"Fringe" on Fox HD - Page 8

Ah. I've seen the movies, but I only really know the names of a few characters.

Maybe he'll try again next week:

DOC: "I've modified this old Amana Radar Range to act as a mental GPS so we can use your brain waves to locate your dead boyfriend. "

ANNA: "Ooh how does it work?"

DOC: "That's not important. What is important is that it won't work unless you're naked."

That would be an awesome running gag. Every week CSG tries to get Agent Anna naked somehow just because he's been locked up alone for a long time and his son realizes this but doesn't let the team know.

As ridiculous as most of the plot turns were in this thing, they should just hire the writers from Airplane and go full-on satire.

Googling "mad scientist top secret flesh dripping project" and getting an immediate hit, flying to Iraq and back before boyfriend dies within 24 hours, Ms. Vader accidentally spilling the beans on The Pattern ("Whoops! I didn't know you didn't already know about mankind's biggest secret ever. My bad."), only a relative can sign out an insane killer mad scientist from the asylum, just to name a few highlights.

I don't want to be too harsh though. I've always liked horror shots where the dripping dissolving flesh also melts the tendons on the poor devil's jaw, which falls off mid-scream.

The strobe lighting overload and cool body melt in the opening scenes had me expecting at least some genuine tension as the virus threatens to spiral out of control.

Instead we had one victim, who wasn't contagious, apart from gelatinous skin didn't have any symptoms, took forever to actually get worse and didn't even seem to be suffering. That was just one more disappointment. They could at least have had one of his hands drop off. Or even just a pinky toe.

Patients on House with a regular cold can manage to get something more horrific just by walking into the hospital!

Perhaps my main disappointment was the plug for "this season on 'Fringe.'" I should have stopped the playback at that point, but I watched and was sorry to see so many spoilers.

As underwear goes, that top was not in the same league as the bottoms.

Not interesting at all. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of the show, even if the fanboys think they shouldn't be.

I thought the motivations and actions were a little disjointed and the pace was rushed and unbelievably quick. They could have kept the same scenes and acts in the tele-play, but allocated some 'lost' time to the research, coordination, and process of achieving these goals. They could even throw in some real science in the [stock] montages, like the 3-d floating locations. I laughed and thought of the recent priceless commercials ["Rookie"], while my wife hated them.

My wife who will not watch Lost, somehow thoroughly enjoyed it other than the location graphics, and loved the symbolism in the pre-commercial icons (six fingered hand, embryo apples, PHI lizard, [pyramid] leaf).

Which does not auger well for the show, since she will not watch Lost or BSG, but loved Firefly...

v/r,
C-F

Yeah....she's a real "cutie" isn't she and she can act!

The cow's name was Gene.

This show was badly written, with huge plot holes, and just plain dumb and completely unbelievable angles.

People want to like it because it has a lot of buzz and looks cool. It could be the next hot show. "Hey, I was into Fringe from Day 1 man!"

The federal agent, essentially dying slowly from an unknown chemical compound, in a drug-induced coma, in a hospital clean room, is moved without any sort of authorization to a very dirty, non-sterile university basement that hasn't been accessed in years, under the care of a mad scientist, and he just lays there with a few monitors pinned to him like he is undergoing a stress test. While he is greatly afflicted by this poisoning, it must not affect the lungs because he can breathe on his own. There appear to be no medical personnel there at all. Ho Hum.

And that is just one of many many plot problems, where the viewer is asked to suspend all semblance of common sense. This isn't SciFi. This is CrapFi.

Deleting Season Pass...

I can't believe how many people are hating on this show! I loved it and can't wait to see what the season brings. I mean to each their own, but if you're a J.J. Abrams fan then you should really enjoy this show. That's just my two cents and I'm sure people will label me a simple "fan boy" but I don't care.

The more I read the comments about this show, the more it reminds of things I noticed as well, and at this point, instead of being the "serious" type of show I was hoping for - something that could be possible, something that would pique my interest in things weird and unusual - I've resigned myself to the fact that it's just another of FOX's comic book shows like "24", "Prison Break" and the Terminator spin-off.

J.J. isn't the only person responsible for this. I think the "from the writers of Transformers" says a lot. They were after all responsible for giving metal lips to Optimus Prime. I'm not a big Transformer fan and even I thought that looked stupid.

If this was all J.J. Abrams I think it would have been much better. Well, at least until he decided to expand the mythology too far and couldn't get back.

As much as everyone likes to laud him with applause I think he's usually only as good as his creative partners. If they suck, they'll take him down as well. And it's not as if he has a perfect track record of quality himself. He's been involved with some clunkers in his time.

I Liked the pilot, but did anyone notice a "ripoff" or Homage to the movie Altered States, if you caught that then you know what I am talking about.

There are always folks who don't like a show most viewers fall in love with. some of them post multiple times to the threads about the show, for reasons I can't fathom. If you review the threads about the late lamented Deadwood, you will see what I mean. They restated their hatred of the show week after week and called those of us who liked it, gasp, "fanboys." Do some recent posts here make any of that sound familiar.


