progressively better as popcorn entertainment throughout the first half of the season. The two or three eps since it came back from the break seem to be pretty clearly the result of some ordered retooling to make it more accessible, some of which is welcome, and some of which makes the show a little more vanilla. I’d say it’s definitely worth giving a shot – with the understanding that if the first few eps seem only mildly interesting, it does get noticeably better. I’m going to keep up with the show, but I won’t pine if it were to go away. (Which I don’t think it will – I believe it’s very well rated.)
–Cliffy
It is worth watching just for Walter, the mad scientist father character. The actor makes him hilarious, charming and sympathetic.
I’ve made it through ep 5. The rest is DVRd. It’s obviously not on my weekly must watch list, but I’ll probably keep up with it. I’m a sucker for sci fi, even if it’s cringe worthy only sorta kinda sci fi. One of these days I’ll marathon-watch the rest of it.
Not a lot of mythology, which was done on purpose to make the show more accessible. It’s gotten better in my estimation in the last few episodes, but the leads don’t have any real chemistry and it’s less driven. Good show, not yet great, but worth watching.
They better not do the whole “years of unfulfilled sexual tension ending in an unfulfilling sexual relationship” thing with Olivia and Peter. I don’t think I could take it. Peter could get together with Astrid briefly, though. I think she’s adorable and underused.
If he doesn’t, the wifey and I volunteer to take her in! 
I’m gonna also say it’s not as good or involved as Lost, but we’ve been watching from the beginning… Fringe has it’s charms.
He’s my favorite as well. And the exasperated son is pretty good, too. I’m not much on the chick.
Walter makes the show for me. He cracks me up. It really took me by surprise when someone pointed out that the actor was the same man that played Denethor in LOTR: The Return of the King. I mean, it’s obvious now–his face looks the same–but the characters are so different that I hadn’t recognized him.
I like the actors, their acting and the recurring characters. I ignore the silly psuedo-science.
The characters and their interactions are interesting.
This keeps me watching in spite of some of the utterly ridiculous monsters-of-the-week. The giant, slug-like cold virus was… ridiculous – I can’t think of a better word. Who knew viruses could scoot around the floor so fast? Or how about the recent teenage mutant ninja hedgehog? My eyes are rolling so hard they’re falling out of my head.
I was a big X-Files fan, so I have a high tolerance for goofy monsters and other critters, but there have gotta be limits! Heck, even the X-Files would make the episode comic if the monster was silly enough. But Fringe seems determined to be all serious and scary and stuff. Even if it isn’t.
Anyhow… the characters are OK.
The quote of the series was, IMO, made in the last episode:
Olivia (to her FBI “sub-boss ?”) - “Let’s just say that weird things happen in Walter Bishop’s lab.”
They do, and they are worth watching. Make sure to suspend disbelief at the door.
As a native of the North Shore of Boston, I like that it’s set in the Northeast as well.
I don’t think we can overstate how much Walter Bishop’s character makes this show worth watching. If “Fringe” has a good long run, I predict Walter Bishop will go down in tv history as one of the most iconic characters of all time. The guy playing him (John Noble) is a freaking god of comedic timing and dramatic acting. “I like to cut!” (said after there is another dead body found and he is required to do another autopsy, if I recall correctly.) Joshua Jackson is very strong, too - the weak link is Anna Torv, unfortunately. Instead of growing on me, she’s going the other way. Yeah, the science is a little hard to take, too, but we can live with it. It’s definitely on my “must see” list at this point - I’m enjoying it a lot.
I agree. Walter’s the only reason I bother to watch.
The rest is… unbelievable. Unfortunately, I’m not referring to the titular fringe science. I understand that’s the premise, and I’m willing to suspend disbelief for that. My problem is with everything else. For example, the bad guys apparently use fringe science as their assassination method of choice no matter how impractical in terms of both logistics and secrecy.
I also had a jarring moment with the real science. The good guys were trying to recover data off of a fried hard drive. Astrid pops the damn thing open in the middle of the lab rather than taking it to a clean room. This would be bad enough except that this occurs roughly fifteen seconds after she explains that how a spec of dust can damage the platters. I’m willing to go to great lengths to suspend disbelief, even when it comes to the farcical TV versions of real-world science. I like to think I’m not an obsessive nerd who has to nitpick every nuance and inaccuracy of a show. But even so, I draw the line at the point where the character points out why something is wrong and then immediately ignores that fact.
All that aside, Walter’s funny. They could just make it the Walter show, and it’d be a lot better. They could even get rid of the “real” fringe science if they wanted to. Just have Walter pottering around Harvard being strange and occasionally have him perform inexplicable experiments. I’d watch.
Well she was still getting over Kendoll dude.
I think Astrid is supposed to get together with Walter, actually.