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X-Files meets Lost in "Fringe" - the new Fox TV series due to launch in the US this Autumn. Joshua Jackson, who used to be the amiable Pacey in Dawson's Creek plays the estranged, misunderstood (but still amiable) son of an agonized-but-noble scientist played by John Noble (really) who was the agonized-but-noble king in Lord of the Rings. They've both been pulled out of their respective discomfort zones to help an FBI agent played by Anna Torv who's trying to save the life of her partner, injured while following up leads to mysterious and deadly happenings after an airliner lands on autopilot. (Did I mention this is helmed by J J Abrams who made his name with Lost and Cloverfield? Lost -in case you were kidnapped by aliens until recently- is to do with mysterious and deadly happenings after an airliner crashes.) It's a very professional but ultimately disappointing outing - there are overtones of Lost's leisurely character and background-setting, which to some extent are to be expected in this pilot episode, but it does seem over-slow in places, and the running time is 20 minutes too long. Lost also had a way of achieving mysterious by being downright careless with facts - did we ever find out what that polar bear was doing on a tropical island?. In the same way Fringe deals with the fringe(s) of science. Your a-b-n scientist has been locked away for 17 years because he was experimenting with astral projection, mind reading and raising the dead. Presumably in his spare time he also worked on nerve gas for the Government and accidentally killed someone, Permanently. Now the injured FBI agent is slowly turning transparent - I kid you not - which will starve his brain of oxygen. We break the old guy out of his institution and open up his 17 year old lab space (which is still available) to use stone age tech -and homebrew LSD- to try and fix him. Along the way we throw out a lot of techno-babble (along with some old/crazy gags) and drive a 3cm spike into our heroine's brain stem (it helps her with the mind-reading) without apparently inconveniencing her overmuch. The FX are generally good, there's a lot of plot hooks to digest, and the production values are very high; but Lost annoyed (annoys) me with plot twists which depend on selling situations and characters as one thing and then doing a 180 so the good guys are now bad guys and vice-versa. or are they. tune in again next week so we can confuse you again. Fringe starts out that way - wait for the plot 180 at the end. I'll watch another show to see how things develop, but so far there's nothing here that I feel I can't live without. Gaz
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