Day Three: Fringe (FOX, Tuesdays, 9PM)

Ok, so it’s not a movie; but Fox’s new science fiction show from JJ Abrams of (most recently) Lost and Cloverfield fame can get your heartbeat raised as much as anything else worth viewing during the Halloween season, and frankly, most of it is just as—if not more—jarring.

The basic premise of Fringe is the following: Specific sector of FBI is dedicated to investigating peculiar happenings—often referred to as “The Pattern”—with the help of a crazy old genius, and his son who seems to only be involved because his father is so crazy that he’s in his son’s custody. There’s also a lot of evidence that most of “The Pattern” is a result of experiments the old genius did decades ago in his Harvard-based lab, where he shared space with another genius who, instead of going crazy, patented most of his ideas and is now a rich genius. I never got into the X-Files, though evidence is strong that if I started watching it now, I would enjoy it. Having said that Fringe seems to be a lot like the X-Files, but instead of aliens, science is the cause of the weirdness.

And make no mistake: things are very, very weird. Spooky even. Like most shows, each episode of Fringe begins with some sort of catalyst, followed by the opening theme. Fringe’s opening theme is bright and happy, accompanied with bizarre images. It’s a great sensory piece that offers conflict: I hear happy, I see crazy. Isn’t that what Halloween is? What makes us happier than being able to escape reality—even if we’re escaping somewhere that we eventually realize we don’t want to be (when it's finally too late)?

Every episode thus far (four have aired since mid-September) has featured some escape from reality that we’d all hate to be experiencing, yet the world in which it takes place is very much our own. If the psychosis of that isn’t “Halloween enough” for you, consider that peoples’ faces melt, others get trapped like “mosquitoes in amber,” bizarre men read other peoples’ thoughts, serial killers eat flesh, and those you thought you could trust turn out to be the exact people you can’t.

It might not be a movie, but for an hour each week, Fringe succeeds in bringing out the most frightening of October thoughts.

Score: 4 out of 5 murderous experiments.

Further Thoughts on the Marvel Film Universe

To add to my post below, I'd like to share a geeky memory. When I was younger, somewhere between the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school I was at the height of my comic book love. Specifically, my love for Marvel comics. I was a Marvel Zombie. At one point I was buying almost every single Marvel comic because it tied into the Onslaught* crossover. Which in some cases, was really stupid, because the tie-ins could be really dumb, as in Ghost Rider casually mentions he could be helping everyone in New York fight Onslaught and yet somehow the cover reads "ONSLAUGHT TIE-IN! DON'T MISS IT!" Needless to say, I was really excited about anything Marvel. So when one fateful Saturday, the Sci-Fi Channel advertised a "Might Marvel Movie Marathon," I was ready for a new change of pants.

This was before Spider-Man, before Blade. At this point there hadn't been any Marvel heroes on the big screen aside from Dolph Lundgren in The Punisher(which I hadn't seen), so it was exciting for me to see all these TV movies, like The Incredible Hulk Returns**, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Captain America II: Death Too Soon, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange. I don't recall much of these movies except that they had very little to do with the source material and they mostly sucked(except for the Hulk ones). But at the time, it was exciting to simply see any kind of live-action media featuring these characters. 

Now, while I don't wish a return to crappy low-budget versions of Marvel characters on television, I feel that certain characters would benefit from small-screen exposure before a movie was attempted. Specifically, a Daredevil series would benefit greatly from a serialized format. If it was given the production value of a top-tier series like Lost, and with creators of a high caliber, it could easily be one of the best shows on television. People complain all the time about the glut of comic book movies, well, I think its time to bring comic books back to television.

*Onslaught was a villain that was the result of Magneto and Professor Xavier's minds making a baby. It was an ugly stupid baby.

** The Incredible Hulk Returns features Thor. And the guy who plays Thor looks like the wrestler Triple H, which leads me to believe that Triple H playing Thor wouldn't be as bad as I first thought. 

Michelle Tanner is a Dick

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, or if I am venturing into new territory in the field of television studies, but I have discovered a trend in shows that have been on too long. It occurs in the final season, or seasons, of  most sitcoms and is a sure sign that everyone involved is ready to move on. Many people have written about shows "jumping the shark," but I am writing about what occurs after the shark has been jumped, when a network is just bleeding a show dry. 

Now there are many obvious things like fantasy episodes or dramatic departures of leading characters that point to the end of a network comedy, but there are two things that I've picked up on recently. 

1) Every single person in the cast is in almost every scene in every episode. There are very few individual character arcs because a) almost everything has been done with these characters in 7-9 years and b) every cast member wants plenty of screen time so that they're not forgotten before the show is even over. This is evident in later seasons of MASH, Full House, and now Scrubs. Even supporting characters like Radar(MASH) and Kimmy Gibler(Full House) manage to become as important as the main cast. 

