fringe.jpgrating-3.0Already one of the most hyped and heavily-advertised shows of the Fox fall season (even though it won't premiere for at least another three months), "Fringe" is a product of J.J. Abrams and "the writers of Transformers" if you believe the commercials. Abrams is still riding high on being the man behind "Felicity", "Alias" and "Lost" (even though he directed the reprehensibly bad Mission: Impossible III) and this new show for Fox is reminding us hard of that fact. Oh, how Fox would like to segue this pilot into a "Lost"-level success for their network, but, if the pilot is any indication, all they'll be recreating is their own history.

A biological disaster on a plane segues into a weak and somewhat incoherent tale of an FBI agent trying to cure her boyfriend of some science-fiction ailment that turns his body clear, exposing the inner workings to look "cool". She recruits Joshua Jackson of "Dawson's Creek" to get his father out of the looney bin, as he was a secret government scientist who used to work on all manner of sci-fi bullshit.

Well, as quick as you can say "X-Files", you're up to your balls in weirdness, nebulous conspiracies that exist only to make the viewers tune in to find out more, and flimsy plotting. In fact, the whole thing reeks of the early 90's Fox era, including all the old hits like "The X-Files", "VR.5" and "Strange Luck". It's like one of the huge failures of generic Friday night sci-fi Fox televison was cracked out of cyrofreeze and had modern effects slapped all over it to make it seem like more than just another rehashing of the "government dabbles in pseudoscience and keeps it secret with the help of shadowy conspiracy figures so that they can control the world" type crap, which at this point just stinks of cliche.

The plot is desperately slim, providing very little of interesting substance for its fairly two-dimensional characters. In fact, you'll be lucky if you even catch most of their names. And if you're surprised by the ending, well then I have a series of children's books you'll surely enjoy. The lead, Anna Torv, is yet another import, pulling off a not-entirely-natural American accent and character, but is more or less decent, though not one of the more charasmatic or interesting leads of the past many years. Joshua Jackson, on the other hand, is and it's good to see him again after only catching him in fare like Cursed, The Skulls, Cruel Intentions, and Urban Legend. While some of those films were enjoyable (definitely not talking about The Skulls), Jackson has been severely underused, as he's a very amusing, amiable, and charasmatic actor and this kind of lead suits him. Unfortunately, the show might not be up to the snuff that would be beneficial to Jackson's career. Most of the acting is decent, but it's not the kind of character-driven writing that will really give any of the actors anything much to do.

The visuals take a step to be cinematic and give an above-standard appearance, but in this day and age nothing about the whole thing is impressive and it's all about 5 years behind the times and badly in need of much better writing if it hopes to make it through the fall. And knowing Fox's predilictions for destroying sci-fi shows with bad ratings, not even the "Lost" buzz and the Abrams name can keep it afloat if it's just a snore-worthy "X-Files" riff that brings nothing new or interesting to the table. In fact, it could stand to step up to the bar set by "The X-Files", a show I don't even really like, as it's still not there yet. Hopefully Abrams and his team will think long and hard about these things over the coming months, otherwise it'll probably be cancelled in six months.













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Masters Of Horror - "Pick Me Up"




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Masters Of Horror - "Haeckel's Tale"

haeckels_talerating-1.5"Clive Barker's Haeckel's Tale", as they like to sell it, is a real piece of shit.

John McNaughton's involvement is a selling point of the episode, yet Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer was eons ago and seems like a fluke in his career, the odd interesting and visceral movie amongst a sea of crap. More recent is McNaughton's Wild Things and a series of other second-rate unknown pictures. Why he was invited to be involved, based solely on the weight of Henry, is a question I will always ask myself... Well, I would say "whenever I watch this episode," but I will never watch it again.

Clive Barker's involvement is no great selling point either, even if it's just based on a short story, as he is something of an incredible hack and the few decent ideas he's had have come more out of stylization and concept design than execution, invention, or any semblance of interesting writing. If this is any representation of his work, he should have his ability to write revoked.

Though I imagine much of the script's blame is on "Masters Of Horror" creator Mick Garris, whose tin ear for a worthwhile plot comes through yet again in this turd, which is on the same level as Orgy Of The Dead, nothing more than a softcore porn with zombified people standing around to watch the sex act.

In fact, as stupid as it is, I'm surprised anyone bothered writing a script. McNaughton shows much more similarity to Wild Things in this movie than anything like Henry's dark documentarian style. It's a seemingly Victorian fable that quickly takes a turn toward the too-colorful and too-sexual, barely having enough material to even fill the time of the alotted show, instead padding it out with long sections of nothing.

If this episode teaches you anything it's that John McNaughton is severely overrated, Clive Barker can't fucking write worth a shit, and Mick Garris should only perform in a production capacity, because he's a shitty writer, mediocre director, and bad fucking judge of worthwhile story.

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Masters Of Horror - "Sick Girl"

sick_girlrating-2.0Lucky McKee is known for May, his artsy independant "horror" movie (moreso a weird teen drama about a damaged girl) starring Angela Bettis, a deserving and fairly-gifted actress, wasted in McKee's movies. While the movie garnered critical acclaim for being weird and portraying a strange, meek girl breaking down and doing odd, murderous things, it was shockingly mediocre to anyone that isn't some emotionally-damaged teen who identifies too closely with Bettis' beyond-strange character.

I have to question why Lucky McKee was invited to be involved with "Masters Of Horror". He is for horror what Wes Anderson is to comedy. Obviously, at some point, there's been some interest there, but their creations bear no real similarity to the genres one might associate them with. Unfortunately, there is no genre for "emotional fragile and psychologically damaged indie chick flicks". And, as such, there shouldn't have been a place for him here.

But there was. And he is. And the episode was like something lame dragged out of an episode of "Monsters". (Am I the only one that remembers that anthology?) I mean, really, this is sub-"Freddy's Nightmares" material here.

What you have, basically, is lesbian fetishism for dork-ass loser guys, featuring Angela Bettis as a nebbish. (Well on your way to typecasting now, Angela?) She's too dorky to make relationships with normal people, only insects, as McKee dwells solely in the realm of people (or should I say women?) whose social interactions are stunted by some kind of awkward inability to relate to others. And not in the cool sociopathic way.

Well, Bettis meets her dream girl in poor, sweet Misty Mundae, who does her best for someone best known for softcore lesbian porn as an insect-lover with a real interest in the disbelieving nebbish. Misty and Angela start a relationship that is complicated by a strange insect shipped to her that, of course, bites Misty and starts turning her into something else.

Really, there's no point in telling you any more than that. The episode was a consumate disappointment and felt exceptionally amateurish. Thankfully, McKee was not brought back for season two, but there was no new interesting talent added, so it's a small consolation.

I have no interest or sympathy in people that enjoy this episode, as it's just silly crap. I have nothing constructive to offer, as I have nothing but contempt for the lack of acumen shown by McKee at every turn. It's not funny, if you can even consider its lame weirdness an attempt at comedy. The effects aren't interesting, just seeming retro and bad. The acting is flat under the weight of the stupid script and Misty's acting inexperience, often called "naturalistic", but actually just amateurish.

I can only hope that Angela Bettis and Misty Mundae find better names to hitch their wagon to in the future, though it would be hard not to. The fact that Bettis is directing a film written by and starring McKee is saddening. But at least I never have to watch this episode again.

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