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Pilot (Fringe)
Encyclopedia
The pilot episode of the television series Fringe
premiered on the Fox
network on September 9, 2008. The pilot
was written by series creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman
, and Roberto Orci
, and directed by Alex Graves
. The episode introduces the character Olivia Dunham, portrayed by Anna Torv
, an FBI special agent drawn into the world of applied fringe science
. John Noble
portrays Dr. Walter Bishop, a scientist formerly incarcerated in a mental institution for over seventeen years. Joshua Jackson
plays his son, Peter, who is hired by Olivia to assist with Walter's work.
While the pilot was set in and around Boston, production was set in Toronto
, Canada. The episode cost $10 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive pilots in television history. The pilot was leaked online three months prior to its broadcast on television. There was speculation that it was leaked deliberately to increase interest in the program; however, this was denied by executive producer Bryan Burk
. The episode was generally well received by critics, and was watched by 9.13 million American viewers on its premiere.
It is noted that the pilot is actually a 2 hour episode, running for 90 minutes, even so the episode only is counted as one by the creators and fans.
Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Torv) and her partner, Agent Scott (Mark Valley
), are together in bed at a motel, where Scott says that he loves her. Dunham receives a call from her boss Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo
), who tells her to head to the airport. Dunham is added to the interagency task force headed by Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick
).
Following a tip, Dunham and Scott are sent to a storage facility where they uncover a biochemical laboratory, which explodes when detonated by a suspect they are chasing. Scott is affected by the chemicals released in the explosion, and is placed into an artificial coma to slow the progression of the chemical reaction. While investigating a possible cure to Scott's condition, Dunham blackmails Peter Bishop (Jackson) to gain access to his father Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble
), whose top-secret work at Harvard in "fringe science" resulted in him being sent to a mental institution. Dunham manages to release Walter from the institution; however, he becomes enraged when he discovers his laboratory in Harvard has been shut down. Broyles reopens the laboratory, where Dunham transfers Scott's body. To identify the man from the storage facility, Walter synchronizes Dunham's brainwaves with the comatose Scott's so that she can read his mind. Walter claims that syncing brainwaves, and even reanimating the dead, can be accomplished up to six hours after death. With the help of Dunham's assistant, federal agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole
), the experiment succeeds. Dunham identifies the man in Scott's memory, Richard Steig, as a passenger on the plane. The team learns Steig's twin brother was an employee of Massive Dynamic, a company founded by William Bell, Walter's old lab partner.
Dunham goes to Massive Dynamic headquarters and meets with executive director Nina Sharp (Blair Brown
), who agrees to give her all the information on Steig. The suspect is arrested and initially refuses to provide a list of the ingredients present in the toxin, but Peter's threat of exposing him to the chemicals causes him to reveal the ingredients. The information provides a cure for Scott. The suspect reveals that he did not sell his chemicals, but was forced into what he did by someone from Dunham's office. The suspect leads Dunham to a buried tape recording of his phone conversations about the chemicals and the attack, where Dunham realizes that Scott was involved with the attack from the beginning. While she races back to the hospital, Scott awakens and kills the suspect. He is chased by Dunham, but crashes his car and is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Scott asks Dunham why Broyles would send her to investigate the storage units in the first place. Dunham convinces the Bishops to stay and help her with her new work, which Broyles describes as a task force to investigate events related to "the pattern". Elsewhere, Scott's dead body is brought to a high-tech lab, where Sharp orders that Scott be interrogated, since he has only been dead for five hours.
Co-creator J.J. Abrams' inspiration for Fringe came from a range of sources, including the writings of Michael Crichton
, the Ken Russell
film Altered States
, and the television series The X-Files
and The Twilight Zone
. The specific story for Fringe was developed during long conversations between series creators Abrams, Roberto Orci
and Alex Kurtzman
. The team was discussing several different options, and the idea behind Fringe appealed to them most because it contained a long-term story and characters' backstories which were not "evident but alluded to in the pilot". The team spent a lot of time thinking about the "trifecta of characters" that they needed to have in the series, and why there were uniquely interesting. The creators decided on the idea of a father-son story because it was compelling and accessible, "you don't necessarily have to know anything about science, because everyone has a parent and everyone has issues with a parent. And I think for us it's always about coming into it through character". Orci stated that the series is a combination of a procedural
and an "extremely serialized and very culty" series, quoting as examples of each, Law & Order
and Lost
.
