Fringe (2008): TV Episode 1.1 Review & Summary

The Fringe is a TV Series with a sci-fi mystery theme airing on Fox. The pilot episode aired on 9/9/08. Anna Torv stars as Olivia Dunham, an FBI agent who gets involved with a crazy doctor and his genesis son in order to save her boyfriend and co-worker Jack. Warning: my episode review contains major plot spoilers.

The first episode opens with an airplane flying through an electrical storm. A disturbed patient injects himself with medicine which in turn spreads a killer disease throughout the plane. Olivia and John are paged from their secret tryst to report to the airport, where the airplane just landed thanks to autopilot since everyone on the plane is dead. Their flesh has melted away just leaving behind an oozing skeleton, very disturbing but great special effects.

Olivia and John chase down a lead at a storage warehouse where they confront a suspect. A chase ensues and John is badly hurt in an explosion while the suspect gets away. John is put into a coma while his body slowly deteriorates. Olivia is desperate to save John so she tracks down a scientist who has been in an insane asylum for 17 years, Dr.Walter Bishop played by John Noble. Only family members can visit the doctor so Olivia blackmails Walter's wayward son Peter, played by Joshua Jackson, into taking her to seeing Walter. Walter thinks he can cure John so Peter takes guardianship of Walter and he is released from the asylum. They fix his old lab and he works on finding a cure for John.

Meanwhile, Olivia tracks down the suspect, Richard Stig, who used his twin brother to spread the killer virus. Richard used to work for Massive Dynamics, a huge company ran by William Bell, Walter's former lab partner. Walter was sent to an insane asylum while William became a millionare. Olivia tries to see William but he is too important to be seen by a lowly FBI agent but his secretary does ask Olivia if she thinks this is "part of the pattern." Olivia is confused but doesn't press the issue.

Walter is able to cure John but John turns out to be a baddie and kills Richard Stig and then flees from the hospital. Olivia chases the killer, not realizing it is John at first, and when she does see it is John she is quite shocked when he tries to run her off the road. John crashed and dies but not before telling her some cryptic message that I really didn't pay attention to because at that point I was very bored by the episode.

Olivia is upset and talks Walter and Peter into staying in Boston so they can join some secret club and figure out the pattern in all these weird occurrences that have been happening in the last nine months.

Fringe lost me half way through. I found it to be boring and yet confusing at the same time. I guess I am not in the mood for another conspiracy theory, alien invasion, and mind bender series. I would rather watch reruns of the X-Files. I did enjoy Joshua Jackson in his limited screen time. Too bad he isn't the lead character because I didn't