Pilot (S01E01)
Airdate: 9 September 2008
Written by: J.J, Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
Directed by: Alex Graves
Running Time: 81 minutes
Before the era of reboots and the much-maligned franchise revivals that have since plagued the cinematic landscape, J.J. Abrams was celebrated as a television visionary. His ability to blend the mundane with the extraordinary made him the creator of several innovative shows, the most legendary of which is undoubtedly Lost. Four years after the triumphant premiere of Lost, an event that fundamentally changed television storytelling, Abrams delivered the pilot episode for another series, Fringe. Set in the same genre territory as his earlier triumph, the pilot episode of Fringe showed that Abrams, while unashamedly referencing the structure and ambition of his previous work, would here deliver something quite different. It retained the visual flair and narrative ambition but pivoted from a survival drama to a procedural investigation of the bizarre, establishing a new mythos that would define the early 21st century’s approach to science fiction television.
The episode opens with a horrific incident that serves as a homage to the opening of Lost, depicting a passenger jet facing a catastrophic event. This is Glatterflug Airlines Flight 627, flying from Hamburg to Boston. Among the passengers is a man named Morgan Steig (Jason Butler Harner), who injects himself with an insulin pen. Within moments, he and everyone else on the plane is affected by a strange chemical reaction that causes their tissues to melt. The plane, miraculously, lands on Boston airport thanks to a new autopilot system, but it is immediately quarantined. The federal government sends a task force to investigate, led by FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), her colleague and lover Agent John Scott (Mark Valley), their superior Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo), and supervised by high ranking Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Phillip Broyles (Lance Riddick). This initial sequence sets the tone for the series, delivering visceral horror and establishing the bureaucratic machinery that will drive the investigation.
Their investigation leads Dunham and Scott to a storage facility, where they discover a secret lab that might be the place where the compound that created the disaster was produced. The atmosphere is tense as they search for clues, but the situation escalates when Scott spots a suspect and begins chasing him. The suspect, in a desperate bid to escape, causes an explosion. Dunham escapes with negligible injuries, but Scott is covered with the same chemicals and begins to deteriorate, albeit slowly. Stranded in Boston and desperate to save her lover’s life, Dunham begins researching the phenomenon. She finds that the person who described exactly the same phenomenon is Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), a talented researcher who in the 1970s ran a Harvard lab specialising in so-called “fringe science”.
There is, however, a significant problem. Bishop is currently held in St. Clare psychiatric hospital, having been sent there seventeen years earlier after a lab explosion that claimed the life of one of his assistants. To contact him, Dunham must, according to the law, get permission of his legal guardian. That guardian is Bishop’s estranged son, Peter (Joshua Jackson), an intelligent young man with a penchant for some not-so-legal businesses. Dunham uses knowledge about those activities as leverage to make Peter go back to Boston. Walter insists that he can only help her if he is allowed out of the hospital, and Peter agrees to take him in. Walter returns to his old lab, where he will be assisted by Peter, Olivia, and young FBI agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole). The dynamic between the estranged father and son immediately establishes the emotional core of the series, balancing Peter’s cynicism and legal savvy with Walter’s immediate and unfiltered genius.
As John’s condition deteriorates, Olivia agrees to participate in an experimental procedure designed to synchronise her and John’s brainwaves. This procedure involves Olivia floating in a water-filled tank after receiving LSD, allowing her to enter John’s subconscious and obtain information about the suspect. This sequence is a pivotal moment in the episode, bridging the gap between traditional procedural drama and surreal science fiction. The procedure works, and the suspect is arrested. It turns out the suspect is Robert Steig, Morgan Steig’s twin brother and a former employee of Massive Dynamic, a powerful Boston-based corporation whose CEO and founder is the mysterious William Bell, Walter’s old colleague and friend. Olivia, while questioning Massive Dynamic’s senior executive Nina Sharp (Blair Brown), learns about a mysterious “Pattern” but also discovers that her own security clearance is lower than Sharp’s. While being questioned, Steig tells Olivia about being harassed by a federal agent and having details recorded on tape. Olivia obtains the tape only to discover, with horror, that John was in contact with the suspect before the raid on the storage facility. John wakes up in hospital and murders Steig, before attempting to escape; he dies in a car crash. Heartbroken Olivia is approached by Broyles, who explains that the “Pattern” represents a threat to humanity that must be dealt with and that Dunham might be part of that effort. She convinces John and Walter to continue assisting her.
