OK, so, despite the fact that an airline pilot's face dissolves to the point that his inferior maxillary bone drops right off his face, we can't quite call Fringe's pilot "jawdropping." It's excellent, intriguing, absorbing... but it didn't blow us away. Which is fine by us. Because that means we're not dealing with a Lost-type situation here. The first 45 frenzied minutes of that show's pilot were so strange and affecting that we sometimes think we're still under their sway, particularly when we find ourselves trying to reconcile all the magnetism, ghosts, and clockwork monsters made of smoke on that damned island.
But Fringe is content to work with milieus and characters that we've seen before: the mad scientist, the broken family, the federal agent searching for the truth in a vast single-wing conspiracy. Does it sound like we're disappointed? We're not. Fringe may do what it can to color in the lines, but man, what vibrant colors it chooses to color with.
Our story begins with a man, perhaps a diabetic, nervous on a bumpy international flight. He sticks himself with his insulin - but after he does, he starts to become violently ill. And we mean that literally: within seconds, his skin is bursting and falling off, and he's vomiting on the plane's crew. (Hence one dropped jaw.) The camera pulls back to reveal the plane still floating along in the sky as though nothing were wrong.
After the House-like credits, we're with a post-coital couple of FBI agents: Olivia Dunham and John Scott. Olivia is played by lovely Australian newcomer Anna Torv, who looks like Cate Blanchett but brings none of her theatrical intensity. That's a good thing; Torv's perfect for holding this occasionally preposterous operation together. She can be wary, touch, and girlish in the same scene, and she so far lacks the dreary pathos that, for example, made Mulder and Scully such bores. Anyway, Olivia and Scott work together, and their boss, a man named Broyles (who's played by Lance Reddick of The Wire, so you know he's awesome), might be onto their workplace affair. She says no; he says yes. After a few minutes of chatter -- you know, he says he loves her, she doesn't respond, blah blah -- Olivia's phone rings. After saying "Sir" a lot, she puts on her clothes and heads to Logan International Airport. (And when Scott's phone rings too, we guess we'll see him there too.)
When Olivia arrives, she gets the bullet from Charlie Francis, a colleague at the bureau: the plane from the opening has landed on autopilot, and whatever's in it made the last guy lose his lunch. Soon, Phillip Broyles, their boss, shows up, as does Scott. Broyles starts assembling teams to go in the plane -- and leaves Olivia out, referring to her derisively as "liaison." She protests and is allowed to enter the plane. It's plenty necrotastic in there -- blood and bones everywhere; no one's survived. However, someone that looks an awful lot like the diabetic pulls up in a car at the gate. Whaaaaaaa?
The next morning, the investigation continues in the office, as the agents are looking into the background of the passengers. Olivia suggests a number of avenues to pursue, but Broyles shoots her down, calls her "honey" (!) and sends her and Scott on a crap mission to look up a few storage units.
Olivia's pissed, but not so much that she doesn't have a heart-to-heart with Scott about what he'd said and she hadn't the night before. She tells him that she'd wanted to say she loved him too, and that's enough for him to be happy -- and enough for us to know that this guy's days are totally numbered.
In a trash dumpster, they find a bunch of used ammonia tubes, and start to open up all the units they can, um, Constitution be damned. After a few tries, they find what seems to be a test lab, packed with computers and monkeys. Olivia goes off to call for back up -- and a unit across the way opens up. There's a similar setup in that unit too, and the guy coming out runs away, with Scott (and soon) Olivia behind him. We don't get much of a look at the guy running, but after a few minutes of being chased he stops, and as Scott brings out his gun, the guy brings out a phone and activates bombs right behind him -- right where Scott is standing. Olivia, who catches some of the blast, loses consciousness.
She wakes up some time later to find that Agent Scott isn't actually dead -- he's in an induced coma, and doctors are trying to figure out what's wrong with him. His looks pasty and blue at first, like he's just had the world's worst freezerburn, but it later becomes clear that his skin is liquidizing.
