Fringe: The Complete First Season

Imagine one of your favorite prime time procedurals, one you watch year after year with unflagging loyalty (even though, between you and me, the show has become a repetitive bore). There's usually a team, and week after week they're investigating some kind of ghoulish misdeed. Now, imagine one of the members of that team is mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein… or Jeff Goldblum's deranged Seth Brundle from David Cronenberg's remake of 'The Fly.'

That's sort of what you're getting from Fox's sci-fi series 'Fringe.'

Created by 'Lost'/'Alias'/'Cloverfield' mastermind J.J. Abrams and his frequent partners in crime Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (who wrote the script for Abrams' recent 'Star Trek' reboot), 'Fringe' borrows a rough template from Fox's other paranormal investigation show, 'The X-Files.' The members that make up the "Fringe Division" investigative team are Olivia Dunham (gorgeous Australian actress Anna Torv), a brilliant young rogue Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his equally brilliant but totally insane father, Walter Bishop (John Noble, equal parts hammy and effective in the aforementioned mad scientist role).

The team is put together by a gruff Homeland Security director (played by 'Lost'/'The Wire's' Lance Riddick) after a particularly gruesome airplane disaster that's depicted in the pilot. It seems there's something going on, a global event codenamed The Pattern. The Pattern is a series of next generation science experiments, except carried out on an unsuspecting public. These incidents are almost always incredibly gooey (lots of monsters, viruses that do horrible things to your body etc.) A link has been made between the Pattern and Walter Bishop, so Bishop is sprung from the funny farm and made a part of the investigation (his son is essential, both in doting over Walter and in getting around some peskier aspects of the law).

As the first season progresses, a larger picture is revealed, and the link between Walter and the events of the Pattern are made more explicitly clear. The larger arc, which involves a terrorist plot that calls for the destruction of humanity through technology, is far more engaging than the day-to-day grotesqueries, but 'Fringe' wisely balances the two, so that one doesn't overwhelm the other (which was ultimately the downfall of once-unstoppable 'The X-Files').

'Fringe' is a construct, with borrowed bits from David Cronenberg's oeuvre (sometimes this is a bit too explicit - there's a direct rip-off of a scene from 'Videodrome'), Ken Russell's 'Altered States,' David Fincher's 'Panic Room' (where it got ideas for the "floating letters" location cards), 'The X-Files,' Rod Serling's immortal 'Twilight Zone,' and (I can't believe nobody's drawn this comparison before - maybe they have somewhere on the Interwebs), Warren Ellis and John Cassady's comic book 'Planetary.' But J.J. has always been this kind of creative force - somebody who puts his favorite bits of popular culture into a blender, hits frappe, and comes up with something completely engaging.

While the first season of 'Fringe' does have a few wobbly moments, most inaugural seasons with this kind of ambition do. (Look no further than the first season of Joss Whedon's masterful 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' to see the definition of 'shaky starts.') It is consistently entertaining, with stellar performances by all the principles and enough gross-out moments to have you squirm in your seat, week after week, even on its more 'off' episodes. And while 'Fringe' doesn't have the heady philosophical quandaries of Fox's other kick-ass sci-fi show this season (Whedon's 'Dollhouse'), it is a whole lot of fun. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more goofily provocative final image in any season all year as you'll find in the last moments of season one.

There's hope that, with its awkward baby-step behind it, season two will be even stronger. Cross your fingers and we may even get an episode written by Darin Morgan, who serves as a consulting producer on 'Fringe' and wrote some of the greatest, most intelligent and hysterical episodes of 'The X-Files' (including the freakshow town-set "Humbug" and the Emmy-winning "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"). From here on out, 'Fringe' can only get better.

'Fringe' is a beautiful-looking show and it doesn't look any better than on these 1080 p/VC-1 encoded transfers (1.78: 1 aspect ratio) on five 50GB discs. These discs are also region-free.

Look no further than the extra-long pilot episode, which packs more visual punch than most mainstream Hollywood movies, and involves human beings melting in an airplane, lightning zigzagging across the sky, arctic blasts of snow, a haunted mental institution, make-up and visual effects galore, and a wonderfully dynamic car chase, everything rendered in exceeding clarity.

Detail on these discs is outstanding - from the red brick and rusty machines of Walter's abandoned Harvard lab to the chrome on a bank vault where some inventive thieves are literally walking through the walls. Definition is good, textures look great, skin tones are solid, and all this despite some grain and apparent contrast boosting. These technical issues are minor (there's also some edge enhancement here and there), and never distracting from the overall visual majesty and complexity of the series.