2) Everyone becomes a vicious dick. Since, as stated above, most plots have been used up on the show, and almost every scene is populated with every character, many scenes are overstuffed with mean spirited zingers. I'm pretty sure every episode in the last season of Full House has 2-3 scenes where the Tanner family just makes fun of Kimmy Gibler and tells her she's a dumb bitch. I even think there was one scene where Michelle Tanner pricked her with an AIDS infected needle.*

So, we have shows that still manage to pull in ratings because of either nostalgia for seasons past or because people just want to see how it ends(although with most sitcoms everything ends with something similar to the status quo) and cast and crew on autopilot. This is the future I fear for some of my favorite shows like The Office and 30 Rock. A future of repeated jokes and unfunny dickery. I wish networks could focus on consistently making new quality shows rather than sucking the life out of every show that makes any money. Bascially, I wish Britain would take over Hollywood and make sure every show was screened by the Queen of England before it was allowed to air,  just like the BBC.***

*This may have been on OZ**

**Regardless of that, Michelle Tanner remains a dick. 

***Not sure that this actually happens, but I'd like to believe it does. And when the Queen doesn't like a show, she hits a button that drops the cast & crew into a pit of alligators. 

Joining The Cult As A Posthumous Fan

Being born in the 80’s, there were a lot of culturally significant things that I missed. Unfortunately, before I was born there were a slew of important bands that formed and broke up, all without me being able to see them in concert. When I first heard The Doors, I fell in love. But, as I like to do with so many bands I love, seeing them live was never an option for me. The day Johnny Cash died, I saw the Bouncing Souls play at Irving Plaza in New York City. They ended their set playing “Folsom Prison Blues” as a tribute to the Man in Black, but at the time, I only knew The Simpsons’ parody of the song, which Krusty sang. A few weeks later, the singer in my band played more of Cash’s music for me, and I fell in love. It was pretty poor timing. Christmastime, 2002: I knew that “Combat Rock” was a great album, but I was just discovering how amazing “London Calling,” “The Clash,” and other albums by the seminal punk band were, when I would wake up to hear that Joe Strummer died of an unexpected heart-attack. That long sought after reunion that was finally in talks would not go off at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony as planned.

Every band that I love that no longer tours or makes new music is like an opportunity missed, but for what its worth, it was out of my hands. The Clash stopped touring and making music before I even became interested in music, and Johnny Cash—though his last few albums were nothing short of fantastic—was certainly not performing the way he did back at Folsom or San Quentin. I’ve seen some “old rockers” live, and it’s obvious that I would have been better off having been born at least 20 years earlier. I defy you to find a positive review of the recent Police reunion. Even their drummer Stewart Copeland had nothing good to say.

I may have missed several opportunities, but I’ve done all I can: I’ve bought the CDs (or downloaded the tracks legally), watched the DVDs, attempted the solo stuff where applicable, watched the biopics, etc. etc. These things are out of my hands.

Other things weren’t out of my hands, and for this, I should be punished. I recently finished watching season three of Mitchell Hurwitz’s critically acclaimed TV show “Arrested Development,” and when that first credit began to stream at the end of the thirteenth episode, so did the tears from my eyes. This TV show was nothing short of brilliant, and for three glorious seasons spanning from 2003-2006, I successfully avoided it. This was no easy feat: all roommates with whom I shared living quarters during this time period were fans. I literally left the room when they would watch, because I just wasn’t interested. It wouldn’t be until it was too late that I discovered just how perfect a TV show this was, from the writing to the casting to the acting. And what really hurts the most is that it might as well have been my fault that it was cancelled. See, the show won tons and tons of awards, was so critically acclaimed that you could forget that it aired on Fox, and had some of the most loyal fans ever. Yet, it was cancelled due to lack of viewership. Imagine if I had tuned in. The difference I could have made….

I’m not sure if this is a lesson I can truly learn from. Before discovering “Arrested Development,” I took the cue from my friends and watched seasons one and two of “Lost” in time to catch the premier of season three. I bought “Heroes” season one and had a marathon viewing so that season two would fit nicely in my schedule. But these are the exceptions. I loved the first episode of “Pushing Daisies” but haven’t watched one since; after over $100 in expenses for the first three seasons of “Nip/Tuck,” I’ve abandoned it completely—and not over a lack of interest.

They call “Arrested Development” a cult classic, which is generally reserved for failures that have a small, yet extremely loyal following. Perhaps my lack of consistency comes from my fear of cults. Or maybe it’s more. Maybe I have some sort of sadomasochistic tendency that forces me to show my love for things only when it’s too late. Whatever the case may be, its clear that I have a problem. Consider this my call for help.