Olivia reacts as any rational person would -- she shows up to work and starts to Fed-Google "dissolve flesh". This turns up the work of one Walter Bishop, whose work at Harvard once covered similar ground. When she tries to get permission from Broyles to see him, he refuses, saying it's not enough info to work with yet -- but it's clear that he also holds a grudge from her previous work as an investigator for the Marines. Olivia apparently got a friend of his kicked out of the Corps for what sounds like harassment, at best. If she wants to get to the doctor, he tells her, she'll have to do it on her own
That leads her to track down his son Peter in Baghdad, where he gets a lavish voiceover introduction -- "His IQ's 190, which is 50 points above genius," "He faked a career as a professor," stuff like that -- and where he's currently attempting to hustle his way into some juicy reconstruction engineering gigs. Also he is played by Joshua Jackson, who looks leaner and less fratty than he did back on the Creek -- and who yes, we are now assured, could be the New Clooney in a couple years if this goes well. He's not as good looking as George is, but he's got some of the same rakish, exasperated charm, and they seem to put him in the turtlenecks and henleys that Doug Ross used to wear just to lock it down a little. Anyways, we'll not go into his performance much except to say that he's not given so much to do here -- but with juicier material in the future, we defintely could see him breaking through to another level of stardom. (Called it!)
Anwway, back to the show. After asking nicely, Olivia gets the cold shoulder from Peter re: seeing his dad. "I'd rather stay in Iraq, that's how much I don't want to see my dad." Olivia explains that she can't see his father without a member of the family to get her in, and that another person's life is at stake. Peter replies "Sweetheart, we all care about someone who is dying." Well, since Peter seems to be getting all the good lines, Olivia goes straight for the jugular: she's seen his FBI file and knows everything about the jam he's in, why he needs cash, and if he doesn't come, she'll call the folks he's in dutch with. To which, out of good lines, he asks when they leave.
On the plane, Peter learns the truth about his father. He thought he worked on toothpase. Olivia explains that he spent his career working on the weirdest elements of science possible, the "fringe" stuff. Peter asks if his dad was Dr. Frankenstein. Olivia doesn't answer, but the show does -p- and the answer is maybe, because the next thing we know we are in a Massachusetts asylum, where the obviously unhinged and somewhat Unabomber-y Dr. Bishop floats between yammering incoherently and understanding all too well what's happened to Agent Scott.
And here we should note: John Noble, who plays Walter Bishop, is pretty much breaking out hearts all through this scene. We spent a long time trying to figure out on our own where we'd seen him, and then the New York Times spoiled it -- he's the self-pitying, self-delusional king that throws himself off Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. There's some of the tragic nobility of that character in Walter, but none of the twisted malice, at least not yet. Our heart sank every time something set Walter back, and leapt everytime he got excited, so much so that we're already shortlisting him for a supporting Emmy nom. Imagine House after years of electroshock and you get an idea of what we're talking about here.
Before he'll help, Walter asks to see his son, who (logic dictates) must have let Olivia in. Walter isn't pleased with this, and calls Olivia "sweetheart" again, but he goes in and has a small, strange exchange with his old man. Walter asks to be let out of the asylum to see Agent Scott; Olivia pulls out the old blackmail trick again after a nicely tense moment, Peter acquiesces again.
And here we note something else: this is a really handsomely produced show: the camerawork, the photography, and particularly the music, are all really top notch. Even the little title cards that tell you where you are ("Federal Building, Boston") are wonderful -- they're made to appear like they're freestanding metal letters just floating right in the first shot of the scene, or in one surprising instance, massive sand-colored ones lying flat in the Baghdad cityscape. Great stuff. Just saying.
Leaving the car, a newly shaved Walter reveals two things: one, that he used to share a lab with William Bell, who's the head of a presumably massive and dynamic company called Massive Dynamic, and two that he just pissed himself a little. Two ominous plot foreshadowings or just one? (We're hoping one, unless Depends decides to underwrite the show, in which case we're thoroughly fascinated.)
At the hospital, after some amusing protest from Peter, Walter collects a sample of Scott's now waxy -- literally, like cooling candle wax -- skin and freaks out when he learns his old lab is no longer there. Olivia asks Broyles to get his lab back for him; Broyles repsonds that he thinks he's figured out what was up with she and Scott. She doesn't care.
Then we got a commercial for Spore, guys. Sweet.
Open on the newly reopened lab. Walter starts giving a shopping list to Astrid, Olivia's assistant, that includes a bunch of equipment, blood, and a cow. This prompts a tiny spat between Peter and Olivia -- and this in turn marks the first moment where it's clear that Peter and Olivia must some day get it on. They share a small silent moment together here, sizing each other up, which is electric. Maybe this is why a few moments later, she confesses that there never was a file on him, she was lying, and why he confesses his problem: he's got gambling debts. (Turns out not even the smartest system works against cheaters!)