The aforementioned final shot of the season is even more jaw-dropping thanks to this transfer. Just watch it, already!

Here's one of two major areas where this 'Fringe' set ultimately disappoints. Greater sticklers will have even more to complain about.

It boils down to this: Warner Brothers has decided to include a strong but far from outstanding Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track instead of a TrueHD track. Now, I know they've rightfully been lambasted for leaving TrueHD tracks off certain films (as was the case with the first go-around for 'Superman Returns' and the otherwise exemplary 'Speed Racer'), but after some minor digging online, it seems to be downright rampant on their Blu-ray television releases. ('Pushing Daisies' is supposedly one of these releases; still waiting for my review copy of season two, I'll keep you posted.)

There are two ways you can think about this: One, that this is an absolute outrage. There are far lesser films that get the TrueHD treatment. Now, this is true. There are some truly miserable movies that studios still deem TrueHD-worthy. And I can understand the desire to have the sound quality meet the video quality. This is especially true if you're going to be paying an extra $10 + for the series on Blu-ray. It doesn't make a lot of sense, really, especially for a wild and wooly show that demands the most dynamic sound system workout possible.

Then there's the other argument which is: Uh, relax, it's just a television show. After getting over your initial disappointment, you'll probably agree that, while it lacks the necessary forcefulness and punch that would have come with a TrueHD track, the 5.1 mix here is still serviceable. Is it great? No. Is it better than when you were watching the show on broadcast TV, on Hulu, or on some iffy Chinese bootleg site? Yes. Yes it is.

A nice level of atmosphere is constant throughout, thanks to some very workmanlike surround work, and while there is added oomph given to scenes of extreme terror (like the pilot's plane sequence and another where a man transforms into a spiky monster) and dialogue is always crisp and clear, it is far from the level of excellence that you would have gotten had the track actually been lossless. While watching certain scenes, like the sequence where a man, chased by razor-sharp butterflies, jumps out of a high rise window, would have really sparkled in TrueHD, here it lands with a whimper instead of a bang.

So where do I stand? Well, somewhere in between. The audio is a definite disappointment, but it is only a television show. I guess it's just hard to reconcile that it's a television show on Blu-ray, so there really are no excuses. Just working this out makes me even more disappointed.

There are also English SDH subtitles.

Major area of disappointment 2: The extras. This is twofold: One, there is only one special feature that is both in HD and exclusive to this set. The rest is in standard definition, even though on the back of the box it says, in bold typeface: "Special Features in High Definition." Except that, you know, they aren’t. Except for one. (The other Blu-ray exclusive is a writers' commentary track on the final episode, accessible via BD-Live, for some damn reason.) So, there's one aspect of the disappointment.

The second area of contention is with the special features themselves, content-wise. Anyone who watched the series knows that there are a series of hidden clues, which are dispersed throughout the episodes. While airing on television, commercial breaks were marked by a few seconds of these strange symbols (the producers call them "glyphs"), which spell out words. Recently, the code was cracked, but it would have been nice to know what, exactly, they were getting at with these words and if they'll continue for future seasons. I'm not asking for an explanation, but I just want a little bit of information - how they came to be, whose idea it was to create the code, etc.

Ditto, there are visual clues in each episode that relate to the next episode. For example, there's a butterfly sticker on a newspaper dispenser, in the episode BEFORE the episode where the guy is attacked by butterflies. This is also not addressed, anywhere, on the special features. There's a character called The Observer (played by Michael Cerveris) that shows up before particularly explosive Pattern events. Sometimes his appearance is subtle, sometimes its more blatant, but he's there in every episode and it's been like "Where's Waldo?" trying to spot him. That would have been another nice piece, especially since the Fox marketing department dropped him into other Fox shows, like 'American Idol' (I kid you not).

There's just so much missed opportunity on here. It's such a shame. I went on the 'Fringe' website recently and that had much better features than anything on the Blu-ray, including rundowns of Observer appearances, and the producers talking about the mythology, the finale, and what further seasons have in store for us.

Instead, we get a bunch of tiny features (my notebook looked like a mad scientist's journal by the time I got through all five discs), all between one and five minutes, which end up being repetitive and not much fun and focusing almost exclusively on the technical aspects of the show, without delving into its extreme weirdness or mythology.

In the section that follows, I'll rundown the groups of special features, as well as the individual features. If I went through everything bit by bit, we'd both be here all night. (This is definitely a case of quantity over quality.)

