Fringe benefits

Few people possess more talent for keeping a TV audience captivated than J.J. Abrams. Its his compulsive narrative drive, which is supercharged by unexpected, at times over-the-top twists and turns, that's kept the writer/producer/directors sophomore creation, Alias, alive among a cult fan base for five seasons. And its what continues to whip millions of dedicated Lost fans into a state of near frenzy week to week. ("Cult" just doesnt cut it when it comes to describing the Dharma initiated.)

Unlike Dick Wolf (Law & Order) or Anthony Zuiker (C.S.I.), who have perfected the wham-bam-thank-you-for-the-speedy-confession-maam approach, Abrams takes delight in creating dense narratives that span an entire season, if not a series. He knows that questions are often more compelling than answers, and its that awareness that makes his shows addictive.

Abramss nimble pacing and dizzying plotlines require a certain blind trust from viewers, and for some people I would call non-Abrams fans thats a drawback. His latest TV effort, the sci-fi drama Fringe, is being presented as an attempt to simplify matters for the casual viewer: It takes an episodic route to storytelling rather than an epic one. Co-created with Alias producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Fringe revisits the paranormal, spectacle-rich territory mined by such classic shows as The Twilight Zone and more recently, The X-Files.

Asking a storyteller like Abrams to curtail complexity for the sake of clarity and expediency is kind of like hoping Shakespeare would just can all that fancy talk and get to the point. Abramss intention with Fringe may be to pare down, and he does; luckily for viewers who arrange their lives around Lost, he doesnt succeed entirely.

Fringes 90-minute pilot begins with a bang. The first few seconds detail the final moments of Flight 627, a routine Hamburg-to-Boston flight that goes terribly wrong when one passengers flesh begins to melt. His ailment spreads quickly and soon all 147 passengers have gone gooey. The plane goes on autopilot, managing to safely land itself although everyone on board is dead. And thats just in the first five minutes.

Our anchor amid the chaos is the shows lead, FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (played by the maidenly fair Anna Torv). Dunham, an "interagency liaison," is surrounded by more seasoned investigative types, including FBI agent Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) and enigmatic Homeland Security/Special Agent Phillip Broyles (played with admirable gravitas by Lance Reddick). Mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his son, wayward brain box Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), round out the testosterone-heavy cast.

Like Alias and even Abrams first TV creation, Felicity, Fringe gets its focus from its strong female lead. Much like CIA/SD-6s Sydney Bristow, Dunhams private life merges uncomfortably with her dangerous work. Dunham is called from a covert romantic tryst with her partner, agent John Scott (Mark Valley), to Bostons Logan Airport in the middle of the night. There, she and an "interagency task force" are taken through the creepy, flesh-splattered interior of Flight 627. Her investigation into whether the disaster is the result of "simple terrorism" or something more sinister becomes highly personal when her lover is exposed to the same flesh-dissolving compound that killed the passengers. (Its hard to look at the terrine-like texture of his flesh, though the camera never tires of displaying it.)

Dunhams passionate commitment to uncovering the truth behind her amours affliction leads her to mad scientist Walter Bishop and his son, Peter, who were told has an IQ score "fifty points north of genius." Walter brings the fringe science to Fringe. Before he was locked up in a mental institution, he was a brilliant Harvard chemist who conducted classified experiments under the aegis of the U.S. Army. Mind control, astral projection, teleportation, reanimation Agent Dunham rhymes off his repertoire and provides a syllabus for future episodes.

Bitter, flippant and attractive, Joshua Jackson brings the salacious frisson to Fringe. Sporting just the right amount of stubble to encourage a crush, the baby-faced Jackson (formerly of teen drama Dawsons Creek) shares enough three-second soul gazes with the lovely Agent Dunham to imply possible romantic complications. (Future Fringe benefits?)

Fringe makes nice with the straightforward episodic approach to storytelling. The pilot gives up one or two choice tidbits that would have taken weeks or even a season to uncover on Alias or Lost. For devotees nurtured on Abramss reliance on slow-cooked fare every episode of Lost seems to end with "Who Shot JR?"-type hysteria these instant mini-revelations, like microwaveable meals, are oddly dissatisfying. Answers are fine, but secrets and mysteries are more fun.

Fortunately, Fringe is saved from CSI-brand tedium by the introduction of an overarching narrative: something called "The Pattern." This provides the epic quality that fans of Abramss have come to expect and, more important, to desire.

Not content to simply solve the mystery of the flesh-dissolving compound in the space of an hour, Fringe deepens the mystery of Flight 627 with the link between The Pattern and an evil corporation called Massive Dynamic. The Pattern is scary business, a series of whacked-out experiments performed by an unknown crew of rogue scientists using "the whole world as their lab."

"What happened on the plane is just the beginning," Broyles warns ominously as loyal Abrams fans silently nod in approval.

Fringe is Abrams at his most glossy and controlled even lead actress Anna Torv invests the show with a kind of serene intensity. How The Pattern will disrupt or propel that intensity remains to be seen but its presence is heartening. Though he may demand a lot from viewers whose attention spans show signs of faltering, the trademark Abrams challenge catch me if you can is ultimately the secret to his success. The Pattern indicates that even when hes trying to be straightforward, Abrams cant help making things interesting one of the better problems to have when you tell stories for a living.

Fringe premieres Sept. 9 at 8 p.m.