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J.J. Abrams Promises 'Fringe' Will Die Fighting
An anonymous reader writes "Fringe creator J.J. Abrams has said of the show's much-maligned move to Friday nights, 'Fringe deserves to live beyond season 3. If we're going to fail, let's go down doing the most bad ***, weirdest, interesting, sophisticated version of a series that we could possibly do.' Previous announcements about the move were more defensive, claiming that Fringe's shift to Fridays was an attempt to draw younger viewers back to the 'dead zone' of Friday nights. But season three has been confused enough in tone and approach that it's no surprise to hear yet another contradictory statement about its future..." Good episodes of Fringe have been great TV. I've really enjoyed the first half of the season and am looking forward to seeing what they do with it. A lot of mediocre SciFi has been shut down recently (Caprica? SGU?) and a lot of bad SciFi continues (V?) but Fringe flirts with greatness with regularity. I hope it makes it... even though on Friday it's not likely.
This is one of those series that I keep hearing fellow geeks talk about (like Eureka) that I just don't get. I tried watching a couple of episodes of this show early on, and all I saw was a pretty boring, predictable, and pedestrian "incident of the week" show with some pretty silly supernatural or pseudo-scientific themes. It reminded me of the X-files in that regard (with the notable exceptions of the frickin' *brilliant* X-files episodes that Darin Morgan wrote).
So what is supposed to be so great about this series, again?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
SGU, like any show, took some time to find its footing, but it had certainly started to pick up the pace.
Compared to the original two series, it was much better than the "go through a Stargate and everyone speaks English" tripe. Not that SG and SGA weren't fun, but they weren't "great scifi".
This is easily my favorite show. It's smart, fun, and Olivia Dunham is one of the best leading characters ever.
D
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...when Hulkamania runs wild on your program schedule?
I don't see how Fringe could possibly compete with wrasslin' on Friday night. I mean, that's what hardcore sci-fi geeks are really after, right?
yeah, fuck all that fictional science-based science fiction!
I want more drama fiction!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The big sales pitch was that this show would expose fringe science to the average person. I watched probably six or seven episodes of the first season and had precisely zero basis in reality. Fictional shows have a right to be fictional, except this was mismarketed.
The X-Files took a fairly simple plot idea (that the government would conspire with aliens for their benefit while possibly selling out the rest of humanity) and used that to tie together a good character drama. What really made the show work was chemistry between the characters.
In Fringe, I never connected with the characters. I couldn't care one bit about them, or their interactions. And since Lost, shows try too hard to have this mega-supernatural mystery plot. Abrams already showed with Alias that he doesn't understand the basics of good storytelling. He twists for the sake of twisting without ever keeping sight of a consistent and meaningful story arch.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Season 2 finished in May last year. It wasn't available for me to rent on DVD until September. I watched Season 1 over the summer and, because season 2 wasn't available I couldn't add it to my rental queue. I forgot about it until just now.
When I rent a DVD, the studio gets some money. There's no need to persuade advertisers that I might buy something they advertise, it's a direct transaction - I exchange money for something they've created. Very often, however, they don't even bother releasing the DVD until after they've already cancelled the show.
There's no reason for DVDs to take this long. They can produce the menus concurrently with the show and just drop in the episodes once they're done. Some shows have come out with half-season DVD releases at the mid-season break, which is great. ITV managed to release DVDs of the last two dramatisations of Sharpe the day after they were first broadcast.
In short, if you want to sell a TV show to a relatively small market, sell it to them, don't sell it to a network, who will sell it to advertisers, who will sell things to the viewers, and hope that after the two layers of indirection taking their cut that you have enough money to continue.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
After the betrayal that was "Lost", I'm no longer watching anything by J. J. Abrams. Apparently the latest model of attracting viewers is to keep throwing mysteries and questions on them, without any plan to ever answer them. This is not something I am interested in.
Compare "Lost" to "Babylon 5".
Fringe is one of my favorites, like a modern day X-files and the only show that my wife will watch on TV. I was really surprised to learn that it may be canceled, especially after it just got the 2011 People's Choice Award for best Sci-fi/Fantasy show. I guess it isn't dumb downed enough like all the other shows that people want to watch which good good ratings. I am ashamed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/fullcredits#cast Just FYI.
Too many SciFi that needs thinking, and SciFi must absolutely require its audience to think, gets cancelled and we only end up with "Cowboy in Space" shows :-( I think, to some extent, the writers/producers are also the blame, they start to challenge less and less of their audience, meander about, and soon loose their core audience. I would so much like to see shows which are just a single 22 episode season long show, where they have thought the whole story through, its closed. But that would never fly with the studios.
