After a couple episodes, I had just about given up on FRINGE, the new paranormal show on Fox TV. The initial salvos seemed too concerned with getting viewers hooked, at the expense of telling good stories. To put it bluntly, the strategy seemed to be: Do not make episodes that audiences enjoy; make episodes that tease them with hints of a long-term story arc, so that they will come back next week. However, FRINGE’s seventh episode, “In Which We Meet Mr. Jones,” was quite a bit better in this regard. Now that the groundwork has been laid, the show seems more comfortable building plots upon the established structure, without belaboring the season-length continuity; a newbie viewer could step in, pick up on what was happening, and maybe even want to come back, just because the show seems entertaining, not because there are questions that still need to be answered.
The somewhat convoluted story has Agent Mitchel Loeb (Chance Kelly) stricken by a nasty internal parasite after carrying out a botched operation (an inside leak apparently warned the criminals). Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Tory) heads to Germany to consult with a prisoner named Jones (Jared Harris) who should know how to kill the parasite, while her colleagues Peter and Walter Bishop (Joshua Jackson and John Noble) stay back in the states, trying to extract information from the brain of a dead man named Joseph Smith, who was killed while attempt to escape from the FBI. Jones will speak to Dunham only if Smith will answer a question. The Bishops succeed in getting the information, which Dunham relays to Jones in exchange for the cure. Before that, however, Jones suggests that the whole situation may be some kind of a set-up – a warning that turns out to be prescient.
Most of the fun of FRINGE derives from Noble’s turn as the literally absent-minded professor – a brilliant man whose techno-babble dialogue is interspersed with random non-sequiturs (gum, mints and fruit salad are his topics du jour this time out). The oddball premises create some neat teasers (this one features something that vaguely resembles a miniature version of Audrey from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, revealed with surgeons open a Loeb’s chest for heart surgery). Even if the episode has trouble living up to the promise of this memorable opening, at least this time out there is a worthy effort.
Although holding up fairly well on its own as a stand-alone episode, the script cannot resist the temptation to end with a twist intended to set up future story lines, revealing that Loeb (along his wife) is a turncoat who staged his illness in order to get the information that the Bishop’s extracted from Smith. It is actually a nice touch, albeit a tad predictable – the story is set up to cast suspicion on Loeb (his shifty-eyed response when he cannot come up with a plausible suspect for who might be the mole inside the FBI pretty much tells you that he is the mole).
“In Which We Meet Mr. Jones” was not enough to make me a confirmed repeat viewer, but at least it is nice to know that some effort is being made toward reigning in the continuing arc, using it as a basis for telling satisfying stories on a week by week basis, instead of simply stringing viewers along. Some stringing is still part of the strategy, but the show gets bonus points for addressing the frustration over the on-going storyline.
When Dunham complains that too many questions remain, her superior officer delivers a long speech on the subject, instructing her to be happy that she succeeded in saving a man’s life, and that should be enough in the short term, even while her tenacity will keep her searching for answers. It is not hard to imagine that series creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci are using this speech as a thinly disguised way of lecturing their audience: Be happy that we resolved this little story, and if you want answers to the open questions, you will have to be patient and keep coming back.