"Fringe" Is Fabulous: J. J. Abrams and Company Do It Again, This Time for Fox

Fringe, the new paranormal Fox drama series from J.J. Abrams and company, finally was screened for TV critics, long after an incomplete rough cut surfaced on the Internet. After seeing the finished pilot and interviewing the show's creators and cast, I can report the good news that Fringe is off to a fabulous start, and seems to know precisely where it's headed.

The bad news? There is no bad news...

Fringe, is fabulous. Starring Joshua Jackson and Australian actress Anna Torv (pictured), it's the story of a team of researchers dealing with cases and phenomena that would have been right at home on The X-Files. Abrams and the show's other co-creators cite such other key influences as the TV series Twin Peaks and the movies Altered States and Real Genius -- and Abrams, creator of Alias and co-creator of Lost, hasn't turned his back on television at all since doing big-screen work (on, ironically, such taken-from-TV properties as Mission: Impossible and Star Trek).

"I love TV," Abrams said today. "I feel so lucky to get to do it."

Fringe, most likely, will be the highest-profile drama show in an underpopulated post-strike fall season -- not just at Fox, where Joss Whedon's similarly anticipated Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, won't show up until midseason, but for all of broadcast TV. The Fringe pilot should hold up to expectations, but Abrams tried to downplay things a bit.

"I don't think any one show can save the fall," Abrams said. "But I think a great show is something that we all want."

Fox plans to promote the show heavily, as ABC did when launching Lost, and has pledged to reduce the ad time in each Fringe hour so that dramatic content will fill 50 minutes, not just 43.

"We have no excuses," said co-executive producer Roberto Orci (Transformers). "It's our fault if it doesn't work."

And while the debt to The X-Files is obvious, another co-executive producer said after the press conference he saw a distinct difference.

"X-Files, in our opinion, was spectacular," said Jeff Pinkner, who directed the Fringe pilot, "but was made at a time when there was a lot of information about 'What don't we know about our own government?'

And in today's day and age, it's the corporations that really have grown so large and are multinational, and very much are acting like their own unfettered, in many ways, governments. And with the power to hire police forces and deal with international conflicts, all of which serves their bottom line, ideally."

When asked about the massive corporation that may or may not control things in Fringe," Pinkner replied with a chuckle, "You mean G.E.?"

Perhaps, because the makers of Fringe clearly have as their mandate the old familiar General Electric slogan: We bring good things to life.