Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Fringe
I've been watching Fringe since the beginning, hoping and praying that it would be the next LOST. It was a J.J. Abrams show and I still believed that J.J. Abrams was the reason that LOST was great. (He isn't.) For the first two seasons, I always wanted Fringe to be great, but it was stuck in a strange episodic format even though it was clear that there was an important umbrella story to be told. And it was so darned bright. The fringes of science and society feel like a dark territory, unimaginable and frightening, but this show glowed. I think all of these things were problems because Fringe was always almost being canceled and they had to cater to the needs of the network.
The third season of Fringe spent a lot more time on the seasonal story arc, and it was a lot better than the previous seasons. This is the season that hooked my girlfriend Amy even though I was anxious that she would make fun of me for watching the show. The stories got a lot more interesting, but they still weren't there yet. I'm two episodes into the fourth season and I can say without a doubt, Fringe is finally there. "One Night in October" is probably the best Fringe episode that I have ever seen, and judging by the feel I've been getting for the fourth season there will be more of these episodes in the future. It's strange to think that at the end of last season Fringe was moved to Friday nights (A.K.A., where sci fi shows go to die), and that now it's telling the best stories it has ever told.
I just hope that doesn't mean that Fringe is getting canceled before they finish their tale. Yeesh. That would suck.
If that did happen, our saving grace could be in comic book form or a movie if we could be so lucky.
ReplyDeleteI think that Joss Whedon is the only one who has successfully moved to comic book form with a show, and that it has only worked with three of his shows (Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, although Firefly has only had short limited series). Not even Whedon's Dollhouse is pulling its own weight in comics. I really don't know that Fringe could pull it off. They might be better off trying for a movie, like the X-Files did.
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