Key Takeaways
- Fringe is a sci-fi series filled with terrifying body horror and giant monsters that’s perfect for binge-watching.
- The show delves into cases involving parallel universes, human experimentation, and strange phenomena.
- Fringe does a great job of building emotional relationships between its characters, and it gets better and better as the story progresses.
After producing Alias and Lost, producer J.J. Abrams returned to television as co-creator of the sci-fi series Fringe. The X-Files Inspired by the TV series, the show features horrifying body horror, fantastic monsters that appear every week, and an overarching plot that involves multiple universes. The show first aired in 2008 and ran for five seasons. The perfect binge watch Thanks to its episodic structure, great characters, and a sci-fi setting that gets wilder and wilder and more continuous as it goes on.
Fringe follows a team called the Fringe Division, part of a joint federal task force with the FBI, as they investigate mysterious cases involving fringe science. Many of the cases stem from transhumanist experiments gone wrong, but as the series progresses, it also delves into the consequences of two parallel universes colliding. In the year 2024, when the multiverse is all the rage in movies like Star Wars, Deadpool and Wolverine Fringe trumps them all.
In the series, Anna Torv plays FBI agent Olivia Dunham, who is tasked with investigating mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop. The Lord of the Rings Stars John Noble and his estranged son, talented jack-of-all-trades Joshua Jackson plays Peter Bishop.
The series’ weekly mystery format makes it easy for new viewers to get involved.
Fringe’s early seasons were filled with strange and cruel happenings
In the first episode of Fringe, a mysterious man injects himself with something during a flight that releases some kind of toxin into the air, causing all the passengers’ skin to crystallize and die horribly. Olivia’s partner and lover is also affected by the toxin, and the episode becomes a race to save him, leading her to reach Dr. Bishop and his son.
Nearly every episode, especially in the early seasons, features some weird, grotesque, and very cool body horror.
The melting face in the pilot was gory enough, but the show pushes the envelope in many episodes, featuring incidents of brains melting, throats spontaneously slitting, tentacle monsters eating people’s bodies, babies growing into old people before they can even wash off the dirt from birth, etc. Especially in the early seasons, nearly every episode features some weird, grotesque, and damn cool body horror.
Many of the incidents in season one stem from experiments that Walter personally worked on during his time as a scientist experimenting on humans. After an accident that led to the death of a colleague, he had part of his brain removed and lost many memories of the experiments, becoming increasingly erratic and erratic in his behavior. However, when he encounters the experiments again, his memories return and he helps Olivia and her son understand exactly what is going on, and in many cases, find a cure.
The parallel universes are used cleverly, not only to enhance the story but also to make it feel grounded in reality.
There are no swirling Marvel cosmic holes here. This multiverse has depth and dimension.
Throughout season one, there are hints that something stranger is going on than just a scientific anomaly and a group of scientists who might be causing it. The team sees a group of bald, suited-up men known as “Observers” who seem to have some other agenda. A big twist in the season finale makes things a bit clearer with the formal introduction of Walter’s old partner, Dr. William Bell. Star Trek Leonard Nimoy lives in a parallel universe version of New York where 9/11 never happened and futuristic technology abounds.
As the two universes seem headed towards a collision, scientific anomalies begin to increase, leaving Olivia and her team with a lot to investigate. In Season 2, a major twist reveals that it was Walter himself who put the two realities on a collision course in the first place. Eventually, the alternate universe becomes the show’s own setting, with viewers following both the Olivia we know and another Olivia in a parallel dimension. Time travel itself becomes a feature of the show in later seasons, as alternate timelines are created and the team battles the plans of the mysterious Observers.
The show features a lot of lofty sci-fi concepts, but it also has a strong emotional component.
Complex, flawed characters provide the series’ strong emotional core.
Fringe wouldn’t be a JJ Abrams show if it wasn’t steeped in heavy emotion. There’s plenty of sci-fi and body horror whimsy to appeal to any fan of the genre, but where Fringe really excels is in the development of its characters and their emotional lives. Olivia begins the series coming to terms with the death of her partner and lover, learning that he was involved in an act of treason, and his dark connections to Walter’s experiments.
As the series progresses, the number of supporting characters increases.
Meanwhile, a large part of the series is also about Walter’s complicated relationship with his son Peter, whom Walter saved as a child by literally building a bridge across the universe. Following brain surgery, Walter needs extra help from his estranged son, and many episodes explore that difficult relationship to the point of moving viewers to tears.
As the series progressed, more supporting characters were added, many of whom developed wonderful emotional relationships with the main cast, including Jasika Nicole as Olivia and Walter’s FBI assistant Astrid Francesworth and the late Lance Reddick as Fringe department head Philip Broyles. Kirk Acevedo plays FBI agent Charlie Francis, who develops a strong friendship with Olivia and whose fate provides one of the show’s most moving storylines.
Of course, the show also draws plenty of emotion from each week’s case, with the team helping people harmed by the many experiments and paranormal phenomena wreaking havoc on the world.
The series builds to a fantastic ending that is very satisfying for the viewer.
The show just gets better and better as it goes on, building towards an incredibly moving conclusion.
Unlike shows that start out strong but then lose steam over time, Fringe has reinvented itself in fantastic ways with its alternative universe premise, with each season expanding on the previous one and taking it in new, and often weirder, directions. Many fans agree that the show actually gets better and better as it goes along, introducing new ideas and concepts to the show and building towards a truly satisfying conclusion in the final season.
Fringe is one of the greatest sci-fi shows in the history of television.
The show also keeps the story grounded while focusing on characters and introducing alternate realities, time travel, etc. It can be tough to start binge-watching a new show only to have the quality drop off as time goes on, but Fringe only draws you in to its wild world as it expands until the very end. This is rare, and part of the reason Fringe is one of the best sci-fi shows in the history of television.