The comparisons between the pilot episodes of Lost and Fringe are unavoidable. Both having large budgets, with Fringe reportedly costing 10 million US$, show that the latter will be slightly inferior to its predecessor in terms of sheer spectacle, but still functional. Fringe at its beginning, like Lost, appears to employ the “mystery box” approach to storytelling, where answers are doled out slowly and questions are deliberately withheld to create intrigue. However, the style is very different from the island setting of Lost. Fringe moves with a frenetic city pace, utilising unseen entities and corporate conspiracies rather than supernatural beasts in a jungle. The setting is grounded in the real world, yet alienated by the encroaching "fringe" phenomena, whereas Lost grounded its otherworldly elements in a primal, natural setting.
Many critics, based on the general premise of an FBI team investigating the paranormal, saw Fringe as a variation of The X-Files. Yet, the pilot shows that this too will be very different. Instead of two FBI agents clashing over their belief in the paranormal, we have an FBI agent paired with an eccentric scientist and his no-nonsense, slightly cynical son. This dynamic shifts the focus from skepticism versus belief to the clash between established science and fringe science, mediated by the complex relationship between a father and son. The "monster of the week" becomes a tool to explore the scientific implications rather than just a scare tactic.
Alex Graves directs the episode in a rapid pace, trying to stuff as much material and exposition into the feature-length episode as possible. This, among other things, includes using 3D surreal title cards which are used to tell the audience where certain scenes take place. These transitions add a layer of visual flair that Abrams is known for, distinguishing the series from more traditional procedurals. There are plenty of chases and explosions, so Fringe won’t be lacking in action. However, the exposition can feel slightly rushed, a side effect of trying to establish three main characters, a large supporting cast, a mythology, and a corporate conspiracy in a single episode.
The episode, apart from adding the first hints of the mythology arc, also adds extra emotional weight by having the protagonist experience the worst possible heartbreak. Olivia does everything to save her romantic partner only to realise that the romantic partner was the villain all along. The chemistry between Anna Torv and Mark Valley is very palpable, and not very surprising considering that those two were real-life couple and got married during production. Their on-screen relationship provides the episode with a genuine sense of stakes and tragedy that elevates it above standard genre fare.
The cast in the episode, and the series in general, is very strong. Australian actor John Noble, until that time best known for playing Denethor in The Lord of the Rings, relishes in the role of character who is both a madman and a genius, but whose eccentricities, like his admission that he wetted himself, make him endearing. He brings a gravitas and a sense of history to the character that grounds the science fiction elements. Joshua Jackson adds just enough amount of roguish charm to create a strong dynamic with Walter, balancing the son's pragmatism with his father's madness. Lance Riddick is also very good, although building a lot on a somewhat similar role of a sympathetic law enforcement official in The Wire, providing a steady anchor to the chaos. Blair Brown is also very effective as potentially sinister corporate executive with a mysterious agenda, hinting at the political machinations that lie beneath the surface.
Blair Brown’s casting is another homage to the film that inspired the episode’s most memorable scene – Olivia’s experiment in the tank. That film is Ken Russell’s Altered States. The scene, in which Anna Torv, despite Walter’s previous statement that she should be naked, appears in underwear, can also be interpreted as the closest Fringe will come to fan service for the male audience at this stage. However, the connection goes deeper than just the actress. The concept of the tank, the use of drugs to alter consciousness, and the visual surrealism are direct callbacks to Altered States, which is itself a story about sensory deprivation and the exploration of alternate realities. In Altered States, William Hurt’s character descends into primitivism through these experiments; in Fringe, Olivia uses a similar method to enter the mind of her dying lover. The scene is both a tribute to the film's legacy and a distinctively Fringe use of the trope.
Ultimately, the Pilot episode of Fringe, while not awe-inspiring in the same way that Lost was, is very good. It serves as a very strong introduction to one of the more ambitious and interesting pieces of science fiction television in the early 21st century. It successfully establishes a world where the impossible is possible, populated by compelling characters, and sets the stage for a series that would explore the boundaries of human understanding and corporate malfeasance. It captures the essence of what makes Abrams' work compelling: the promise of the unknown, wrapped in a package of high-octane television.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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