Fringe

I've been watching the first couple episodes of Fringe, which I keep thinking should be set in Scotland since my first association with the word is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It's pretty interesting so far; reminiscent of X-Files, but mixed with, hmm, perhaps Castle for the girl-cop/guy-tagalong dynamic, though this show sadly appears not to have inherited a sense of humor from either show. This seems wrong, given that Darin Morgan is credited as one of the producers. Maybe everyone will loosen up later in the season? Well, Walter's already kind of funny, but I hope we see some deeper weirdness and perhaps even some goofiness from the other two.

I think the main thing I took away from these episodes was that Joshua Jackson appears to be Mark Sheppard's nicer, less-crazy twin. I kept expecting Peter to produce cats out of nowhere and mutter non sequiturs in a particularly impenetrable Irish accent. Anna Torv also reminds me of someone, but I think it might be someone from RL, maybe a girl I went to college with. I can't remember the name.

kungfuwaynewho, Olivia does remind me a bit of Ivanova: super professional, of the walk softly and carry a big stick school of kickass but willing to be more overt when necessary, not so great with the personal life. (Of course, this probably describes 75% of female characters in genre TV, but anyway...) Likewise, Peter's unexpected grace with interpersonal interaction made me think of Garibaldi.

Anyway, the "pattern" is intriguing, Massive Dynamic cannot be up to any good, and the very last scene of the pilot certainly seems like it's going to come back and haunt everyone, particularly as Mark Valley is still in the credits. (Speaking of which: who is the idiot who put the colon after "Created By"? And who is the idiot who left it there for more than one episode?)

I am going to go out on a limb here and speculate that fandom latched onto Olivia/Peter like a big ol' latchy thing. I would go a-hunting to confirm my suspicion, but I am wary of spoilers.