**Z
I rarely watch live TV anymore, as a matter of fact I cannot tell you what night anything is on since my affair with my DVR began...
Fringe isn't science based. Fringe is pseudoscientific bullshit based, with a light sprinkling of scientific words to try to fool...someone.
That's the biggest reason for the move. American Idol airs in Bones' time slot now and Bones is in Fringe's typical time slot on Thursdays. Bones gets better ratings because of the perpetual parade of buxom wenches in tight clothing being flashed across the screen. Apparently the womenfolk find that David Boreanaz fellow quite fetching as well.
I don't imagine John Noble (Walter Bishop) has the same draw with the ladies.
Besides, Fringe requires you to pay attention. You don't necessarily have to think about it because if you're patient enough, they explain it all in the course of the show. But that patience thing is a deal killer for most of the slack-jawed, mouth-breathers out there who dismiss anything even remotely based in higher subjects like math and science as boring. It's pathetic that people would rather watch garbage like "American Idol", "Real Housewives of..." or "Jersey Shore" than anything that requires you to flex some gray matter. It is, however, some high level subject matter and most superficial people I know have dismissed it without giving it any inkling of a chance as "nerd entertainment" and they can't follow it because it's all "sciency and stuff". Is that even a word?
It's a shame too because it honestly is good TV. It stands up as a drama as well as a Sci-Fi show. My girlfriend didn't give it a chance until Season 2 when I was not wanting to do anything on Thursdays so I could watch Fringe and the re-broadcast of another spectacular show, "Breaking Bad". Now she's hooked on both and is usually occupying the seat next to me on the couch, riveted to the TV for the hour or two for each show.
Thank God for the DVR though! It already records every new episode for me so even if I have to miss it, I'm still gonna get to see it! I've been eagerly awaiting the rest of the current season. If FOX cancels it like the morons they are, I think there should be another letter writing campaign on the level of the "Family Guy" debacle several years ago.
I mean, fewer and fewer people watch TV live any more, except for actual live events.
Obviously, it is hard to collect metrics on DVR viewership (and it is still something they're trying to figure out), but really what matters is:
1) Are you in a conflict-heavy slot? Then you might lose if you exceed the typical number of tuners on people's DVRs (dual-tuner is getting pretty common...)
2) Are you in a slot that often gets its schedule broken? I disagree that Friday night is a "death slot" for this reason. Think "sci-fi Fridays" back before Sci-Fi became SyFy and started sucking. Sunday, however, is a "death slot" because half the time someone's DVR catches the previous show because football shifted the damn schedule back. (CSI: Miami went from "Record and watch at my convenience" to "Don't even bother recording" because of this. CSI: Miami recordings became a simple waste of hard drive space because 3/4 of them were of Undercover Boss instead.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Thank god we have people like you. If we didn't have so many people who were eager to cancel anything that doesn't meet their personal expectations, people might actually be exposed to a wider range of choices. Top 40 radio might die!
My hat is off to you, sir, for keeping the world safe for mediocrity and sheep-like behavior.
Yep, the failure of "Arrested Development" was directly attributed to the fan base never knowing when it would be on.
"Family Guy" was, however, just flat out canceled because FOX had no idea that's massive fan base was not represented by Nielsen ratings. Hence the letter writing campaign that got it put back on the air and prompted the syndication of the show on 4 separate networks.
I wonder when FOX will figure out that you can't put everything in a nice little box and have it accurately explain the population overall.
At least it's acknowledged as fiction and (hopefully) won't be viewed as informative in the least.
Fuck you Discovery Channel and Auction Kings, Sons of Guns, Flying Wild, American Choppers, Duel Survival, American Loggers, Gold Rush, Swamp Loggers, Deadliest Catch, Man, Woman, Wild, Brew Masters, Storm Chasers, Pitchmen, Surviving the Cut, Swords, Howe & Howe Tech, The Colony, and FUCK YOU ESPECIALLY GHOST LAB.
sci-fi where the fictional part is the science is not my cup of tea.
You just disregarded 99% of all science fiction, including stuff from the old greats like Asimov, Heinlein, etc. Any story that has interstellar travel, levitation, teleportation, sentient robots, "the force", are stories where the science part is the fiction.
Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon's science was fiction; they shot the people to the moon in a cannon. About the only science fiction movie I ever saw that was true to science was 2001, and it even had a sentient computer (although HAL's sentience could have easily been pseudosentience).
Free Martian Whores!
