Fringe

This is the Fox TV show which ended its fifth and final season last fall (2012).   It concerns an obscure FBI section, the Fringe Division, which investigates and solves crimes which would otherwise baffle ordinary criminal investigators:  because they’re so damn weird.

The primary character is Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv).  She’s assisted by a “mad scientist” – literally mad, they have to get him out of an insane asylum to begin with – Walter Bishop (John Noble, aka “Denethor” from the Lord of the Rings movies).  Walter’s son Peter (Joshua Jackson – no, I’ve never seen “Dawson’s Creek”) also helps out.   Peter had a colorful criminal history, but his main positive quality is being able to temper Walter’s more quixotic tendencies.  Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) assists Walter in the laboratory.  Agent Broyles (Lance Riddick – also in “The Wire”) acts as the team’s FBI supervisor.   Other FBI agents include John Scott (Mark Valley – Brad Chase from “Boston Legal”), Dunham’s initial love interest, and Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo). 

The show takes place mainly in Boston, Massachusetts, with the lab being at Harvard, but it skips around a lot.   In particular, they have to go to NYC every now and then to meet up with Nina Sharp (Blair Brown), who works at a mysterious company, Massive Dynamic.  MD was set up by Walter’s former partner William Bell (Leonard Nimoy).   Initially missing, “Belly” (as Walter calls him) eventually shows up and becomes a major character.  

The first season establishes the standard plot: someone, or a group, dies mysteriously, usually in some particularly gruesome fashion.  The Fringe Team is called to the scene, the bodies taken to their lab at Harvard, and Walter gets working with help from Astrid.   After a few more bodies turn up, Walter sees a pattern and solves the mystery.  Decomposing bodies don’t blunt his appetite.  He also enjoys the sensory deprivation tank (as seen in “Altered States”) and takes his own homemade (labmade) LSD.  Compared to Walter White, Walter Bishop is much stranger and less violent, but also considerably more versatile as a scientist and not just a really good meth cook with a really bad attitude.   Heisenberg is better matched against Walternate.  

But there’s a larger “pattern” involved, and Nina Sharp, coordinated through Agent Broyles, sometimes has some hints and clues, but always seems to be holding back.   Eventually things start get even stranger.   A group of bald men, the Observers (why are there no female Observers?  Are they gay?  They're always well dressed), play an increasing role in events.   Peter may be not what he seems.   And there could be other dimensions.  

The most obvious comparison is with “The X Files”, but what I never liked about that show was whatever weirdness encountered was ultimately due to ….UFOs and aliens.   Here the strangeness is less mundane than Ewoks and Roger.  It’s…more weird, and that’s why I like it.