Tag Archives: Fringe

Books/Literature, TV

Inspiration and wild timing

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Earlier this morning -at 10:17 A.M. to be precise- I posted the following blog entry regarding zeppelins (you can read the post here).  The upshot of my entry was that I was turned on, via reddit, to a great photograph from 1931 of a zeppelin flying over a pyramid at Giza and that, in turn, made me wax nostalgic for my love of zeppelins in general, which had me noting how I used them extensively in my first published work, the retro-futuristic noir mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe.

 

Not 45 minutes later and posted on i09 I find the following article by Katharine Trendacosta:

The 10 Best Times TV Shows Completely Swapped Genres

Although it wasn’t presented among Ms. Trendacosta’s top 10, I wasn’t terribly surprised to find the Fringe second season episode Brown Betty listed among the comments as another example of a show using a different genre within its run.  For those unfamiliar with the episode, here’s the trailer to Brown Betty:

Interesting stuff, no?

So what the heck does that have to do with my similarly titled The Dark Fringe?

I strongly suspect my book, originally released in 1996 (Fringe first aired in 2008 and some ten plus years after my book’s original release and Brown Betty in particular first aired on April 29, 2010), was at least a partial inspiration for that particular episode.

Now, before you think I’m one of those creative types who screams “they ripped me off!” every time some work comes with some vague similarity to my own, take that thought from your head.  I don’t and I’m not making this claim regarding Brown Betty.

As I said, I strongly suspect my book INSPIRED that particular episode.  Not in its story, however, but in the setting/visuals they used.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I said before, I published the four issues of The Dark Fringe in the mid-1990’s and collected and published a Trade paperback (TPB) of the run in 2003.  The TPB caught the eye of one Scott Rosenburg at Platinum Studios.  He had brought the Men In Black comic book to the big screen (I believe he originally had a hand in its creation as a comic book) and founded Platinum Studios to promote other comic book stories/concepts for the movies.

Anyway, he found and read The Dark Fringe at the time the TPB was released and offered to present the book to the movie studios.  I agreed and he did.  During that time, he also managed to get another of his properties, Cowboys and Aliens, off the ground and made into a feature film and I know he presented my book to the people behind that movie.  And among that movie’s creative staff were some of the same people behind a little TV series which would soon appeared entitled, you guessed it, Fringe.

Was the Fringe inspired, at least by its title, by my The Dark Fringe?  I don’t know and it is irrelevant.  As it originally appeared, the Fringe TV show was clearly inspired by The X-Files rather than anything remotely similar to what was in my series.

However, when Brown Betty appeared in season 2 and my wife and I watched it, I distinctly recall turning to her not ten minutes into the episode and after seeing its film noir setting along with zeppelins and old-fashioned radio/computer hybrids, and saying: “Looks like someone on the show’s read The Dark Fringe!”

My wife was incensed.  “How could they rip you off like this?!” she said.

I wasn’t as bothered.  As I’ve already noted, the story presented in Brown Betty was nothing remotely like what I wrote for The Dark Fringe.  However, back in 2010 and to the best of my memory there wasn’t anything quite like the Zeppelin heavy retrofuturistic film noir setting that I presented in my book and which I now saw in that episode.

So while Brown Betty had nothing like my story within it, I to this day believe someone on the show’s staff (perhaps several someones) were at the very least inspired by my book’s “look” and emulated it for this episode.

This was not an unusual thing, either.  Several episodes in that second season of Fringe were clearly inspired by other comic books, including the season’s two part conclusion which liberally used DC’s multiverse concept.

So there you have it, for what its worth.  Whether inspired by my work or not, I enjoyed Fringe and I enjoyed Brown Betty.  Maybe moreso because they maybe, possibly, could have, might’ve drawn some inspiration by one of my own humble works.

TV

Fringe – the finale and final thoughts

A couple of weeks ago the two hour finale of the J. J. Abrams produced TV series Fringe aired.  It has taken a little while for me to get to it, but I finally had some free time to give the show’s conclusion a whirl.

Going into the show’s concluding two hours, my expectations were modest.  This season of Fringe, already reduced to a mere 13 episodes and touted before it aired as the final one, offered the hope of a good wrap up.  However, the final season’s overarching story line hadn’t grabbed me as much as I hoped.

