Ah, out with the old, in with the new. The television season is dead, long live the next television season. And to prepare for it, I’m going to review new shows as the pilots become available.

Fringe; Fox, Tuesdays 9:00 PM

Strap on, kids…it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The latest J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost) series with what promises to be an epic (and, if Alias is any indication, confused and contradictory) mythology is Fringe, airing this fall on Fox. The only problem is…we’ve seen almost all of this before, and unfortunately, much better.

The two-hour pilot opens with a passenger on an international flight needing to use his insulin pen-injector, which for no good reason causes his skin to sloff off…and for good measure, everyone else on the flight is affected as well. After some…er…jaw-dropping special effects (oh, c’mon, you knew I couldn’t resist that one) and the opening credits, the focus shifts to a bedroom where co-workers and FBI agents Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv, Australian series The Secret Life of Us) and John Scott (Mark Valley, Boston Legal, Keen Eddie) are busy gettin’ busy when their cell phones go off.
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