Life + Near Death = Thoughts on Fringe

The wife and I were driving home from hanging with her sister and the kids late last night and narrowly avoided disaster. We were riding along minding our own business when I suddenly noticed two bikes (with people riding them) on the side of the road. I then turned my attention to the pavement in front of me to notice a bike (with person) that had no reflectors on it about 20 ft. in front of my car (I was travelling at 60 MPH). Thankfully my feline like reflexes kicked in and I was able to break and avoid the biker.

The wife was a little shaken up by the near involuntary vehicular manslaughter of a moment and made a comment, “it’s a good thing that cop pulled you over the other day, cause you would not have been going so slow otherwise”. It was an interesting point (and most likely true) that got me thinking naturally, about alternate realities. Alternate realities led me to the TV show Fringe.

I am worried about Fringe. Alternate realities are a big deal. They ask a lot of audience, infinite possibilities, a character could die one week and be back the next (albeit slightly altered, and keeping it all straight can be a load of work. Lost waited four seasons before introducing time travel and still lost (pun intended) a chunk of their audience who were unwilling to take this leap of faith (no flux capacitor & 88 MPH = no time travel for most people). Fringe was not a super successful show last season. Sure they did well enough to get renewed, but they certainly cannot afford to alienate any portion of their viewership.

Last season Fringe was a Law and Order styled procedural show with some neat science fiction (or SyFy) shoved into every episode. For the most part each episode introduced a bad guy who by the end of the episode either bit the big one or was brought to justice. Sure they had episodes that dealt heavily with show cannon and even a whole episode devoted to tying the seemingly unconnected earlier episodes into a neat little dogmatic bow, however, those episodes were the exception not the rule.

With the introduction of alternate universes (one of which a main character was stolen from as a child) this show goes from Law and Order to Lost as far as the knowledge audience must take to every episode. As a person who loves deep stories and intense viewing, I’m very excited. As a person who sees a lot of the TV he loves taken off the air in favor of procedurals or reality, I’m very nervous for this show.