• Audio Commentaries There are three audio commentaries on the discs and one available through BD-Live. On the super-sized pilot episode, we get commentary from series creators J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. This easily the best commentary of the bunch, with Abrams keeping things light and informative, and his cohorts are engaging as well. They talk about what inspired them, how the show came to be, and are nice and honest about what problems they faced, both production-wise and tonally. The next commentary is by J.R. Orci (Roberto's brother and a writer on 'Fringe'), writer David Goodman and executive producer Bryan Burk for the episode "The Ghost Network," which is one of the awkward first episodes and involves psychic visions and people getting trapped in an amber like liquid while riding the bus to work. (That'd be the worst!) This commentary is far jokier and less focused than Abrams & Co.'s, but it's still fun to listen to, with everyone freely admitting that the first few episodes were far from the best. On the other side of things, we have a commentary by writer-director Akiva Goldsman (who won an Oscar for his script for the odious 'Beautiful Mind') and executive producer Jeff Pinker for late-season episode "Bad Dreams." That track goes into the mythology more, and how the series was shaped by the time the episode aired. Ditto the BD-Live accessible commentary track for the final episode, "There's More than One of Everything," with writers Jeff Pinkner, J.R. Orci, Akiva Goldsman, and Bryan Burk.
  
• Deciphering the Scene (SD, less than 2 minutes each) These are located on each discs, attached to every episode, and they basically very briefly discuss one element of the show - a spectacular car chase, a particularly difficult make-up effect, etc. These are too short and offer no real insight, and with a name like "Deciphering the Scene" you'd think they'd pick apart something in the actual narrative, not just present some boring behind-the-scenes footage. You'd be wrong.
  
• Dissected Files (SD, usually less than 2 minutes each) "Dissected files" is 'Fringe' speak for 'deleted scenes.' Again, these are spread across all discs and are very, very short. Nothing incredibly revelatory is here, although there are occasionally nice character beats that we cut due to pacing. Since 'Fringe' is actually longer than most network shows, with shorter commercial interruptions, it probably explains why the deleted scenes are so short.
  
• The Massive Undertaking (SD, usually around 15 minutes) This feature isn't present on all episodes, but there is at least one on each disc, and basically it's a longer version of the 'Deciphering the Scene' feature, just taking a look at a logistically challenging aspect of the production, in greater detail. Again, while it is mildly interesting, it tells us nothing about the actual show, which is an incredible disappointment.
  
• Evolution: The Genesis of 'Fringe' (SD, 9:07) Okay, so this is how the show got started and how the creative team came together. Interesting, right? Well, sort of. It's just that if you've listened to the commentary, all these little micro-features seem pointless and redundant.
  
• Behind the Real Science of Fringe (SD, 10:28) This is actually one of the more interesting-sounding features but it turns out to be one of the more boring things on the whole set, actually. Interviews with science advisors to the show and claims that what they're doing in the series is only a couple of degrees away from reality is all you get with this, so if that's your bag, jump right in.
  
• Casting of 'Fringe' (SD, 9:21) This is a so-so feature that recounts the formation of the 'Fringe' cast, including how Anna Torv was cast at the last possible minute. Again, this would have been more interesting if all this hadn't been gone over in the commentary track and elsewhere on this set.
  
• Roberto Orci's Production Diary (SD, 13:06) This is about what you'd expect, with co-creator, co-executive producer, co-writer Roberto Orci taking you through his experience on 'Fringe.' Not all that noteworthy.
  
• 'Fringe' Visual Effects (SD, 15:16) A slightly more in-depth look at the visual effects, but most of this stuff has been covered elsewhere. Unless you're really interested, you can skip it.
  
• Unusual Side Effects (SD, 4:32) Bloopers. Yawn.
  
• Gene the Cow (SD, 2:46) A look at 'Fringe's' most underappreciated cast member - Gene the Cow! (Spoiler alert: it's actually three different cows.)

I really enjoyed 'Fringe's' first season. Despite a somewhat rocky and repetitive start, the show is a solid, smart sci-fi serial that everyone should be able to enjoy (if your tolerance for goo is high enough). Warner Brothers' set for the first season leaves something to be desired, though, with workmanlike video, a lack of TrueHD sound, and some truly lackluster extras (there's a bunch of them, but dazzling us with quantity doesn't take away from the fact that the quality just isn't there). If you've got the extra money, and love 'Fringe' that much, then go for the Blu-ray set. Everyone else is advised to exercise caution. It's still recommended.