The first actors cast in the pilot were Kirk Acevedo
and Mark Valley
in mid January 2008. John Noble
and Lance Reddick
were next to be cast, although it was incorrectly believed that Tomas Arana
had been cast in Reddick's role. This was followed by the casting of Anna Torv
, Blair Brown
and Jasika Nicole
. Abrams said that Torv was cast because she was a combination of "sophistication, great talent, amazing looks and a complexity that is the key to the character being an interesting central character". Kurtzman felt that she was someone "you want to spend time with", which was critical to a series about science. Joshua Jackson
was the last series regular to be cast. Jackson auditioned for the role of James T. Kirk
in Abrams' Star Trek and believed this is what impressed the producer to cast him in his television project. According to Abrams, Jackson's casting was "very last minute".
While the pilot was set in and around Boston, production was set in Toronto, Canada. The episode cost $10 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive pilots in television history. Following the pilot's filming, production for the series moved to New York. The producers were forced to hire a new cow for the remainder of the season because they were not allowed to travel the original cow from Canada to New York. Production team members noted that they were prepared to paint new cows if viewers noted the differences in spots.
Three months prior to its broadcast, an incomplete version of the pilot was released through BitTorrent clients, fueling speculation that it was leaked deliberately to increase interest in the program. Executive producer Burk denied the claims, saying that "we hate putting anything out there until it's done, and that's really the reason why you guys didn't get any advance copies". Abrams said that while the production crew "freaked out" about the leak, he was pleased that the "response has been much more positive than not, especially for something that wasn't completed yet". The broadcast version of the pilot had new scenes added while other scenes were removed; Abrams also said that there was "tightening and moving some moments here and there", and the ending was entirely different. Burk also stated that the composer, Michael Giacchino
, had not finished his score at the time of the leak, and the most of the featured music was temp music
. A piece of Giacchino's music used in the pilot was originally featured on Lost
, as it was created for that show, also created by Abrams.
in the key 18–49 year-old demographic, and was the 12th most watched series of the week. The 3.2 refers to 3.2% of all people of ages 18–49 years old in the U.S., and the 9 refers to 9% of all people of ages 18–49 years old watching television at the time of the broadcast in the U.S. The pilot officially premiered at the 2008 Television Critics Association tour, where it received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
gave the episode a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select 25 critical reviews—of 67, signifying generally favorable reviews. Barry Garron of Hollywood Reporter found it promising because "it is reminiscent of better-of-the-sexes charm". USA Today
s Robert Bianco said, "what Abrams brings to Fringe is a director's eye for plot and pace, a fan's love of sci-fi excitement, and a story-teller's gift for investing absurd events with real emotions and relatable characters." Travis Fickett of IGN
gave the pilot 7.6 out of 10, calling it "a lackluster pilot that promises to be a pretty good series". Tim Goodman of San Francisco Chronicle
remarked that despite "some flaws in it—mostly from a clash of tones—it still overdelivers on creativity, creepiness, fine acting and burgeoning character development". Chicago Sun-Times
Misha Davenport called it an "update of The X-Files with the addition of terrorism and the office of Homeland Security.
John Doyle of The Globe and Mail
called the pilot "splendidly made". However, Doyle considered the instance of Torv stripping to a bikini "indulgent", and questioned the wisdom of making "her body an object of scrutiny" in the first episode. Matthew Gilbert of Boston Globe wrote that "after the electrifying start, Fringe unfolds as an uneven, unwieldy piece of work that provides very few chills and thrills". LA Weekly
s Robert Abele found Fringe is "a smorgasbord of a show, but one a little too synthetically engineered to allow you the chance to discover what it is". John Leonard of New York
was skeptical of the premise and storyline, but found Torv "wonderfully played" her character. Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com
felt the plot was too over-the-top, and described Abrams as "the ultimate boyish idiot-savant imaginator... He can't exercise a little self-restraint".
