The most promising drama of the disheveled new season — and remember, many of the fall network series are not available for preview — “Fringe” looks like a potential Tuesday night obsession.
The 95-minute pilot premieres Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Fox, locally Channel 31, opening with a chilling, gruesome bang. You’ve probably heard this much already: a planeload of passengers is doomed (what is it with J.J. Abrams and plane crashes?) and that’s just the beginning of a grisly mystery that touches on genetic engineering, reanimation, mind- melding, high-reaching military-industrial conspiracies and general tripiness.
“Fringe” deserves the considerable buzz it’s already gotten.
The network pitches the show as a cross between “CSI” and “The X-Files,” discrete episodes in pursuit of a central puzzle, steeped in fringe or pseudo-science. But putting it that way sounds old and used.
Think of it as next-wave “X- Files,” with the global urgency of “Heroes” but without the comic- book sensibility. This is seriously twisted science.
Creator Abrams, who gave us “Lost,” “Alias” and the upcoming big-screen “Star Trek,” likes to credit Michael Crichton for intertwining medicine and science with science fiction, a la the cloning storyline of “Jurassic Park.”
“Fringe” also has been described as “The X-Files” meets Paddy Chayefsky’s “Altered States,” with a splash of “Twilight Zone.” There’s an undercurrent of unexplained paranormal oddness, futuristic genetic manipulation, and a giant, secretive industrial corporation behind the scenes, running risky experiments on humankind.
Plus kissing.
Whatever Hollywood shorthand you use to define the genre, the story concerns a crazy- brilliant research scientist named Walter Bishop, his estranged son and a winsome female FBI agent who needs them both to uncover the strange coverup.
We meet the endearing Dr. Bishop in a mental hospital. The brilliant, possibly mad scientist is played by noted Australian actor John Noble in a standout performance.
Joshua Jackson (“Dawson’s Creek”) plays his son, Peter Bishop, who is sick of Dad’s wackiness and wants nothing to do with him. Anna Torv, another classy Aussie actor, plays Olivia Dunham, the FBI agent who can’t turn back once she begins to unravel a mystery.
Suffice to say Torv is the breakout face of fall ’08, a bold talent who is as comfortable in the chase-and-shoot scenes as she is undressing for lingering closeups in a sensory deprivation tank.
“Fringe” is bound to appeal to the cult following that adores J.J. Abrams and his brain teasers. Whether it will break through to the primetime masses remains to be seen.
To boost its chances of going wide, not only will individual episodes be self-contained, but the storyline is designed to make sense and avoid becoming impossibly dense. Fox also promises a lighter commercial load within “Fringe” than for the average series.
Additionally, the network has concocted plenty of online extensions of the brand for hardcore J.J. fans. For instance, strange stencil motifs, organic items like leaves and handprints, give viewers an ongoing signature to decipher.
Expect much online chatter about the show’s unfolding mythology and relevance to today’s social-political scene.
Such chatter may never rise to the level of the books and college dissertations that “Lost” has inspired. But that wouldn’t bother Fox: the ratings matter more than geekdom’s passionate theorizing.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
