Fringe: perhaps it should be renamed "The Ludicrous"

What would happen if J.J. Abrams decided to remake the X Files? Well, you’d probably get a flashy, complicated but ultimately hollow endeavour that only makes sense if you don’t spend too much time wondering about the fact that it makes no sense. It would capture the zeitgeist. It would mysteriously get picked up for a second season. It would start on Australian screens in August 2009 (did you know we had a channel called GO!?). It would be called Fringe.

Revel in a plot line so convoluted it makes the X Files appear straightforward; marvel at the fact that all the bad things in the world are the result of one man’s experiments and all happen in Boston; wonder at the only show in the world that uses deus ex machinas as a normal plot device; celebrate such quality sci fi nomenclature as the “pattern” and the “observer”; ponder the truly ludicrous so-called “science” (and remember that you can't question a dead man if he's been dead more than six hours or if he's lost his head); and glory in two leads who deliver every conversation as though they’d really rather be tearing each other’s clothes off right now if only the gigantic genetically-engineered snake/bat hadn’t lain larvae in their partner’s chest.

Tune in and enjoy the silliest show to ever take itself so seriously.