A FRINGE BENEFIT

Fringe snagged me in such a way that it proves in most unholy ways that I am an utter TV geek. I tell you how in a minute.

I've been conflicted about this show from well before it came on the air. When it was announced, I, like many others thought "I watched this when it was The X-Files." I kinda still think this at points. I was also a little wary of it being another heavily serialized show, Though both Alias and Lost have straddled that line able, I thought Alias was constantly losing its way and then finding it again, until the fifth season...it never got it back. And Lost (in good and bad), well, there's not really a lot of J.J. there. That's all Cuse and Lindelof going on there.

When I got the script for the pilot I was, first, unmotivated to read it and, second, not entirely thrilled with it. There were little moments I loved, but they were very little moments. Then the pilot leaked and my opinion was unchanged. I still thought I'd watch it anyway. It's not bad. It's not.

Also, despite my indifference to the series as a whole, I liked most of the characters quite a bit and thought that this would be a great show to spec. It's got such a broad sandbox, the word Mojave comes to mind. I'd still like to spec this. We'll see how things shake out. Too early to tell if it's going to gain that elusive "specable" status.

Second episode, "Same Old Story" didn't do a lot for me. Title didn't help.

Third one, "The Ghost Network," I thought was an improvement, but it still felt, as did the previous two, slow rolling.

It got me, though in the first few minutes. Maybe this was here in the second episode and I just didn't notice, but this has me on board for the foreseeable future.

Yeah. Darin-fucking-Morgan. It's starting to look like maybe he actually want to work in TV. Since this guy has only ever written six hours of produced television (each one an outstanding example of the series in was part of)...and, as I understand, had to be cajoled into it to some extent. He won the X-Files' only writing Emmy. In fact, the only sci-fi writing Emmy in all of the nineties.

And this is the first and only time he's not working on a show with his bro, Glen. They were both on the ill-fated Bionic Woman. No matter what you may think of that show, any Darin-written episode would have rawked hard, and likely have some degree of self-parody.

I hated the Night Stalker remake, but his unproduced script for "The M-Word" was good.

So until he quits or the show is cancelled, I'm hanging out for Fringe.