On the Fringes

One of my favorite memories of being a kid is a Friday night in the early 90s where I happened upon a scary TV show where two FBI agents were tracking a serial killer who was a supernatural contortionist. It was one of the very first episodes of X-Files. That, along with the unrecognized classic retake of The Outer Limits made up many of my Friday nights.

So I was very excited to hear that the modern television master of supernatural suspense, J.J. Abrams, was behind a new show that mixes Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and The X-Files. Ever since shining the spotlight on Keri Russell's gorgeous curls in Felicity, Abrams has garnered cult followings with character driven serial dramas. He has even dabbled in movies, making best non-british superspy movie, Mission Impossible: III and gives us high hopes for the college age portrait of Captain Kirk in his upcoming Star Trek installment. His masterwork, Lost, continues to weave an intricate storyline whose complexity is only second to that of the characters themselves.

But after two episodes of Fringe the jury is still out. The story revolves around FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, whose boyfriend contracts a mysterious disease. Dunham goes to extreme lengths to help him, enlisting bad boy genius Peter Bishop (Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson) and his mad scientist father Walter Bishop (John Noble) to find a cure. The twist comes when we find out that the boyfriend was actually a traitor, trying to unleash the disease. A car wreck leaves him dying in Dunham's arms, but not before he can insinuate that Dunham is actually a pawn in a bigger scheme. Subsequent episodes have introduced The Pattern, a series strange incidents happening around the world. Someone is doing an experiment; only they are using the entire world an innocent human lives, as their lab.

Abrams succeeds in placing Fringe in our modern setting. Dunham is recruited for Homeland Security, a tip of the hat to the fears of pandemic disease and religious warfare that haunt our globalized post-911 world. Unfortunately, a mysterious overarching plot is not enough to make up for the two-dimensional the angst-ridden characters of Dunham and Bishop. The X-Files revolved around the chemistry of Mulder, who wanted to believe in everything that goes bump in the night, and the sexy archskeptic Scully, a doctor who questioned everything. Abrams is the master of creating fascinating characters, from the adorable Felicity, to the entire cast of Lost, whose first three seasons gave each character multiple episodes to tell their backstory. Fringe feels like retracing old steps. Only this time, it's not as fun.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching. Despite the rehash, Abrams is tapping into a powerful zeitgeist. Fringe is based on the fear that eventually science will progress to the point it is out of our control. This belies a greater fear, that their are forces beyond our control, things we cannot see.

For Christians, this is the basis of all our beliefs. However, the modern worldview, shaped by the scientific achievements of the enlightenment, tried to make accepting anything that cannot be reproduced in a lab seem childish.
Angels, demons, miracles, and even God were pushed out of the picture, only leaving room for what we could quantify and explain. Fringe represents a change in the discussion of our culture. This same science causes us to live in fear of nuclear warfare and global warming, and has yet to produce a cure for cancer. Science has failed us, and we are starting to look beyond ourselves for help.

As Christians, Fringe represents a discussion that the church should be having with the world. Our answer is, yes, there is more out there. But you don't have to fear it. His name is Jesus Christ, he loves you, and he gave his life for you.