The first 6 episodes of Fringe pale against Lost's first six. The writing in Lost is just far more organic, the production is better, the acting is better, the intrigue is better etc. Is it fair that I'm comparing those two? Yes, yes it is. On what grounds? On the grounds that they're both fucking TV shows. Don't tell me it's unfair to compare two products just because one has a bigger budget than the other, they're the same format. It's what you do with the budget and how smart you use it is what truly reflects your creative work.
If you look at the credits of both shows, you'll notice that Abrams does have some hand in the writing and some in the directing. By some I mean one episode directed in Lost, and none in Fringe. Case in point the guy albeit a competent director/writer, is mostly a producer. Producers get their share of acknowledgment but how does this guy steal the show as the mastermind behind these things? And you wonder why writers went into strike twice. It's funny how in the one hundred and something episodes of Lost Abrams is credited to no more than a dozen of episodes as co-writer and he's the most known in the production team. Tell me this, if I mention Carlton Cuse or Damon Lindelof would you know who I'm talking about? Heck, I didn't know these sorry sons of bitches existed till I wiki'd the shows they've worked on. Case in point, we like celebrities. J.J. Abrams is one.
You'd probably notice from my tone that I'm giving Fringe a lot of heat, which I'm not, not really. I just can't help but feel that this show (Granted, only 6 episodes watched) is mechanistically constructed with text book writing techniques that even I, a person who's never finished a single script can point out, deconstruct and toss them into their color-toy buckets to which each Lego piece belongs. But doesn't every Lost episode play out the same? It starts off with a mystery intrigue, follows a focus on one character to whom we get flashbacks and backstories, end with cliffhanger. Yes Lost episodes have a formula, but it's not the structure of each teleplay that I write of. It's the characters, how they act, how they react, what they talk about, what jokes they make, the type of 2nd rate science babble that albeit performed brilliantly by Walter Bishop's actor is still dumbed down so that the SyFy channel audiences don't get "confuzzled". For a show that claims to explore "Fringe Science" and weird phenomena the first 6 episodes play it incredibly safe, and possibly the next few episodes will be guilty of the same thing.
I understand that there's a degree of suspension of disbelief one should get into before watching a show of Fringe's nature but even then there are things that the mind just cannot accept. John Scott being engulfed by flames without a single burn mark comes to mind, though we know why they did that. They couldn't possibly scar a possibly reoccurring character like that since a) that would be tricky to pull off the see through effect (even though it's completely digital) and b) Viewers don't like looking at burn victims. Or it could be just lazy writing/directing all around. Why do I say this? Because it's happened before. The fuck all stupidity that plagued what was otherwise a neatly done movie: Star Trek. Directed by Abrams by the way. It has the same writers too. What's his face Orci and Alex what's his face. It'll be a long post just listing the incredibly preposterous things like an exploding star threatening to destroy an entire galaxy, or how ships can travel through time via blackholes but not actual supernovas and I don't need to explain how that movie feels mechanistically constructed, you could just watch Plinkett's review: http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/
Those two have a greater similarity than Lost does with either of them. Star Trek was actually written by the same Fringe writing team. Why does it sound like I'm blaming the writers more than Abrams? Because I am. And it's not because I have a gripe with those two (the what's his face duo) writing the two Transformers movies, it's because without their efforts there wouldn't be a Fringe. There wouldn't be a Star Trek. The same goes for Lost to which I only know two names out of something like six head writers. Abrams shouldn't be seen as a mastermind as much as an enabler or part of a larger creative team. And I'm not saying that writers should get more recognition than the producers, although that should be the case, I'm saying that the writers barely get any recognition at all from the viewer's perspective. But why should they? Because the successes of these creative peoples depend on how we perceive them. We like celebrities, celebrities sell, Abrams sells. We don't know who the writers are, they're not celebrities, they don't sell, they don't get front page, they don't get as much time as Natalie Portman or Hugh Hackman during award ceremonies and they're not given equal artistic opportunities.
It's almost as if you need to be a producer yourself in order to write what you want as apposed to having other producers telling you what to write. Thing is what's their faces are the producers of Fringe. So is it that they're just safe and simplistic writers? or is that they are so self-cautious about sticking to a method that works, they don't want to stray from it in fear of being unsuccessful. I'd like to think the latter, as from what I hear the second season is a drastic improvement from the first since they stop from all the "let's focus on getting viewers for now" shtick.
I'd like to think that I'm not bashing Abrams himself (as I do think he's a talented filmmaker and I very much look forward to his Super 8 movie) but rather our perception of him. It's the very perception that made me immediately compare Fringe to Lost when really the what's their faces twins didn't have a helping hand in the writing at all (as far as we know) and the main link to both shows is Abrams. Both shows are distinctively different because of the creative minds that have shaped them into what they are and Abrams is but one mind. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wikipedia to learn what's their faces' names.