The doc comes up with some news, and it's not good. Agent Scott has a day more to live before his body crystallizes and fails. And Olivia still needs to find out what the guy that they were chasing looks like. So Walter suggests they, you know, get Olivia to take off her clothes, get in an sensory deprivation tank, drop some LSD, and stick a probe in her neck so that she can read his mind. 'Cause everyone knows that would work, right? Of course; that shit works on dead people, for crying out loud. Science 101, folks!
So she strips down and does it, pausing only to let Walter thank her for getting him out of the hospital. When the drugs kick in, and their electric pathways get synced up or whatever, Olivia does indeed find herself in his mind, or in some snazzy CGI lobby between their minds with junked cars and marble dance floors. And after Scott opens up his memories, she gets a look at the guy!
Back at the bureau the next day, they identify him as Richard Steig, the twin of the diabetc victim, and an employee of Massive Dynamic, which is great because Charlie's spent the whole ep trying to get an interview with Bell and coming up empty. They still don't get Bell, but they do get Nina Sharp, a Massive bigwig played by Molly Dodd herself, Blair Brown. Steig, she claims was fired from a weapons lab for trying to remove classified material. Then Molly Dodd rips the skin off her arm and reveals a robot arm to make Luke Skywalker proud. Cancer, she says; Bell saved her life and gave her that new arm. As if that wasn't enough, she asks Olivia: Do you think this is part of "the pattern"? Olivia doesn't know what she's talking about.
Soon they're raiding Steig's house and finding a secret test lab like the ones from before. Steig makes a run out an alleyway, interrupting a touching scene between the Bishop family before finally getting caught by Peter. (Both Steig and Olivia basically jump off buildings in the chase sequence, to which we were kind of "Wha???")
In questioning, Steig reveals nothing about what chemicals there were in the units that blew up (the answer to which will help Walter save Scott) until Peter -- not bound by any duty as an officer of the law -- starts cracking his fingers with a coffee cup. Then he talks.
Olivia has another chat with Broyles, who tells that "we're" impressed with her work. When she asks who, he begins to tell her about a number of other strange events that have been happening all over the world. Unaged children returning from years of being missing, a possible UFO sighting preceeding a tsunami... this is The Pattern. Would she like to investigate it? Olivia says no, but Broyles isn't buying it just yet.
Scott is transfused with the antidote to the chemicals and begins to improve. But when Olivia goes to visit him, she also visits Steig, who claims to have been in contact regarding the supervirus he was creating -- you know, the one he killed his brother and everyone on the plane with -- with someone in her department. Well, we all know where this is going, right? Yes, we do. When she retreives the tape, the voice is Scott's, and by the time she alerts Charlie, it's too late. Scott has put on the clothes Olivia dropped off for him, smothered Steig in his bed, and stolen an SUV. Olivia's in hot pursuit, and one somewhat short but decent car chase later, Agent Scott is pulling his bloody, dying self from the overturned SUV. "Ask yourself why Broyles sent you to the storage facility," he tells her before dying.
In the car, Charlie -- who's played by Kirk Acevedo, a guy we loved on Oz -- is given the onorous task of saying all the stuff that might justify Olivia investigating "The Pattern" so she doesn't have to say it herself: that the world is weird and their job is hard, blah blah blah. We get it guys. She's in. And she is, and so, surprisingly (not) is Peter, who just learned from his dad all the weird crap that was going on in that lab so long ago and knows that Olivia's gonna need all the help she can get.
And in a hallway somewhere entirely different, Steig's body is being being wheeled away. To a morgue? Nope; Nina Sharp turns up and asks how long's he been dead? "Five hours," says the atendant. "Question him," she says, closing the door behind her to leave an access panel showing a spinning leaf.
And then there's an ad for Massive Dynamic. Motto: "Our world is your world."
All in all a pretty good start. We feel like where the writing wasn't stellar, or maybe it was a little obvious, the acting and production more than covered up for it, and you gotta cut most pilots a little slack for setting stuff up, right? We will. In fact, we'd say that of all the things we like about this show, we like that it's a little by the numbers. It's been a while since there's been a good non-serial sci-fi show that we've been in to. Heck, we're surprised to say this, but Fringe is kind of the show we're expecting Eleventh Hour to be -- a slick episodic genre piece that we'll look forward to watching some hungover Sunday -- but without the Bruckheimer-y stuff. Weird, huh? Here's hoping the ladies love Pacey as much as we do (hey, we're not the only ones swinging his name around with Clooney's!) and Fox gives this Fringe enough time to unfurl at its own pace.
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