The pilot episode was negatively received by the conservative "family values
" advocacy group Parents Television Council
, who named the show the worst of the week and denounced the "excessive violence and gore".
Fringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
premiered on the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
network on September 9, 2008. The pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
was written by series creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman is an American film and television screenwriter and producer.Kurtzman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he met his high school friend and long time collaborator Roberto Orci...
, and Roberto Orci
Roberto Orci
Roberto Gaston Orci is a Mexican-American film producer, television producer, and screenwriter.-Biography:Orci was born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother. His mother had left Cuba for Mexico after Fidel Castro came to power. He is the older brother of screenwriter-producer J....
, and directed by Alex Graves
Alex Graves
Alex Graves is an American television director, writer and producer.He is best known for his work on the hit series The West Wing, where he served as Producer, Supervising producer, Co-executive producer, and finally Executive producer. In 2007, he directed and executive produced the pilot for the...
. The episode introduces the character Olivia Dunham, portrayed by Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
, an FBI special agent drawn into the world of applied fringe science
Fringe science
Fringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, and is classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline....
. John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
portrays Dr. Walter Bishop, a scientist formerly incarcerated in a mental institution for over seventeen years. Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...
plays his son, Peter, who is hired by Olivia to assist with Walter's work.
While the pilot was set in and around Boston, production was set in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada. The episode cost $10 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive pilots in television history. The pilot was leaked online three months prior to its broadcast on television. There was speculation that it was leaked deliberately to increase interest in the program; however, this was denied by executive producer Bryan Burk
Bryan Burk
Bryan Burk is an American film and television producer, as well as an occasional screenwriter.A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Bryan Burk began his career working with producers Brad Weston at Columbia Pictures, Ned Tanen at Sony Pictures and John Davis at FOX...
. The episode was generally well received by critics, and was watched by 9.13 million American viewers on its premiere.
It is noted that the pilot is actually a 2 hour episode, running for 90 minutes, even so the episode only is counted as one by the creators and fans.
Plot
A man on an international flight injects himself with an insulin pen, which releases a biological agent that quickly kills everyone aboard by causing their flesh to crystallize. The airplane's autopilot system lands the plane at Boston's Logan Airport, where various federal agencies create a task force to investigate what occurred during the flight. F.B.I.Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Torv) and her partner, Agent Scott (Mark Valley
Mark Valley
Mark Thomas Valley is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Brad Chase on the TV drama Boston Legal and Christopher Chance in Fox's action/drama Human Target.-Personal life:...
), are together in bed at a motel, where Scott says that he loves her. Dunham receives a call from her boss Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo is an American actor. He is primarily known for his portrayals of Miguel Alvarez in the HBO series Oz, Joe Toye in Band of Brothers and FBI Agent Charlie Francis in the science-fiction series Fringe....
), who tells her to head to the airport. Dunham is added to the interagency task force headed by Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe...
).
Following a tip, Dunham and Scott are sent to a storage facility where they uncover a biochemical laboratory, which explodes when detonated by a suspect they are chasing. Scott is affected by the chemicals released in the explosion, and is placed into an artificial coma to slow the progression of the chemical reaction. While investigating a possible cure to Scott's condition, Dunham blackmails Peter Bishop (Jackson) to gain access to his father Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
), whose top-secret work at Harvard in "fringe science" resulted in him being sent to a mental institution. Dunham manages to release Walter from the institution; however, he becomes enraged when he discovers his laboratory in Harvard has been shut down. Broyles reopens the laboratory, where Dunham transfers Scott's body. To identify the man from the storage facility, Walter synchronizes Dunham's brainwaves with the comatose Scott's so that she can read his mind. Walter claims that syncing brainwaves, and even reanimating the dead, can be accomplished up to six hours after death. With the help of Dunham's assistant, federal agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is most famous for portraying the character of Astrid Farnsworth in the TV series Fringe....