That's not even his copy
Do you suppose they've practiced having him always standing in the middle?
If you look at the credits of both shows, you'll notice that Abrams does have some hand in the writing and some in the directing. By some I mean one episode directed in Lost, and none in Fringe. Case in point the guy albeit a competent director/writer, is mostly a producer. Producers get their share of acknowledgment but how does this guy steal the show as the mastermind behind these things? And you wonder why writers went into strike twice. It's funny how in the one hundred and something episodes of Lost Abrams is credited to no more than a dozen of episodes as co-writer and he's the most known in the production team. Tell me this, if I mention Carlton Cuse or Damon Lindelof would you know who I'm talking about? Heck, I didn't know these sorry sons of bitches existed till I wiki'd the shows they've worked on. Case in point, we like celebrities. J.J. Abrams is one.
You'd probably notice from my tone that I'm giving Fringe a lot of heat, which I'm not, not really. I just can't help but feel that this show (Granted, only 6 episodes watched) is mechanistically constructed with text book writing techniques that even I, a person who's never finished a single script can point out, deconstruct and toss them into their color-toy buckets to which each Lego piece belongs. But doesn't every Lost episode play out the same? It starts off with a mystery intrigue, follows a focus on one character to whom we get flashbacks and backstories, end with cliffhanger. Yes Lost episodes have a formula, but it's not the structure of each teleplay that I write of. It's the characters, how they act, how they react, what they talk about, what jokes they make, the type of 2nd rate science babble that albeit performed brilliantly by Walter Bishop's actor is still dumbed down so that the SyFy channel audiences don't get "confuzzled". For a show that claims to explore "Fringe Science" and weird phenomena the first 6 episodes play it incredibly safe, and possibly the next few episodes will be guilty of the same thing.
I understand that there's a degree of suspension of disbelief one should get into before watching a show of Fringe's nature but even then there are things that the mind just cannot accept. John Scott being engulfed by flames without a single burn mark comes to mind, though we know why they did that. They couldn't possibly scar a possibly reoccurring character like that since a) that would be tricky to pull off the see through effect (even though it's completely digital) and b) Viewers don't like looking at burn victims. Or it could be just lazy writing/directing all around. Why do I say this? Because it's happened before. The fuck all stupidity that plagued what was otherwise a neatly done movie: Star Trek. Directed by Abrams by the way. It has the same writers too. What's his face Orci and Alex what's his face. It'll be a long post just listing the incredibly preposterous things like an exploding star threatening to destroy an entire galaxy, or how ships can travel through time via blackholes but not actual supernovas and I don't need to explain how that movie feels mechanistically constructed, you could just watch Plinkett's review: http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/
Those two have a greater similarity than Lost does with either of them. Star Trek was actually written by the same Fringe writing team. Why does it sound like I'm blaming the writers more than Abrams? Because I am. And it's not because I have a gripe with those two (the what's his face duo) writing the two Transformers movies, it's because without their efforts there wouldn't be a Fringe. There wouldn't be a Star Trek. The same goes for Lost to which I only know two names out of something like six head writers. Abrams shouldn't be seen as a mastermind as much as an enabler or part of a larger creative team. And I'm not saying that writers should get more recognition than the producers, although that should be the case, I'm saying that the writers barely get any recognition at all from the viewer's perspective. But why should they? Because the successes of these creative peoples depend on how we perceive them. We like celebrities, celebrities sell, Abrams sells. We don't know who the writers are, they're not celebrities, they don't sell, they don't get front page, they don't get as much time as Natalie Portman or Hugh Hackman during award ceremonies and they're not given equal artistic opportunities.
It's almost as if you need to be a producer yourself in order to write what you want as apposed to having other producers telling you what to write. Thing is what's their faces are the producers of Fringe. So is it that they're just safe and simplistic writers? or is that they are so self-cautious about sticking to a method that works, they don't want to stray from it in fear of being unsuccessful. I'd like to think the latter, as from what I hear the second season is a drastic improvement from the first since they stop from all the "let's focus on getting viewers for now" shtick.
I'd like to think that I'm not bashing Abrams himself (as I do think he's a talented filmmaker and I very much look forward to his Super 8 movie) but rather our perception of him. It's the very perception that made me immediately compare Fringe to Lost when really the what's their faces twins didn't have a helping hand in the writing at all (as far as we know) and the main link to both shows is Abrams. Both shows are distinctively different because of the creative minds that have shaped them into what they are and Abrams is but one mind. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wikipedia to learn what's their faces' names.
That's not even his copy
Do you suppose they've practiced having him always standing in the middle?