I agree that Fringe is a lot like 24 and Prison Break. I enjoy that kind of exciting silliness, though, so I wasn't surprised when I liked Fringe.

Why, you must be talking about the show with the all-time coolest opening montage/theme song ever - Book 'em Danno! Only in that episode, it was used as a torture device as I recall, not as some gateway to higher consciousness which is how we usually see isolation tanks used.

Wow, "mature fans" is right in this case.

Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a winner here folks!

Figured you for a very likely candidate, Arch, because you're one of those here, who know your TV trivia. Its a pleasure doing (show) business with you.

I remember how that episode stood out in my mind, because of tha opening segment (yes, it was a toirture scene, but certainly more subtle than most), as they lifted McGarrett out of the isolation pool, and you could see his eyes covered with some white gunk, while he made a silent scream. A great premiere for a series and Wo Fat was a very cool villian.

Come to think of it, I wonder if they may have lifted part of the concept generally for the '24' arc about the Chinese.

Pure Smack! Book 'em Dano!

_________________________________________________
Palladin

Chance favors the prepared mind

Lordy, Lordy I loved that show! The more preposterous and over the top Jack Lord got, the better I liked it. Admittedly, I often liked it for the wrong reasons but entertainment is entertainment. Currently, CSI: Miami has the same vibe, with David Caruso chewing the scenery every week.

Book 'em Dano, indeed!

I didn't notice it on the original showing, but those girly screams in the upcoming previews were absolutely blood curdling! A scream like that has gone far past the realm of "acting", and is clearly going for full-out performance.

Meh... if Fringe succeeds, it will succeed by doing what House did: embracing its worst tendencies.

It's a fun enough show that his has my eyeballs for another week. Tuesday's looking pretty thin anyhow. Well, ya know, 'cept fer Biggest Loser.

It's not a perfect show, by any means, I concede. Just living up to the hype of the promos was probably a tall feat in of itself.

...but upon watching the Sun encore (latter half, at least), there's still a considerable entertainment value to it (imo), despite the harsh criticisms given at this topic. If it hangs around a few seasons, it would not bother me in the slightest- fact, I would then have a legitimate reason to blow an hour on Fox on Tue, beyond House. It's not really "bad" programming. It's not mind-blowingly great, either, but still worth some entertainment value. I guess I have already resigned from looking for shows with bulletproof storylines and thespian caliber acTING!!! [that's a Jon Lovitz reference] I just want to see some crazy, wild stuff with the occasional dark wittiness, and I'll consider that worthwhile entertainment. A show doesn't have to take itself so seriously to be credible entertainment. I'm suspecting that that is a distinct element to the Fringe formula, if not deliberately, keenly tripped onto by happenstance. Run with it, I say!

Back to the girly screams- those were the kinds of screams you just don't hear everyday, nor the kind that come from just being surprised. It's the stuff of pure 5-alarm terror! I was just remarking to the surreal and creepy authenticity it had.

I normally give new shows at least two episodes before deleting the series recording on my DVR. Fringe only got one episode. Like many shows, the premise is solid and the acting is fine, but the writing is atrocious. Like others have posted, I can handle the suspension of disbelief on just about every bit of the sci-fi aspect of the show--it is, after all, science fiction. What I cannot tolerate is the manipulation of the everyday events to make them work around the plot (e.g. bringing a critical care patient into a decrepit, non-sterile lab environment, having his long abandoned lab be up and functioning with modern PCs and such within a 24-48 hour window, even just the fact that the good Dr. wouldn't have ever seen a modern-day PC--never mind knowing how to use one, etc, etc). If they had just dotted their is and crossed their t's on the mundane stuff I would have been hooked.

I don't know if its intentional counterprogramming or not, but now that Skiffy has started showing Lost episodes in order with season 1 (watching it while at commercial break), I honestly believe Fringe (maybe it should be renamed Cringe ) is going to become more and more difficult to defend on a comparative level of writing, plotline, CHARACTERS, etc.

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Palladin

Chance favors the prepared mind

Incredible. I just read the synopsis for this week's show. It's an exact clone of a Smallville episode from four seasons ago. Cringe it is; looks like I'm done with this one.

Wow... if you have to stoop to copying Smallville, you might want to rethink your plot. Smallville... there's a show past its prime (new episode this thursday, BTW).

Hey, I've never seen Smallville, so it's new to me!

Oh no, they did it again.

I just listened to the first show podcast and yet again they say "I'm not sure I would call it science fiction."

It's like they are scared of saying something is SF. This is obviously going to come back and bite them in the ass now just like it did with Lost. They did the exact same thing with that show (they stated early the island is based on real world science and is not science fiction) and then they started living forever, having apparitions, time traveling, making islands disappear ...

http://www.fox.com/fringe/_media/recaps/podcast_101.mp3