Fringe Benefits On Mars

I watched the series premiere of 'Fringe' last night on Fox.  It was a pretty cool little show about FBI agents who investigate crime dealing with pseudo-science or the so called "fringe" sciences. You know, teleportation, remote-viewing, psychic abilities, time-travel, and other strange scientific theories from outside the norm.  If the show sounds familiar that's because there was once a little show called 'The X-files' about FBI agents who investigated cases dealing with the unexplainable.  Do I mind this somewhat of a knock-off show? Not really.  After all, I am a sci-fi fan who loved the original X-files, so why wouldn't I want to watch a new version of a show I already liked.

I'm not sure how long 'Fringe' will be on the air.  Networks tend to not have a lot of patience for genre shows these days.  Besides, it's on Fox, which is notorious for for not being able to market their shows, even when they're excellent (Think 'Arrested Development', 'Firefly', or 'Back To You'; Fox has a terrible track record handling quality).

Watching 'Fringe' got me thinking about the new Fall TV schedule and if anything will be worth watching.  I gotta say, it looks pretty weak this year.  It might have to do with the shortened pilot season due to the writer's strike, but most the new shows don't seem to promising.

About a year and a half ago I got really into a BBC show called 'Life On Mars.'  It was a cool little British show about a modern-day cop who gets hit by a car, and wakes up in the year 1973. I know it sounds silly, but it was cool to watch a cop show that didn't simply dust for prints or look for DNA samples.  It was a story about how a modern cop used his knowledge future crime solving techniques to examine cases in the past.  Plus, the 70's served as a great backdrop for a bunch of non-politically correct characters.  Racism, sexism, and -ism you wanted was fair game as long at it existed in the past, which made the show different than all the other cop shows on TV.

In any case, just like American television had done before (Coupling, The Office, Big Brother, etc.), this fall there is an American version of 'Life On Mars' coming to ABC.  Will it be as good as the original?  Probably not.  I had this same trepidation about the American version of 'The Office' and I resisted liking it for a long while because I was such a fan of the original.  In time though, 'The Office' became its own show with its own characters and tone.  Once it stopped being a copy of the other show, I began to like it more and more.

Will this happen with the new 'Life On Mars'?  Who knows?  If the commercials I see on TV are any indication, the show might be terrible.  They did however get Chief O'Brien from 'Star Trek Deep Space Nine' and Harvey Keitel to be on this new version, which might be fun.  Seeing Harvey as a tough 1970's era police captain certainly sounds interesting. However, it is such a tricky premise that if it is not done right, it won't work at all.  All I can say for sure is that you should check out the original show if you have the chance.

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for more thoughts on this Fall's TV schedule.