TV Series of the Month – Fringe

This month’s TV series: Fringe (2008-2013).

The sci-fi mystery series follows FBI agent Olivia Dunham as she is brought into the Fringe unit to investigate strange and classified cases. To help her, she recruits a brilliant but mad scientist Walter Bishop and his estranged son Peter.

The series is created by J.J. Abrams (his best show to date), Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman, but J.H. Wyman, Jeff Pinkner, and Akiva Goldsman are also very influential in the show’s creative development. This group of writers is responsible for many of the biggest recent Hollywood films (like A Beautiful Mind, Star Trek, Super 8, and the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 3).

Abrams is known for ability to find great female leads, and with Fringe he found maybe his best in Anna Torv. She stars with Joshua Jackson and John Noble. Jasika Nicole, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Michael Cerveris, Kirk Acevedo, Seth Gabel, Mark Valley, Leonard Nimoy, Jared Harris, and Georgina Haig feature in support. The cast is fantastic overall.

Fringe follows in the steps of The X-Files, feeling very much as a modern update of that series. In today’s overly generic and commercial network TV landscape (basically, the networks know they have already lost and are just counting the days to extinction, so they are trying to make the most of it money wise and not it terms of making what is even close to quality television) it is shocking that a show like Fringe, especially with its production values, lasted as long as it did, and was able to remain as weird and great as it does. Network TV needs good sci-fi, but sadly Fringe might be its last best effort. It is a must-see for fans of the genre.

Trailer: Here

Available on: Blu-ray and Video On-Demand

TV Series of the Month – The Wire

This month’s series is The Wire (2002-2008).

Argued to be the greatest show of all-time by many critics, the HBO series is about the city of Baltimore – its drug scene, law enforcement, politics, schools, docks, and newspaper. The series is created by David Simon, who built-off his work on Homicide: Life on the Street and The Corner to make this show truly amazing. It has a fantastic cast starring Dominic West, John Doman, Wendall Pierce, Lance Reddick, Deirdre Lovejoy, Sonja Sohn, Seth Gilliam, Domenick Lombardozzi, Clarke Peters, Andre Royo, Delaney Williams, Frankie Faison, and Jim True-Frost. There are also very memorable guest appearances from Michael Kenneth Williams, Wood Harris, Idris Elba, Aidan Gillen, Robert Wisdom, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Amy Ryan, Pablo Schreiber, James, Ransone, Chris Bauer, Michael Kostroff, and Jamie Hector (and many more). What I love about the show is how every season focuses around a different aspect of the city, but still incorporates the large group of well-drawn characters. The series speaks to many real life issues and yet never feels preachy. Each season is completely engaging and fresh (it is hard not to marathon through a whole season in a weekend, once you start). This is a must see for anyone who likes great HBO style dramas, as this one might be the very best. Check out the trailer.

Available on DVD, Streaming and to Rent