Fox: On the Fringe of a Breakout Hit?
J.J. Abrams by Jim Spellman/WireImage.com
After a season rocked by a writers' strike, shortened episode orders and a defecting audience, all eyes are turning to the new fall season and the hope of maybe a new hit or two reigniting the business.
"I'd hope that this fall is a reset," says Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly, kicking off his network's portion of the TCA press tour Monday (following a performance and panel from summer smash
So You Think You Can Dance; Reilly, for the record, stayed in his seat). "I believe in my heart it can be, particularly if there is a couple of new exciting shows joining the lineup or maybe some of the returning shows continue to find an audience."
Fox's greatest hope this fall is unquestionably J.J. Abrams' big-budget, high-concept sci-fi thriller
Fringe, which Reilly and boss Peter Ligouri aggressively pursued. "We offered him a series day one. We knew the log line, that it was sort of
The X-Files, Indiana Jones kind of thing. This show just feels right," says Reilly.
Abrams, characteristically ebullient about his return to TV- this is the first show he has co-created since
Lost- knows that in a fall with less new product than usual (an effect of the strike),
Fringe is getting even more attention than usual. "I do feel that ultimately any pressure or expectations for this or any other show could ruin a show," he said in a separate TCA panel. "It's like if you expect something that's going to change your life, no matter what it is, it's almost invariably going to be disappointing. I don't think any one show can save the fall."
Judging by the critical temperature- most critics didn't get a chance to see the pilot until it was screened in-house Sunday night, and reaction has been somewhat guarded-
Fringe's convoluted but kicky mix of science, mystery and creepy-icky horror may not be embraced quite as immediately as
Lost was, or even
Alias.
What the show reminds me most of is
The X-Files, but unlike that show's quiet build into a cult sensation,
Fringe is going to be expected to perform huge right off the bat. After a splashy two-hour premiere Sept. 9, it will be paired with Fox's biggest dramatic hit,
House, on Tuesdays. As another of the show's executive producers Roberto Orci noted: "We have no excuses. The attention that the show's getting, we can't hide behind, "Oh, they didn't promote it. Oh, nobody knew about it.' It's no one but us. It's our fault if it doesn't work."
Abrams says
Fringe was spawned from his fascination with the work of David Cronenberg and the writings of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook, among others: "that weird place where medicine and science meets real life." He also cited
The Twilight Zone, The X-Files and
Night Stalker as inspirations. Orci adds that Abrams' team, including fellow collaborator Alex Kurtzman, "sat in a room and kind of listed off our shows. For me, I always wanted to do kind of a real genius solving problems. Alex was a huge fan of
Twin Peaks and J.J. was a huge fan of
Altered States [whose star Blair Brown has a crucial role in the series]. So it's a cross of those things. Obviously,
The X-Files left an impression, but that's not where we started."
The premise involves a beautiful FBI agent (Australian newcomer Anna Torv, a ringer in lovely intensity for Cate Blanchett) who teams with a troubled genius (John Noble) and his estranged son (Joshua Jackson) to investigate a bizarre series of strange scientific phenomena. There is humor and conspiracy-driven suspense, but also a procedural element that may not demand as much of viewers as Abrams' earlier
Lost and
Alias did.
"
Fringe is in many ways an experiment for us," says Abrams. "We're trying very deliberately to do a show that doesn't require the insane absolute dedication to a series that if you miss an episode, you have no idea of what is going on." (Abrams told an hilarious story about tuning into an episode of
Alias during its run at actor friend Greg Grunberg's house and thinking, "I was so confused. It literally was impenetrable. [
Alias] was definitely a show that while I loved working on that show and miss it, I can see how it was difficult.")
Still, at every
Fringe commercial break you can expect to see enigmatic flashes of images like frogs and leaves- "glyphs," Abrams calls them- that the truly obsessed can try to interpret. "It's something that we're doing for people who care to figure it out or follow it, but it's not something that a viewer has to consider when they're watching the show," says Abrams.
Fellow executive producer Jeff Pinkner says, "The standard we are trying to hold ourselves up to is that when the first commercial hits, ideally people are calling their friends and saying you won't believe what just happened on Fox. You have to change the channel and check out this show."
Fringe is one of only two new shows on the Fox lineup this fall- the other is the thoroughly mediocre sitcom
Do Not Disturb (set in a posh hotel)- but Kevin Reilly says, "Whether there was a strike or not, we would be putting only two shows on the air. That's really what Fox should do to marshal its resources. We can be stable in the fall and get one or two shows to work and not just join in all the noise." And then, when
24 and
American Idol return in the second half of the season, Fox can pull out its big guns- which include this season the new drama
Lie to Me (starring Tim Roth as a human lie-detector) and a new comedy,
Boldly Going Forward, from the creators of FX's
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which he describes as "
The Office in space, petty jealousies and incompetence on a long-term mission to wherever they're going. Our comedy brand has been a little anemic, for all of our success the last batch of years, and we're ready for our next
Malcolm in the Middle."
As for the overall state of network comedy, Reilly says he's noticed an understandable lack of confidence in the creative community. "I see really talented people coming in very skittish, not knowing what to pitch, what will sell. I see executives trying to figure out where is that nerve to hit." His goal: "to mix it up this year," including taking many pitches outside the office. "We're going to go out and meet the writers on their own turf," in restaurants or at their homes. "Anything that just gets it out of the sterile environment." Intrigued by what he say writers doing on Internet outlets like YouTube during the strike, and the success of Jimmy Kimmel's Matt Damon and Ben Affleck spoofs, Reilly also intends to offer comedy writers seed money "to go out and shoot something. Don't sit on our coach and pitch us. Go shoot something and then pop it in the machine, even if it's not for air. We've got to do anything to mix it up."
Reilly is also mixing things up when it comes to series development. He talked about "formally splitting our development season in two," setting a December pilot screening of at least eight new shows in the pipeline in addition to the usual May pilot screenings. "That's going to be the next step towards year-round [development], which is what we've been experimenting with for quite some time."
More TCA press tour coverage:
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Matt Roush: Is Fox on the Fringe of a Breakout Hit?
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Fall TV Press Tour: 24, Fringe, Truth Talk & More
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Fall TV Press Tour: Prison Break's Big Reunion, Spin-off News, More
