The Best Show That You're Not Watching - Fringe

So, last year I convinced Jay1 to dvr a little show called Fringe.

We both promptly forgot about it.



I managed to have a couple of marathon viewing sessions on Hulu that left me thoroughly enthralled with the show. Meanwhile, I'm 90% sure that Jay1 still has at least half of the inaugural season on his dvr.

Fortunately I've abandoned any hope of him watching the show and can finally gush about it on F&S without fear of spoiling the dope plot twists.

Now I realize that not everyone's into science fiction. The genre's a tough sell and the people who are the most passionate about it are doing it no favors. Still, Fringe isn't all that sci-fi.

Ok, it sorta is. Plot points include parallel dimensions, mutated dna and hypnosis. But it's really not that bad. It's remenicent of The X-Files, not in the "bogged down by it's own mythology" way, but in the "really creepy cool what if that's really possible" sort of way.

Basically it's a show about a unit of the FBI that's focusing on The Pattern, which are events that linked by the use of "fringe" science (fringe being science that's more theoretical in nature.) There's Olivia Dunham the field agent who's basically running the show. She's also special in that she's got some gifts. She's aided by Walter Bishop, a loony scientist whose theories are being exploited. His son Peter Bishop is also part of the core group; he's got a mysterious past.

And that's basically it. In the first season they dealt with high tech bank robbers, parallel worlds, teleportation and other unexplained phenomena. But it wasn't really as out there as it sounds. I mean this in the best way possible, it's like community college sci-fi; it's not that complex.

Plus there's a way cute mulatress who pops up in most episodes.

Fringe has some great stories and some great characters. Walter Bishop is a nutty professor, but he's not a cliché nutty professor. The writers have taken the time to give his peculiarities a purpose and based them in the character's history. The archvillian Mr. Smith was/is equally captivating.

Fringe really is a quality show that is deserving of your viewing. Season one is on dvd and all of season two is on hulu.com for the time being. Give it a shot.