Fringe Returns with an Exciting Premiere

Last year, “Fringe” was one of the most highly anticipated shows of the season. With a reported $10 million pilot episode, there were high hopes for creator J.J. Abrams’ (“Lost,” “Star Trek”) take on the ever-evolving world in scientific exploration.

After the exciting premiere, “Fringe” fell into the middle ground of television dramas. The stories were good, but nothing seemed to happen to affect the overall storyline. It was a show about people using advanced science experiments on the world, and the fringe division at the FBI, with the help of a mad scientist – one who’s largely responsible for the existence of the technology be used – and his son, solving the case.

That’s all the show was until the mid-season finale, when we really got an idea of what “Fringe” was supposed to be about. A series of bank robberies occurred, in which the team of bank robbers used a device to walk through walls. Even stranger, each item that was stolen was out of a safe-deposit box that was registered to the aforementioned mad scientist Walter Bishop, played perfectly by no other than John Noble of “Lord of the Rings” fame. After they took what they needed from every deposit box, they were able to create a machine that could teleport a human being from anywhere in the world.

From that point on, “Fringe” had a concept that viewers could attach themselves to – there was finally a point to the story. In following episodes, we learn that the group who does these experiments follow a manuscript know as the Z.F.T. (Zerstorung durch Fortschritte der Technologie, translated to Destruction by Advancement of Technology), which was written by either Walter himself (who forgot due to years in a mental institution), or his partner at the time, and owner of Massive Dynamic, the most powerful technology based company in the world, Spock, only for some reason in “Fringe” his name is William Bell (Leonard Nimoy, “Star Trek”). It is also learned that as a child, the star of the show, FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), was experimented on by Walter and Bell and that she has an importance to the followers of the Z.F.T.

Finally, (we’re almost to the review, don’t worry) the finale was the most revealing of all, and made for perhaps the best finale of any show last year. Throughout the first season, Walter would tell stories about his son Peter’s (Joshua Jackson, “Dawson’s Creek) childhood that Peter would deny. In the finale, we learn that “Fringe” is about parallel worlds. As a child, Peter was very sick and died, so a heartbroken Walter found a way to step into another world to get his son back. As great of a character Walter was all season, an extremely intelligent scientist but the social skills of a child, this revelation added to the sympathy of a character who was clearly lost in his own head. The best scene came in the final seconds, however, as Olivia steps into an elevator and steps out into the office of William Bell. As she moves to look out the window, the camera pans out to show her standing in the corner office at the top of the World Trade Center.

“A New Day in the Old Town” shows why fans have such a love for this show. Great acting and great characters, wonderfully paced story telling and one of the more interesting plots on television make it easy for sci-fi fans to become addicted. Although the premiere serves more as a preface to what we can expect this season, there are plenty of exciting moments that will leave fans wanting more.

While we don’t get to see any of the meeting between Olivia and Bell, we know for sure that plenty of important information was said in the corner office atop the Twin Towers, because Olivia spends the entire hour trying to remember.

Olivia’s return certainly wasn’t a pleasant one, as it results in her spending the rest of the episode in the hospital, scared out of her mind. The strange fashion in which Olivia gets back allows “Fringe” to introduce a new character this year, FBI Agent Amy Jessup, played by the beautiful former “Deal or No Deal” model Meghan Markle.

As Jessup looks into the case she is assigned to, she begins to wonder, as was the case with all of Olivia’s investigations last year, how the hell that’s possible. Jessup ends up looking at the past case files of the Fringe division, and her fascination is what leads her to Walter and Peter.

With Olivia sidelined, Peter truly becomes the focus this week, and Jackson plays his sarcastic genius of a character wonderfully. With the Fringe division being shut down by the government, Peter takes it upon himself to keep their sector alive. By going to Colonel Broyles, played by the always commanding presence of Lance Reddick from the brilliant series “The Wire,” Peter tells him to tell his superiors that as long as Fringe division is operational, they’ll get the fruits of their labor.

What we’ve come to expect with “Fringe” is a new and interesting piece of technology each week, and this week is no different. While we’ve seen the idea before, shape shifting is usually an inherent power the person has, whether it be Mystique from “X-Men” or Sam from Review Fix favorite “True Blood.” In “Fringe,” the target this week has what, one would imagine, is a painful device that causes him to change form. By changing his appearance, this man hopes to get into contact with Olivia and interrogate her because of whatever it is she knows.

The one thing that held “Fringe” back from being truly magnificent is the fact that it remains an episodic drama with a serialized theme. For the most part, any viewer can start watching right now and grasp what is going on, which is beneficial to the network, but not to the dedicated fan. Each week is a case that connects with idea of the program, but not necessarily vital to overall story, and while it’s still entertaining television, it leaves the hardcore fan a bit impatient. Thankfully, there seems to be more of an emphasis on making it more serialized this year with an interesting revelation at the end of the hour. It seems doubtful Abrams will decide to switch it up drastically this year – there will definitely be parts of each episode that pertain to the theme of parallel worlds.

Either way, as long as Walter is an out of his mind genius, Peter a sarcastic one, Olivia a kickass fed, and the cases mind blowing, there’s no reason not to watch. Now if only they kept the 30 to 60 second commercial breaks like they had last year.