I keep forgetting that he did alias. dam he's good. I just couldn't watch LOST past the fist episode, nor did I have any inclination to attempt to watch it ever.
I don't think I ever saw it pitched as being an accurate assessment of "fringe science". Certainly they were going on about how it was off-the-mainstream science but I didn't for one second believe that meant anything plausible.
Regarding the characters and plot, give Season 2 a shot. There was a well-publicised and conscious bit of gear-changing at that point to address exactly the Lost-like issues you mention, so it starts cranking out explainations for the existing mysteries (and new drama as a consequence of those revelations) while spending a great deal of time trying to develop the characters.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Which still makes it thousands of magnitudes better than American Idol, America's Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, etc.
"But this one goes to 11!"
There is a big difference between speculative science that is based on the information at the time and pseudo-science that goes against the information of its time.
What are you talking about? Fringe is a situation comedy about fringe science. I love it, it's hilarious.
Especially that wacky professor and his psycho alter ego.
The only better geek comedy is Eureka.
Wait; are you saying they're trying to be SERIOUS?
Thus spake the master programmer:
"When the program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." (Tao)
Nielsen has been irrelevant for nearly a decade. Cable TV companies get better data from their cable boxes, I could tell you from reading the database that at 11:15 pm last night the number of subscribers and boxes that were turned to a channel at that time, cross reference with the billing database and we can get age demographics as well as race demographics (Yes that data is in the customer database, Comcast mines you) to the point that I was able to give sales people targeted data to report to customers buying advertising.
My project only covered a single state and was a technology demonstration but was simple to do and was only SQL queries. Getting numbers from real viewers instead of a select few is far more accurate. In fact I used to correct the Nielsen data we paid heavily for with my numbers to better reflect the state.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ah, yes, House:
(misc characters in a room)
(some overwrought or cheesily-wrought tension)
(House makes demeaning and/or dismissive comment)
(Patient suddenly coughs up something)
(Dalekian medical devices go nuts, shooting paper and light and sound)
(everyone panics)
Commercial break!
Who's idea do you think it was to DO ALL OF THAT? NBC Universal is trying to devalue the network enough for Comcast to want it, hence the TechTV chop-shop treatment. It's not long for this world, as well as other properties... like USA. Comcast takes over, does away with all the innovative programming to air more soft core porn, explosions, and crap that sorta *kinda* passes for science and fiction. Goodbye Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, White Collar, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary. Blood and Chrome will get the Michael Bay wannabe treatment. Mark my words, it will happen.
FOX has Glee on Tuesdays, American Idol on Wednesdays and House on Mondays. All are hit shows that bring big ratings. They aren't moving anything out of the way for Fringe on those days.
If there wasn't anything special on those days, I'd be more inclined to agree with you but Friday is the only weekday that has nothing else on the docket that would detract from the Fringe viewership or lead viewers of those other garbage shows to turn away from FOX when something with that "sciency stuff" came on. They want to retain viewers for the entire primetime segment and Fringe following Glee wouldn't do that. Glee following Fringe wouldn't do that either.
If they moved Fringe to a Saturday night then I'd say it's on the chopping block for sure. But when Fringe debuted, it was on Sundays which was where 24 started as well and you want to talk about unwatchable science shows, that was a doozy! If anything, throw out American Dad and The Cleveland Show and put Fringe on Sundays.
Well, that's true; I have all the seasons of Alias on DVD, and after the first couple of seasons, it's nearly impossible to figure out who's betraying who, why, or whether they're really betraying the person or up to some other weird thing. It kills suspension of disbelief, because NOBODY could flip back and forth between different sides that many times, no matter how crazy or diabolical they were.
Also it was a little too "LA" for me. Their headquarters didn't look anything like a government run operation. I didn't see any cubicles, any Dilbert strips, any nagging posters about data security or timecard procedures... It reminded me of a modeling agency, maybe, or a magazine publishing house.
I kind of liked the nerd with the huge forehead though. Nice to see him get married and procreate. But in real life, that guy would NEVER get sent out in the field, or get captured and tortured, etc. And, yeah, he'd be "dying alone". ;)
And another thing: Jennifer Garner is a little too recognizable to be running around undercover all over the place, isn't she? By the end of season 1, EVERYONE would know who she was and what she looked like, and the instant she showed her face she'd be grabbed off the street. It's not like she ever really looked all that different. You can't just put on a wig and a new dress and TA DA! I mean, WE always recognized her, and we're just couch potatoes! I would think super-spies would be even better at saying "Hey, isn't that that chick who blew up headquarters last week? GET HER!"
Still, I did enjoy watching them run around and blow stuff up. Kind of a mixed bag.