), the experiment succeeds. Dunham identifies the man in Scott's memory, Richard Steig, as a passenger on the plane. The team learns Steig's twin brother was an employee of Massive Dynamic, a company founded by William Bell, Walter's old lab partner.
Dunham goes to Massive Dynamic headquarters and meets with executive director Nina Sharp (Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...
), who agrees to give her all the information on Steig. The suspect is arrested and initially refuses to provide a list of the ingredients present in the toxin, but Peter's threat of exposing him to the chemicals causes him to reveal the ingredients. The information provides a cure for Scott. The suspect reveals that he did not sell his chemicals, but was forced into what he did by someone from Dunham's office. The suspect leads Dunham to a buried tape recording of his phone conversations about the chemicals and the attack, where Dunham realizes that Scott was involved with the attack from the beginning. While she races back to the hospital, Scott awakens and kills the suspect. He is chased by Dunham, but crashes his car and is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Scott asks Dunham why Broyles would send her to investigate the storage units in the first place. Dunham convinces the Bishops to stay and help her with her new work, which Broyles describes as a task force to investigate events related to "the pattern". Elsewhere, Scott's dead body is brought to a high-tech lab, where Sharp orders that Scott be interrogated, since he has only been dead for five hours.
Production
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
, the Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
film Altered States
Altered States
Altered States is a 1980 American science fiction-horror film adaptation of a novel by the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. It was the only novel that Chayefsky ever wrote, as well as his final film. Both the novel and the film are based on John C...
, and the television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
and The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
. The specific story for Fringe was developed during long conversations between series creators Abrams, Roberto Orci
Roberto Orci
Roberto Gaston Orci is a Mexican-American film producer, television producer, and screenwriter.-Biography:Orci was born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother. His mother had left Cuba for Mexico after Fidel Castro came to power. He is the older brother of screenwriter-producer J....
and Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman is an American film and television screenwriter and producer.Kurtzman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he met his high school friend and long time collaborator Roberto Orci...
. The team was discussing several different options, and the idea behind Fringe appealed to them most because it contained a long-term story and characters' backstories which were not "evident but alluded to in the pilot". The team spent a lot of time thinking about the "trifecta of characters" that they needed to have in the series, and why there were uniquely interesting. The creators decided on the idea of a father-son story because it was compelling and accessible, "you don't necessarily have to know anything about science, because everyone has a parent and everyone has issues with a parent. And I think for us it's always about coming into it through character". Orci stated that the series is a combination of a procedural
Procedural (genre)
A Procedural is a cross-genre type of literature, film, or television program involving a sequence of technical detail. A documentary film may be written in a procedural style to heighten narrative interest.- Fiction :...
and an "extremely serialized and very culty" series, quoting as examples of each, Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
and Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
.
The first actors cast in the pilot were Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo is an American actor. He is primarily known for his portrayals of Miguel Alvarez in the HBO series Oz, Joe Toye in Band of Brothers and FBI Agent Charlie Francis in the science-fiction series Fringe....
and Mark Valley
Mark Valley
Mark Thomas Valley is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Brad Chase on the TV drama Boston Legal and Christopher Chance in Fox's action/drama Human Target.-Personal life:...
in mid January 2008. John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
and Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe...
were next to be cast, although it was incorrectly believed that Tomas Arana
Tomas Arana
-Life and career:Arana was born in Auburn, California. He grew up in San Francisco and studied classical theatre at the prestigious American Conservatory Theater and at the City College of San Francisco. Afterwards he relocated to New York and acted in off-Broadway productions...
had been cast in Reddick's role. This was followed by the casting of Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
, Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...
and Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is most famous for portraying the character of Astrid Farnsworth in the TV series Fringe....
. Abrams said that Torv was cast because she was a combination of "sophistication, great talent, amazing looks and a complexity that is the key to the character being an interesting central character". Kurtzman felt that she was someone "you want to spend time with", which was critical to a series about science. Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...
was the last series regular to be cast. Jackson auditioned for the role of James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
in Abrams' Star Trek and believed this is what impressed the producer to cast him in his television project. According to Abrams, Jackson's casting was "very last minute".
