Why Fringe Has Become My Favorite TV Show

As the Fall TV season commences, filling our air-waves with new and returning shows of varied quality, I have spent a bit of time browsing the Fall TV previews, deciding which shows to watch, which to DVR or catch online, and which to skip altogether.

I'll be skipping most of the reality shows, except for flipping between my faves Dancing With the Stars and The Biggest Loser, and I'll catch online episodes of Glee and The Office, and most likely DVR my favorite returning ABC comedies like Modern Family and Cougar Town.

In fact, going through the previews, even with some promising new shows like No Ordinary Family and Undercovers, the only show I plan to watch by appointment is Fox's sci-fi show Fringe. Fringe premieres its third season on Thursday, September 23 at 9/8 p.m., and you can bet I'll be in front of my TV watching with anticipation, because Fringe has quickly become my favorite TV show for several, undeniable reasons.

John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop. The man has charmed me. John Noble plays Dr. Bishop with an endearing balance of scientific genius, child-like enthusiasm, devotion to his son, and heartbreaking mental illness. While Noble has enjoyed a notable career thus far, I remember him most vividly as the coldhearted Denethor, Steward of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For the first few episodes of Fringe, every time Noble came on screen, all I could see was Denethor chomping down on that tomato while his son rode off to fight Orcs to his certain death. Yet Noble's performance as Dr. Walter Bishop soon eclipsed any previous images I had of him as other characters.

Fringe replaced my Lost obsession. While Lost was winding down, Fringe was revving up. While Lost was tying up (ahem, most of) its loose ends, Fringe was evolving intriguing new mysteries. FBI agent Olivia gradually uncovered her forgotten past as a child participant in the Cortexiphan experiments. Repeatedly, but mostly in the sidelines, the Observers showed themselves, watching events, with only a hint as to their greater purpose in the overall story. Slowly, the truth was revealed of Walter's desperate measures to save his son Peter from a childhood illness. Plus, the subtle love story between Peter and Olivia was turned on its head at the end of Season 2 with the strange love triangle potentially developing between Peter, Olivia, and Olivia's alternate-world version. Plenty of ongoing mysteries keep me tuning in week after week.

The option of casual viewing. Speaking of Lost and ongoing mysteries...in comparison with Fringe, Fringe wins for a superior mix of stand-alone episodes and ongoing mythology. I was a huge fan of Lost, which meant I spent every Tuesday night glued to the TV, in fear that I would miss some important clue to the entire show. (Hey, don't judge. I wasn't the only one.) Then, the following day, I was on the Internet, reading the blogs of those with the required patience to research the endless mythology of Lost and explain to me what I had just watch the previous evening. I loved every minute of it. And yet, Fringe, while compelling to watch and fun to discuss, is more friendly to casual viewers. Many episodes are monster-of-the-week type, meaning Olivia, Peter, and Dr. Bishop discover, investigate, and usually resolve whatever strange phenomenon they encounter by the end of the episode. Usually, though, there's a little ending scene that adds to the ongoing mythology: Nina Sharp gives orders to "question" the dead man at Massive Dynamic. William Bell (Leonard Nimoy!) summons Olivia to the alternate universe at the end of Season 1. Then, of course, there are the episodes that deal entirely with the mythology. It's just enough to give me a sense of an overall story, yet not enough to completely confuse me if I happen to miss an episode.

Fringe science seems possible. In the very first episode of the first season, Olivia repeatedly and successfully enters a drug-induced state in order to communicate with her fellow FBI agent, and love interest, John, who is in a coma. The way Dr. Bishop explains how two minds can share information in an unconscious state sounds totally plausible. It may just be that Dr. Bishop has charmed me to the point that I believe all his scientific explanations, but all of the strange phenomenon on Fringe seems entirely believable. Especially since they cover most of the classics. Foretelling the future, ESP, weird, genetically altered monsters, alternate universes...I think most sci-fi geeks have been on board with these ideas for quite a while, and in the Fringe world, they are all treated as a part of reality.

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