Thus spake the master programmer:
"When the program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." (Tao)
For a moment there I thought "Why, that is very nice of Jar-Jar...".
Then the text post-processing kicked in.
Ah well... at least it WILL die.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
you forgot -- the team makes 7 diagnoses, 6 of them wrong, 2 life threateningly wrong.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I think you are confusing Science Fiction with Fantasy. Two similar but ultimately different genres. Fringe is Fantasy - pure and simple. There is nothing "science" about it.
Geek here. I greatly enjoy Fringe. Is the circlejerk of confirming your respective superiority to the series worth the fact that you are chronically incapable of enjoying a good show?
Isn't the real problem here the rating system that's used to determine whether these shows are doing well or not?
I consider myself a pretty average Joe when it comes to TV choices, but over the last 10 years I feel less and less represented by my demographic.
Personally, I feel Fringe, SGU and Caprica are all great shows, well written, well acted - all round entertaining. It really stinks to find out 2 of those shows are now cancelled and the 3rd will likely follow suit.
Sure it's possible that the majority of people don't share my tastes and think these shows should rightly be canned (some of the comments here would sure support that), but what if I'm in the majority? Then those networks are throwing good money down the drain and ruining my *escape* outlet in the process.
It's even more disheartening to think we're in an age where reaching your target audience is easier than ever with the internet; how can the studios/networks continue to base their decisions on archaic methodologies?
And as alot of people have already mentioned - what about those of us that don't watch the show "over the air", but prefer to watch them on our own schedule using services like Hulu and Netflix? Dont' we count?
For me, it's getting to a point where I'm wary of investing time in any new shows that have more than an in-the-moment gratification effect; Game Shows, Reality TV, Slapstick Comedy, etc... And those kinds of shows don't typically interest me anyway!
So don't bother digging into character backgrounds or relationships or back-story, don't bother with large scale plots and twists - I don't want to know, because you'll probably be cancelled before anything is resolved/concluded - I may as well pick up a book instead.
Oh man. There are a lot of specific episodes I could point to, but, really, the biggest problem was with their "the truth is out there" conspiracy mindset, combined with the fact that the rational/scientific Scully was made out to be a humourless bitch with zero curiosity who also happened to always be wrong.
I always had an aptitude for physics, and now that I'm older I'm wishing I'd gotten into it when I was still a kid, but back then I was under the impression that scientists were a bunch of stuffy drones who just pooh-poohed everything and had no idea what they were doing half the time. Now, it would be unfair to lay the blame for my perceptions entirely at the feet of the X-Files, but that show - and others like it - certainly did lead me away from science and towards being a credulous "open minded" idiot. It wasn't until I was getting into my mid 20's that the trend reversed.
I guess I could see older folks still staring mindlessly at live TV while they cut up their Swanson salsbury steak on the tv tray. But these are the people who wouldn't go out on Fridays anyway.
For anyone born after 1980, there's DVR and network tv.
I only watch 3 or 4 shows a week (life is too short for mediocre tv) but if you put a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you what day they air or even what channel. Any effect this "time slot" thing still has is diminishing rapidly.
But... let's assume for the sake of argument that everything they said is true, and moving Fringe to Fridays was an attempt to increase viewership in the young demographic on a day that's traditionally dead in that age group.
Then what? Just for a moment, let's try to think less like geeks. Do the network flunkies really think that Joe Teenager will blow off his chance to get to second base with Jill Cheerleader because Fringe is on? Seriously?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They have to kill off good shows by moving them around as opposed to trying to build an audience. Remember "Arrested Development?"
The canonical example of this would have to be "Firefly". Cancelled and then became the #1 best selling DVD set on Amazon.
God is imaginary
What was said: Fringe is thousands of magnitudes better than American Idol, et. al.
Your response: Raw corn is way better than shit, but you never hear somebody calling their friends to "come over for raw corn."
My response to you: "And yet, corn is actually a popular edible. Shit, not so much."
You seem to be suggesting that somebody was saying "WOW FRINGE R TEH BEST SHOWZ EVAR, NOT HORRIBLE LIKE DAT STOOPID MERICAN EYEDULL." In fact, nobody said that. Mister Whirly essentially said "for all the 'cringe' factor, it's still thousands of times better than American Idol." "A thousand times better" is a relative statement, not an absolute: You can be "a thousand times better" than something very bad, and still not be very good yourself.
So perhaps the problem isn't with our comprehension of your metaphor, so much as the fact that your metaphor was poorly constructed, and aimed at a point that nobody suggested or implied?