While the pilot was set in and around Boston, production was set in Toronto, Canada. The episode cost $10 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive pilots in television history. Following the pilot's filming, production for the series moved to New York. The producers were forced to hire a new cow for the remainder of the season because they were not allowed to travel the original cow from Canada to New York. Production team members noted that they were prepared to paint new cows if viewers noted the differences in spots.
Three months prior to its broadcast, an incomplete version of the pilot was released through BitTorrent clients, fueling speculation that it was leaked deliberately to increase interest in the program. Executive producer Burk denied the claims, saying that "we hate putting anything out there until it's done, and that's really the reason why you guys didn't get any advance copies". Abrams said that while the production crew "freaked out" about the leak, he was pleased that the "response has been much more positive than not, especially for something that wasn't completed yet". The broadcast version of the pilot had new scenes added while other scenes were removed; Abrams also said that there was "tightening and moving some moments here and there", and the ending was entirely different. Burk also stated that the composer, Michael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino is an American composer who has composed scores for movies, television series and video games. Some of his most notable works include the scores to television series such as Lost, Alias and Fringe, games such as the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series, and films such as...
, had not finished his score at the time of the leak, and the most of the featured music was temp music
Temp track
A temp track is an existing piece of music or audio which is used in film production during the editing phase. It serves as a guideline for the mood or atmosphere the director is looking for in a scene....
. A piece of Giacchino's music used in the pilot was originally featured on Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, as it was created for that show, also created by Abrams.
Ratings
"Pilot" was watched by 9.13 million American viewers, with ratings improving over the course of the episode. The episode garnered a 3.2/9 Nielsen ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
in the key 18–49 year-old demographic, and was the 12th most watched series of the week. The 3.2 refers to 3.2% of all people of ages 18–49 years old in the U.S., and the 9 refers to 9% of all people of ages 18–49 years old watching television at the time of the broadcast in the U.S. The pilot officially premiered at the 2008 Television Critics Association tour, where it received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
Reviews
MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
gave the episode a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select 25 critical reviews—of 67, signifying generally favorable reviews. Barry Garron of Hollywood Reporter found it promising because "it is reminiscent of better-of-the-sexes charm". USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
s Robert Bianco said, "what Abrams brings to Fringe is a director's eye for plot and pace, a fan's love of sci-fi excitement, and a story-teller's gift for investing absurd events with real emotions and relatable characters." Travis Fickett of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the pilot 7.6 out of 10, calling it "a lackluster pilot that promises to be a pretty good series". Tim Goodman of San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
remarked that despite "some flaws in it—mostly from a clash of tones—it still overdelivers on creativity, creepiness, fine acting and burgeoning character development". Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
Misha Davenport called it an "update of The X-Files with the addition of terrorism and the office of Homeland Security.
John Doyle of The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
called the pilot "splendidly made". However, Doyle considered the instance of Torv stripping to a bikini "indulgent", and questioned the wisdom of making "her body an object of scrutiny" in the first episode. Matthew Gilbert of Boston Globe wrote that "after the electrifying start, Fringe unfolds as an uneven, unwieldy piece of work that provides very few chills and thrills". LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
s Robert Abele found Fringe is "a smorgasbord of a show, but one a little too synthetically engineered to allow you the chance to discover what it is". John Leonard of New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
was skeptical of the premise and storyline, but found Torv "wonderfully played" her character. Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
felt the plot was too over-the-top, and described Abrams as "the ultimate boyish idiot-savant imaginator... He can't exercise a little self-restraint".
The pilot episode was negatively received by the conservative "family values
Family values
Family values are political and social beliefs that hold the nuclear family to be the essential ethical and moral unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the family and its values as an institution....
" advocacy group Parents Television Council
Parents Television Council
The Parents Television Council is a U.S. based advocacy group founded by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III in 1995 using the National Legion of Decency as a model...
, who named the show the worst of the week and denounced the "excessive violence and gore".
External links
- "Pilot" at FoxFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...