[I'm taking a chance posting this, I know. It's risky, but I'm too impatient to wait. The thing is, I'm only about half a dozen episodes into season two, so I could be spoiled pretty easily. Please be kind if you share your thoughts in a comment!]
Though I'm late to the party, I have finally started watching Fringe and I'm totally sold. It's entertaining, well-written, creative, humourous, intelligent, and it delivers on the eye candy. I understand where the comparisons to The X-Files come from, but as I mentioned in reference to Warehouse 13, rehashing an old formula doesn't have to be a bad thing. In this case, I'd say Fringe has obvious elements of The X-Files, but I like the more direct approach it takes to unfolding a story. In that regard, it reminds me of Odyssey 5, another creative, intelligent mystery. In fact, many of the things I said about that show apply to Fringe as well.
Having accepted that the impossible can happen in this universe, I've found nothing that's unbelievable enough to pull me out of the show, for all the completely fucked up things they've come up with. I like that some of the explanations for phenomena are incomplete and raise more questions than they answer. And I appreciate that in-universe logic seems to be consistent. You know, I wonder if I'd have noticed that if it wasn't for Lost.
For the most part I like all the characters. Dunham can be a little irritating at times, but mostly I've grown to like her quite a bit. Not surprisingly, I adore Walter. Aside from being brilliant and hilarious and endearing, he makes me want to trip again. As I previously mentioned, I really enjoy his relationship with Peter. Sometimes it gets a little heavy on the sentimentality, but nothing I mind too much.
I also like Broyles a lot, but Dunham's exchanges with him tend toward the really awful for some reason. They nearly always strike me as stilted and formulaic, as though the writers weren't thinking about how these two unique characters would actually relate, as much as they were drawing on a template of Things FBI Agents Say to Each Other. I will concede, though, that it's gotten better in season two. Which reminds me, I definitely liked the relationship between Dunham & her partner Charlie Francis. Man, did season two start on a shitty note.
Something I find surprising about Dunham, and the show in general, is the lack of gratuitous sexualizing. There's no doubt Anna Torv (the actor who plays Dunham) was chosen for the role in part because she's attractive -- we sure don't like our heroes to be ugly. However, Dunham's physical attributes as they apply to her job are pretty much about her ability to kick ass and fire a gun on target. Oh, and her crazy history as Walter & Bell's guinea pig. But still, not about how hot she is. When even the best shows fall back on female characters as sexual objects, it's nice to see writers who eschew such a lazy tactic.
Finally, it would be pretty cool if we found out Dunham is so special because she's some wacky lab-grown hybrid of Walter, William Bell and a time traveling Gene the cow, and not only can she survive traveling between worlds, but she also makes one hell of a root beer float, ifyouknowwhatImean.
