Tuesday, September 9, 2008

UNLESS YOU NEED MILK. THEN YOU REALLY NEED A COW. So, Fringe. Half the fun was doing the "hey, there's that J.J. thing that he likes to do." The glissando before the commercial break? Check. The heroine with wounded eyes above square jaw? Check. Hopefully sympathetic female character trying to mask her Australian accent and sounding artificially pretentious as a result? Got it. Shaky "this isn't going to end well" overseas flight? Well, yes. Strange dream state in which symbolic images reveal secrets? Check. Um, events taking place on college campus? (I needed something for Felicity.) And there's Abbadon, too! But no Greg Grunberg -- are they saving him for sweeps?

I didn't find the pilot to be as compelling as most of Abrams' earlier work (it's tough to make the ex ante argument that a truth-is-out-there procedural could be as compelling as Lost). But it was certainly watchable and entertaining -- particularly the Pacey and Dad bits, and I'm a sucker for a cow -- and Abrams has earned the right to get the benefit of the doubt. I've never been an X-Files watcher, so I'll be curious to hear others' views as to how derivative (or not) this seems like it's going to be.

Just one eensy weensy teeny tiny request:

Dear J.J.,

Please, please, can you finally learn the lesson that you were supposed to learn from Alias but apparently didn't because you did it again on Lost? Namely: can you please have a plan for what the Pattern is ahead of time? So that maybe you don't find yourself in the customary situation of having 20 episodes under your belt and suddenly having to figure out how to tie together a statue with four toes, a big red ball of goop, a jar of smoothaise, six random numbers, and a fourteenth-century sketch of Jennifer Garner? Please? Thanks.

Love, KCosmo

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