But allow me to backtrack just a little.  I’ve enjoyed the series through most of its five year run, even though there were things about it that bothered me.  Fringe’s first season, for example, made note that the Fringe division’s overall focus was on checking up on and stopping instances of high tech “terrorism”.  Yet the show quickly became a thin variation (those less charitable might call it a rip-off) of The X-Files.

By the start of the second season, the show morphed.  Future seasons presented more than a little comic book influenced story lines, including alternate universes and strange Observers, as well as added mythology around Peter and Walter Bishop and the later’s relationship with/to Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), the show’s protagonist.  As entertaining as it often was, it quickly dawned on me that the writers had no real overall plan for this show and the shifts in themes and tone suggested very strongly they were making things up as they went along.  How else to explain our protagonist Olivia Dunham having a sister with a daughter and a dangerous/abusive ex-husband…a plot point that was dropped on us as something we would see more of and then promptly forgotten and never mentioned again after a while?  If memory serves, we never saw the dangerous ex-husband and I believe there might have been some dialogue at one point saying she and her daughter had moved away and that was that.

And what about Nina Sharp’s (Blair Brown) robotic arm, something also presented early on in the series and then, essentially, not dealt with again?  When this revelation was first made, I wondered if the show’s writers would ultimately reveal that the character was ALL robot, some kind of strange experiment Walter might (or might not) have been privy to.  Alas, it amounted to nothing.

Still, despite all this, I hung around and watched.  Why?  Because the show’s five main characters, Olivia Dunham, Peter and Walter Bishop (Joshua Jackson and John Noble), Astrid (Jasika Nicole) and Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick) formed a fascinating dynamic.  They were compelling characters that smoothed over whatever doubts I had about the stories and their inconsistencies.

Besides, can you really complain about a show that features, perhaps, the last acting work of Leonard Nimoy (following his work on the show, he stated he was retiring from acting)?

Unfortunately, when the fifth and final season arrived and the episodes began airing, the show had once again shifted into a new, more radical direction.  We were in a near future Earth where the Observers were in control and humanity was being subjugated.  The Fringe division was history and our heroes (now down to essentially Olivia, Peter and Walter Bishop, and Astrid) embarked on a search for mysterious items that would end the Observer’s reign.

While there was certainly potential in this, I found the season surprisingly lifeless.  Early on we’re introduced to a young adult Henrietta Bishop (Georgina Haig), the daughter of Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop, but her character is dispatched so quickly that I had no chance to form any sort of relationship with her as a viewer and therefore felt no terrible sadness when she was gone.

Even worse, the character of Olivia Dunham, THE main character of the show, was presented throughout the season in a surprisingly muted way.  For the most part she seemed to be on the (ahem) fringes of the main stories, often contributing very little in terms of dialogue and action, following the crowd but never really leading them.

But…would all those sins be wiped away with the show’s two hour finale?  Would we get a good resolution?

Unfortunately, to me it was a little more of the same.

Yes, Olivia Dunham did get to do more this time around.  However, the story as presented didn’t really get my blood pumping.  As I suspected months ago, the show would ultimately “reset” time in some way and render everything we’ve witnessed in this season moot.  Don’t believe me?  This is what I wrote back in October 31st, 2012 after the fourth episode of the season aired, the one featuring Henrietta Bishop’s death (you can read the full post here):

Worse, I suspect her (Henrietta Bishop’s) death will only be temporary and lead to the show’s ultimate conclusion/happy ending:  Somehow, Walter Bishop will undo the damage wrought by the Observers and “reset” time.  Thus, that day in the park that Peter, Olivia, and the infant Henrietta will play out once again in the closing minutes of the show’s final episode, only without the Observers’ invasion.

And we’ll see Henrietta grown once again, thinking back to that childhood, perhaps along with the older Peter and Olivia as they bury Walter and think back to the beautiful life they had together.

Pretty prescient, eh?  Well, other than that little bit at the very end about seeing the grown Henrietta again.  Naturally, I prefer my prediction to what actually aired, ie the picture of the orchid.

I guess if anything my observation/guesswork revealed that the show’s eventual conclusion had become something obvious to me and, therefore, I was just waiting for everything to wrap up.  Thirteen episodes, thus, were perhaps seven to nine too many.

Looking back, perhaps Fringe’s final season should have been a mini-series consisting of four or five hours worth of material.  Instead of an adult Henrietta, we could have witnessed the death of the young Henrietta in the park, and the subsequent reactions of the protagonists to this tragic loss and their determination to defeat the Observers.  A streamlined plot and a sharper story might have made for a better conclusion, especially with those closing scenes as presented.

