Sky+ is a wonderful thing, but it does mean that what follows is a few days after transmission!
Hyped as ‘from the creator of Lost’ by Sky, Fringe is supposedly the next big thing and I’m afraid the rather plodding and lacklustre season opener didn’t do it for me. That may be down to trying to follow up a really good first ten minutes though. I still gave the second episode a chance...and more or less the same thing happened!
Five minutes of tense and interesting set up, followed by much plodding and the already stale conceit of the mad scientist who has been involved with all sorts of strange shenanigans in the past that are coming back to haunt the world. That said, the scientist character adds a much-needed quirk, strangeness and charm to the proceedings and John Noble was inspired casting (remember him as the mad Steward of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings?).
I find I can’t warm at all to the central character and do wonder whether it is the writing or the actress at fault. Effectively she is Scully for the noughties, but without the lines or the emotional range. And that may be where Fringe ultimately falls down for me. Effectively so far, it is X-Files rebooted and minus the well defined characters. I’ll stick with it to see how the story arc progresses, but found I was missing Mulder and Scully so much I had to watch the first X Files movie to remind myself what Fringe would so badly benefit from.
Heroes season 3 took another step back to the glory of season 1 with a real time-travelling twist and the best 5 minutes of TV I’ve seen for months. Not giving anything away for the BBC2 viewers who will see that episode next week, but suffice to say if you’ve bought into the evil of Sylar, prepare to be blown away by his future incarnation.
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