“It’s Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings!”

“It’s Friends with an edge!”

What do these two phrases have in common?  The same thing as this season’s latest addition to “comparison condemnation”:

“If you like Lost and X-Files, you’ll love Fringe!”

In a few poorly-chosen words, these descriptions each spell the most heinous four-letter f-word in all of entertainment: Flop.

As a rule, any time the producers have to try to buy their audience by such overt comparisons to fan favorites of days gone by, it’s an indication that the show has no merit of its own and, despite their best efforts, will not appeal to the discerning viewer.

Such is definitely the case with the new Fox offering, Fringe.  True to title, Fringe will not be joining the mainstream of television hits this season.  My wife and I decided to give it a chance to pick up some of the TV entertainment void that has been left for several years by the exit of X-Files.  Sadly, the two programs can’t even be mentioned in the same sentence.

X-Files was tremendously entertaining because it was smart.  The dialogue was natural and believable.  The actors were charismatic.  You wanted to believe that they were real.

Fringe offers no such benefits. While the plot of the pilot episode was ok, the dialog was clunky, obviously over-laden with exposition of back stories and sub-plots that would be better left to viewer discovery.  The characters are vanilla at best.  The female lead, played in the pilot by Anna Torv, was bland and brought an annoying air of “seen it” to the role.  There was nothing new or interesting about her; just another girl playing out of her depth as an FBI agent, like so many before her.

Maybe the biggest surprise (for some) that Fringe has to offer is that J.J. Abrams really is a one-trick pony, and apparently that trick is good old fashioned summer action movies.  He really seemed to find his stride with Mission Impossible III, which I found very entertaining (considering it’s a Mission Impossible movie). Lost had its moments in the early seasons, but since then the story has gone in circles so many times, I have to agree with those who think the writers have no idea where they are going.  Several times during the 30 minute experiment with Fringe (yes, 30 minutes…that’s as far as we made it) I honestly couldn’t tell if I was watching the new show or just a bad back-story episode of Lost.  So many of the elements were lifted straight from the Lost template, right down to the weird horn crescendo that precedes every commercial break in both shows, you get the strong impression that Abrams just kind of mailed this one in.

Topping off the list of complaints is the experimental gimmicks that I can only assume were Abrams’ attempt to freshen the Lost model just enough to trick people into thinking it’s not the Lost model.  There’s something very off-putting about having scene locations established by having to fly through the words “Logan Airport Boston” or having the words “Baghdad Iraq” laid out in large block letters across the tops of the buildings in a panoramic of the city.  We watch TV to be taken away, to be drawn into the make-believe world that is being created on screen.  Such lame gimmicks immediately smack you back to reality.

So, all in all, I found nothing of value in Fringe, not even a mild curiosity.  The entire abbreviated experiment was nothing more than a waste of time.  I can only be grateful I didn’t stick around for the full hour.

Well, the long dry spell that is Summer television is now coming to an end, which means the Fall TV season is starting.  I’m always interested to see what new shows the networks will come up with, so I tend to set a lot of new series recordings, of which I expect maybe one or two will last more than two episodes before I determine they’re completely lame.  I care absolutely nothing about reality TV, which seems to be the dead horse of choice for the networks these days, so my options are even more limited, but based on what I’ve seen, these are the shows I think I’ll give a look:

New Shows: (Ordered by premier date)

1. Fringe (Fox: Sep. 9): Supposedly more like a new X-Files than a new Lost, but it might have potential
2. Knight Rider (NBC: Sep. 24): I’ve got to see at least one episode of this, because the TV movie they made to try to introduce it to the viewing audience was sooooo lame.  They got the guy who made the Fast and the Furious to come in to help, but I don’t see how that’s going to fix really bad actors.
3. Life on Mars (ABC: Oct 9): Don’t know much about it, but it’s drawn some big names.
4. Kath & Kim (NBC: Oct. 9): Comedy imported from Australia.  We’ll see if it translates.
5. My Own Worst Enemy (NBC: Oct. 13): I like Christian Slater, so we’ll see if it’s as cool as Alias was when it first started.
6. Eleventh Hour (CBS: Oct 9): The latest in CBS’s string of CSI type shows.  I don’t know a whole lot about it yet.
7. Crusoe (NBC: Oct. 17): Only just heard of it, but it sounds different than pretty much anything else on TV, and the production quality is supposed to be very high, reminiscent of Rome on HBO, so it could be cool.
8. Kings (NBC: Winter): Another one I’d never heard of until just recently.  I don’t know much about it, but it’s got a cool premise.
   

Other shows I’m watching that are coming back:

1. Bones (Fox: Sep 3): This show cracks me up in how ridiculous it is, but it’s fun to watch.
2. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox: Sep. 8): I didn’t expect much from this show, but it’s actually quite good.
3. Supernatural (CW: Sep. 18): This is my only CW show.  It’s actually pretty entertaining.
4. Heroes (NBC: Sep. 22): This show has almost lost me so many times.  I’ll see if it improves.
5. Chuck (NBC: Sep. 29): It’s very tongue-in-cheek, but it’s pretty funny.
6. The Office (NBC: Sep 25): Funnier every season.
7. Life (NBC: Sep 29): I really like this show.  The premise is interesting, and the lead actor plays the part very well.
8. Pushing Daisies (ABC: Oct 1): Some of the most clever script-writing on TV, I think.  Very humorous, and Jim Dale’s narration (the guy from the Harry Potter audio books) is always awesome.
9. CSI (CBS: Oct 9): The original is still good, but they really go for the gross-out factor these days.
10. Lost (ABC: Winter): Of course.

So what are the rest of you interested in watching this fall?

Am I the only one who finds this a little creepy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

First, obviously, it’s kind of a sad day when anyone dies (except Saddam and his ilk, of course).

Second, who’s going to introduce us to all the “worlds” from now on?