Ah well, despite its flaws, there was fun to be had along the way.  While I’m bothered by its flaws, I don’t regret the time spent following Fringe from start to end.  It may not have been my favorite sci-fi show, but it was far, far from the worse.

General

Fringe Season Five…so far

Yesterday I caught the latest episode of Fringe, “The Bullet That Saved the Earth,” the fourth episode of the show’s fifth, and last, season.

It occurred to me a while back that while I generally enjoy the show, one of its biggest problems is that the writers behind the series tend to make things up on the fly.  At least this is my suspicion given the way the show started, progressed, and is now winding down.

The show has shifted abruptly since the last season to a bleak future where the mysterious Observers, a race of aliens originally presented as beings who could be in any time of their choosing and are extremely difficult if not impossible to kill but who are now much easier to pick off, have taken over Earth and are grinding humanity down.

But not if our intrepid Fringe division heroes can thwart them.

In this episode, what should have been a gargantuan story point was told in the waning minutes of the episode and, yes, to discuss it I should warn you…

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

Still here?

You’ve been warned!

In this episode, the now grown daughter of Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham, Henrietta Bishop (Georgina Haig) dies at the hands of the “chief” Observer.  The sequence should have been emotionally engaging and, at the very least, shocking.  However, and this is one of the big problems I’ve been having with the show this season, things are happening at such a breakneck pace that, as a viewer, I haven’t been able to attach myself emotionally with any of these characters.  Even the ones who have been around since the series started.

Not to sound too anaI, but did anyone notice how many minutes passed before our protagonist, Olivia Dunham, uttered a meaningful line of dialogue in this episode?  I mean, she was around, but it seemed like we were in the show’s second segment before she had anything worth saying at all…and it feels like this is the way the season has so far gone.

The show’s producers are so busy trying to show us this new world/reality but have short shifted us on the characters.  When Henrietta dies, we should have been floored by such an audacious and stunning plot development.

Instead, I felt…almost nothing.

You see, I barely knew the character.  She hadn’t been given enough screen time on the show for me to develop any feelings for her.  And her death, something that should have been shocking and emotional, instead felt like a cold, calculated plot device to make me feel something I simply didn’t.  Her character hadn’t earned those type of feelings…at least not yet.

Worse, I suspect her death will only be temporary and lead to the show’s ultimate conclusion/happy ending:  Somehow, Walter Bishop will undo the damage wrought by the Observers and “reset” time.  Thus, that day in the park that Peter, Olivia, and the infant Henrietta will play out once again in the closing minutes of the show’s final episode, only without the Observers’ invasion.

And we’ll see Henrietta grown once again, thinking back to that childhood, perhaps along with the older Peter and Olivia as they bury Walter and think back to the beautiful life they had together.

Just a thought.

Anyway, despite these complaints, I’m one to complain.

I’ll be there to the end, despite it all.

TV

Fringe renewal?

It seems every year we go through a “will they or won’t they?” renewal question regarding the TV show Fringe.  Those who have read my previous comments regarding the show know that I generally like the series…sometimes quite a bit.  Nonetheless, the show frustrates me at times for various reasons (I thought, for example, the start of this season dragged the whole “Where is Peter” concept a little too much).  Further, I’ve noted that the show’s first season bears little resemblance to what/where the series eventually went, a sure fire sign of the networks rushing it to air before it was at least a little more fully thought through (Btw, I expect there to be evolutions of story concepts in all and any series.  However, if you look at the Fringe’s evolution, you see things like the Fringe division tasked to “scientific” crimes/terrorism -the whole scientific terrorist angle pretty much disappeared after season one-, where the lead character has her boyfriend’s mind within hers, no hint at all that Walter and Olivia share some history, and Olivia’s sister and sister’s daughter, who were there a while with hints of an abusive ex-husband lurking in the bushes…all of which were eventually discarded).

Anyway, the renewal game has begun again, in public, as noted in this posting on Entertainment Weekly:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/08/fox-on-fringe-renewal/?hpt=hp_t3

Reading between the lines, it strikes me Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly is starting the process of negotiating for the show’s next season.  His statement is pretty simple: Allow us to purchase the show for less money and it will have another season.  Don’t and the show is done.

Like many things, we’ll see what happens…