I admit that I never watched Fringe, the science fiction drama from J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci when it originally aired on TV. Our family has just finished binge watching it via Netflix streaming, consuming 5 - 7 episodes a week. Takes a while to get through 100 episodes even at that rate. Given the perspective of having seen all of it, I will do my best to give a spoiler-free review of the entire series.
Fringe is the story of a government team investigating scientific and/or supernatural events and crimes. Over the 5 season run, this story expands from a procedural format in seasons 1 and 2 to a broader story -driven format for seasons 3 through 5 as the show heads from one save the world type opportunity to another.
The main character is an FBI agent names Olivia Dunham, played by Anna Torv. She is work-focused and an extremely capable agent (a good strong female lead character). Also on the team are Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) and their boss Philip Broyles (Lance Reddick). Together they solve often disgusting or gruesome crimes - some seem to be geared to try and gross-out the audience.
One of my favorite things about the show is the character of Walter Bishop, a brilliant though damaged scientist, and his interaction with Astrid who, despite being a Federal Agent, is great as Walter's lab assistant. Her suffering through working alongside the weird things that Walter does in the lab is great. I also liked the show best during the early seasons when it was more procedural in nature and the character development was deeper and fun to watch. Later seasons seemed to become too focused on the events happening around the characters and lost some of the fun of the earlier episodes.
Throughout the five year run, there are multiple twists and turns with little clues laid along the way to where things are heading. Some of the twists are big and may lose some viewers while others are surprising and very interesting. As I noted before, I liked the early seasons best with Seasons 1 and 2 ranking in the 4 - 5 Mick Happies range. Season 3 and 4 are in the 3 - 4 Mick Happy range and Season 5 is at the 3.5 Mick Happy level. All of it is good and while my family would have liked a full on it all ends happily ever after, I at least can understand where the show runners were taking things.
A little blurry on purpose. Watch Fringe and you will understand.
If you like science fiction, weird occurrences and police procedurals with some laughs along the way, you should try Fringe. It will stick with you and make you think about the implications of what you saw on the overall story of the show. It will also make you care about the characters and hope for them along the way. Plus you can see it all on demand via Netflix (and probably other services). Enjoy
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