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Why Fringe Could Well Be The Worst Show In TV History

An Insightfully Delightful Essay

By Xiphos

 

 

 

 

Just in case anybody is confused about my intent, this post it's not a review. It is, in fact, a hit piece on one of the worst abominations of alleged entertainment to ever air on what could be considered a "major" television network. I am of course writing about the crap apple known as Fringe which airs on Fox Tuesday night.

 

Let me state for the record that I gave this show a chance, I really did. I tried to like it and I have low, low, low standards. Fringe couldn't even meet my almost nonexistent expectations and that's sad. 

Fringe is supposed to be a show created and overseen by professional Hollywood types (no not hookers. Writers, directors and producers, which on second thought are hookers never mind). With all the fairy tale, make believe "talent" with alleged years of "experience" in the entertainment business, all they managed to produce is this unmitigated mess?

 

Here's a quick run down of Fringe for the lucky ones that have missed this communicable disease of a show. An FBI agent named Olivia Dunham played by Anna Torv (hereby referred to as 5 head because of her ginormous dome) Works with Pacy from Dawson's Creek and that characters crazy dad just sprung from a 17 year jolt in the funny farm. John Noble plays this character named Dr. Walter Bishop. He's the only decent character on the show; even if he's a walking, talking Deus ex machine. There are also a couple of other red shirt/red herring characters on the show but who cares about them. They're useless space fillers.

Our merry little band uses discredited pseudoscience from the 19^th century to fight the evil machinations of a multinational corporation. This corporation is run by, and you are reading this correctly, a bionic armed Blair Brown. There, that's the plot. Sadly enough what I wrote is deeper, more complex and frankly more interesting then the entire run of Fringe so far.

 

Let me run down some of the major problems with Fringe. I'll stick to just the MAJOR problems because if I tried to cover every problem with Fringe this article would end up being longer then the entire collected works of the Russian Masters.

 

First there's Anna Torv a.k.a. 5 head. She's a bland, not very skilled actress who can't keep track of her accent. She's Australian and her accent slips in and out during the course of the show.

Part of the problem with FBI chick, is that the character sucks. Torv's not good enough an actress to inject even a hint of life in Olivia Dunham.

Also Torv has a 5 head and it's distracting as all hell. 5 head is nowhere near hot enough to overcome that giant melon of hers. She should not be the lead character of Fringe. With that, here's the next problem.

 

The lead character of the show should be Dr. Dues ex machine himself, Walter Bishop. Bishops role in the show is two fold. He's a cliché of mental illness and to provide the more then dubious "science' that gives the show its name.  Fringe loves using pseudoscience that 19^th mentalist stopped employing to fleece marks about the turn of the twentieth century. Fringe's exploitation of science makes the last few years of the X files blush in embarrassment.

 

 I don't expect that A TV show on a entertainment television network be factual or even all that accurate, just keep the science in the realm of possibility. Fringe clearly does not do this. Just look at the episode where they claimed you can use high speed photography and electrical stimuli to pull up the last images seen on a dead person's retina and photograph them. Okay whatever. This was a popular grift among the paranormal wackos a hundred years ago.

Plus, for no good reason that I can figure, they have a cow in the lab. Oh, how cute! Since not many people spend much time around livestock anymore let me tell you this. Keeping a cow indoors is a very bad and very smelly idea. It's also unhealthy for both the cow and humans.

 

The next problem with the show is the photography. As bland as Anna Torv is the listless camera work and dreary color pallet makes matters worse.  Fringe's creators envisioned the look of the show as an homage to The X Files, which they the creators, badly want to be but fail miserably at.

 I say that the look of Fringe is a badly done rip off of the X files style and showcases the creator's lack of skill and imagination. It's really, really bad stuff.

 

Let's look at still ANOTHER problem with Fringe. They criminally waste one Lance Riddick. This guy exudes cool, look at his work on OZ, Lost, Cadillac commercials and people say The Wire which I have not seen. The powers that be on the show make him look like a wuss and a tool that's just so, so wrong.

 

Now that I've covered some of the lead up problems with Fringe we're down to the nitty gritty nut and bolt problems. There are two and without further fan fare let's see about them shall we?

 

This show is B-O-R-I-N-G.  The paper thin, nonsensical plots, the bad characters, the lame science well all those can be looked past. What can't be overlooked is that the show is so boring that it stops time and makes it go in reverse. So instead of being a lame 42 minute TV show it seems like an eons. What the show is in reality is a bunch of cheese balls sitting around talking. That's the show and that's entirely unacceptable.

 

 

The entire fault for this dumpster fire lay at the feet of the worst hacks working in Hollywood today, the craptastic duo of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Take a look at their writing credits. Transformers, MI: 3, Legend of Zorro, the Island, Alias, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, Jack Of All Trades and Xena Warrior Princess.

Nothing on that list makes the heart soar with the pride of knowledge that human being can craft such enduring monuments with the written word. There also isn't anything in that list that's marginally competent either.

 

JJ Abrams is also involved with Fringe but I'm going to let him off the hook.  JJ seems like an alright guy and a somewhat okayish director. I think he might possess a back bone as stiff as a new growth reed, so Kurtzman and Orci can run wild on him. Plus JJ was smart enough to bow out of Lost and let others run it and for that I'm grateful.

 

Just so I can't be called an "h8ter"or be accused of drinking the"haterade" like the kids like to say, there are a few very few bright spots in Fringe. Those spots are the crazy old man and Pacy. Unfortunately they will run the Dr. Bishop character into the ground. With Pacy (I can't remember the actors name and I'm too lazy to look it up) he's a true bright spot. The character was rancid at first. Before I pulled the plug on watching this inflamed hemorrhoid, rectal itch of a show, Pacy was turning the character around. Atta boy chief!

 

So in conclusion I find Fringe to be a sad commentary on the state of modern entertainment. It's to bad consumers of Sci-Fi or just entertainment in general are willing to accept this wan, limp, gutless, badly produced dreck because well that's what almost ALL shows on TV are now. Pardon me while I get ferklempt at this notion. Talk amongst yourselves.

 

Xiphos