in-fringe

Pilot (Fringe)

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 is cast as his son, Peter.

While the Fringe pilot episode was set in and around Boston, aside from some exterior shots, production was largely set in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, though later episodes will be filmed in New York. Fox has stated, with reviewers noting it as well, that the $10 million production cost makes the pilot one the most expensive one created in television history. It was generally well received by critics upon premiere.

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. Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Torv) is added to the interagency task force headed by Phillip Broyles (Reddick). Following a tip, Agent Dunham and her partner, Agent Scott, are sent to a storage facility where they uncover a biochemical laboratory, which explodes when detonated by a suspect they are chasing. Agent Scott is affected by the chemicals released in the explosion. He is placed into an artificial coma to slow the progression of the chemical reaction.

While investigating a possible cure to Scott's condition, Dunham recruits Peter Bishop (Jackson) to gain access to his father Walter Bishop (Noble), whose top-secret work at Harvard in "fringe science" resulted in him being sent to a mental institution. Agent Dunham, Peter and Walter Bishop use some of Bishop's fringe science"to synchronize Dunham's brainwaves with the comatose Scott's so that she can read his mind and see the face of the man from the storage facility. Dr. Bishop claims that syncing brainwaves, and even reanimating the dead, can be accomplished up to six hours after death.

The discovery that the person who infected the airplane is the twin brother of the man from the storage unit explosion leads to his arrest. The suspect initially refuses to provide a list of the ingredients present in the toxin, but Peter's threat of exposing him to the chemicals forces 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 in on the attack from the beginning.

While she races back to the hospital, Scott awakens and kills the twin brother of the suspect. He is chased by Dunham, but crashes his car and is mortally wounded. 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 a woman working for Massive Dynamics—a company founded by Walter Bishops old lab partner—orders that Scott be interrogated, since he's only been dead for five hours.

Production

The pilot cost $10 million to produce, possibly putting it on par with the Abrams-produced pilot of Lost as the most costly in television history.

The pilot utilized a production technique known as a "phantom ring", wherein the sound editors add the sound of a soft but clear telephone ring ocur in the background of a scene, similar to what one would have in their home, which re-focuses the attention of the viewer back to a character or an instance of dialogue in the program. Goodman also points to the usage of the "bubble graphics" to note a change in location tends to distract the viewer.

Also initiated in the pilot is an Alternate reality game in the introduction of a web address within the episode for Massive Dynamic.

The pilot was released through BitTorrent clients a full three months before its broadcast, fueling speculation that it was leaked deliberately to foment interest in the program, noting the prior instance of leaking of the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles second season premiere, also a Fox network program.

The cow used in the pilot episode is different from the one that will be used in the remaining episodes (as Canadian livestock isn't allowed to be brought into the US). Production team members note that they are prepared to paint new cows if viewers note the differences in spots.

Reception

The episode was seen by 9.13 million viewers and garnered 3.2/9 Nielsen Ratings among adults 18-49, with ratings improving over the course of the episode.

The episode received generally mixed reviews. Barry Garron at 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 it 7.6 out of 10, calling it "a lackluster pilot that promises to be a pretty good series. While Tim Goodman of San Francisco Chronicle remarked the it to be "boundlessly ambitious", 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 Canadian Globe and Mail, calls the pilot "splendidly made", though he considers the instance of Torv stripping down to a bikini during the episode "Indulgent" and questions the wisdom of making "her body an object of scrutiny" in the first episode.