HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE, PART ONE

Stressed about finding the perfect gift for that special Muggle, Trekkie, Twi-Hard, Jedi or Bat-fan in your life? Relax and read on: You've come to the perfect place at the perfect time, because this is the 2009 Hero Complex Holiday Gift Guide -- just think of us as a sort of retail Yoda guiding you through the complicated swamps of holiday shopping. "Buy or buy not. There is no browse..."

It's the perfect time to get your geek on, too. The fanboy culture is in full blossom at the box office and in pop culture beyond, and this holiday season there's a mountain of gifts and gadgets that speak to the Comic-Con constituency. Here are some of the most heroic:

"FRINGE: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON" ($60 for DVD, $80 for Blu-ray): "Fringe" may be the best sci-fi show on television right now, which is saying a lot considering the crowd of competitors. The series was impressive from its very start for its production values, casting and cerebral ambitions, but early on it was missing a certain something; I didn't stop watching and I'm glad I didn't because by the middle of the first season the show found its groove (in part by finding a defining rhythm that wasn't beholden to a rigid, single-episode procedural pace). Like "The X-Files" (yes, it's hard not to compare the two, considering the starting-point premise of FBI investigations into the paranormal), this show has an intricate and still-unfolding mythology. It's not too late to jump on board, especially with this polished Warner Home Video collection of the entire first season on seven discs with extended scenes, loads of commentary, featurettes on special effects and the science of the show, a "Deciphering the Scene" feature for true "Fringe" students, a gag reel and more. The Blu-ray is worth the extra money, the features are even better and the show's cinematic approach lives up   to the format.You can find it at retailers everywhere or directly from Warner Home Video. Want to read more about the show? Check out the Hero Complex visit to the Vancouver set.

TAUNTAUN SLEEPING BAG:

($100) This may be the best nerd gift of the year. Originally made as a one-of-a-kind prototype for an April Fool's Day spoof, the sleeping bag is an irresistible bit of "Star Wars" that takes us all back to the icy slopes of Hoth, where frosty Luke Skywalker was saved by his quick-thinking pal Han Solo, who was resourceful enough to eviscerate a dead tauntaun (think of a cranky snow camel crossed with a llama) and show the desert-planet kid inside to keep warm. Hmmmmm, cozy! This sleeping bag is made of polyester and it won't save you from hypothermia on the frozen tundra (it's not for outdoor use) but it's a crackerjack gift and even has a lightsaber zipper so you can slice your furry friend open just like Han did. For sale exclusively at ThinkGeek.

"THE HUNTER" GRAPHIC NOVEL: ($25)  Here's one of the best graphic novels of the year and a killer gift -- Darwyn Cooke's sublime adaptation of the hard-boiled antihero created by Richard Stark (the pen name of the late, great Donald Westlake). The handsome book boasts Cooke’s spare and stylized artwork (think somewhere between the vintage cool of “Mad Men” and the storytelling flair of Milton Caniff’s “Steve Canyon” comic strips), and the 144-page tale from IDW Publishing is a meticulously faithful adaptation of the 1962 novel of the same name that introduced the scowling Parker. Available through most book merchants or directly from IDW. You can read more about this great book in the Hero Complex feature on Cooke and his mission to bring Westlake's classic character alive in a new way.

"TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY" LIMITED EDITION: We don't know if "Avatar" will live up to its billing as "a game-changer" for special effects, but director James Cameron already pulled that feat off once with "T2"  and its then-startling quicksilver CG effects. I'm a bigger fan of the first movie in the franchise (better story and none of Ed Furlong's petulance) but this limited-edition packaging ($115) of the sequel is too sweet to ignore with the 14-inch, skinless, glowing-eyeball bust of the T-800 that even makes sound effects. This six-disc (!) definitive packaging comes with every "T2" featurette and extra to date, including the Skynet Blu-ray edition of the film. That's fine, but did I mention that the metal skull makes noises and its eyes glow? Cool. This package was just released by Lionsgate in May so there's a good chance that fans you are shopping for may not have seen it before. A great gift, too, for any old college friends who now work in the Schwarzenegger administration who are spending Christmas in Sacramento for the last time. You can find it for sale at a variety of merchants.  

HERMIONE'S EARRINGS, STARFLEET CUFF LINKS and "THE DARK KNIGHT" MONEY CLIP : If you're looking for a sly, understated gift for "Harry Potter" fans (you know, something that doesn't scream "Muggle!") consider these graceful earrings of sterling silver and pink crystals ($59) fashioned as an homage to the ones worn by actress Emma Watson on screen. You can find them at the Warner Brothers shop along with a staggering array of wizard merch. In the same low-key vein, for fanboys who don't want to loudly broadcast their obsessions, there are some nifty Starfleet cuff links ($65) that are crafted from enamel and plated silver and have a bullet back closure; you can find them (as well as a Klingon counterpart product) at Cufflinks.com. We also like the folding, magnetic Batarang money clip ($39) from the Noble Collection that would fit the sleek sensibilities of Bruce Wayne but might be too small for the wad of spending cash he keeps in his utility belt.

-- Geoff Boucher

READ PART TWO RIGHT HERE AND PART THREE RIGHT HERE

READ the 2008 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

 

Leonard Nimoy, who was coaxed out of retirement for "Star Trek" and then lingered in order to portray the mysterious William Bell on "Fringe," says it may be the logical time to say farewell to acting for good -- especially since the Bell role hasn't been a compelling one for him.

"I have such a great life," the 78-year-old actor said at his home last week. "I'm not looking for work."

Nimoy had invited me over to talk about his Halloween night photography exhibit at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (watch for a full story on that event and his photography career here tomorrow), which is just one of the many pursuits that Nimoy would rather focus on these days. "As an actor you're always wondering when you're going to work again, who you're going to work with, what it will be. I don't have that consuming drive," he said. Then he nodded toward an image that will be on display at the exhibit. "This is my creative outlet. This is what I do."

Nimoy was fresh from a trip to the Vancouver set of "Fringe," where he had shot an upcoming episode. He made it sound as if it might have been his final one in the role of Bell, a rarely seen character on the show but one that is, by all appearances, at the very core of the series' mythology. 

"I've done three appearances for them. I don't know if I will do a fourth..."

 

"They've asked me to do more, but we have to talk about where the character is going. So far my character, William Bell, and my appearances have been used to lay in information about this alternate universe and the experience of being in this other world. And that's OK, but I don't know yet what plans they have for really developing a dramatic story for the character. I'm waiting for a conversation about that."

Nimoy said that conversation will be "some with J.J. Abrams" but more so with show runner Jeff Pinkner and series creators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the same tandem that came up with the script for "Star Trek," which was good enough to coax Nimoy back into Starfleet service despite his initial resistance to the idea. Nimoy said Orci and Kurtzman are "just terrific, very talented and very smart" but it was quite clear that the actor's goodwill posture toward "Fringe" was earned entirely by the "Trek" experience and that it has its limitations.

"I think they're talking amongst themselves now so they can present some kind of plan, a story arc of some kind."

The sci-fi icon surprised me when he said he signed up for the "Fringe" first-season finale without much knowledge of the series at all.

"I never paid much attention until I was asked to work on it and even then I didn't know a lot. I got the [home video] collection of the first season and [my wife] Susan and I were up in Lake Tahoe and last week we sat there about four or five hours at a time and watched them. And, wow, that show is something. They do a great production job. They have great story hooks, terrific production values and very interesting performances."

He mentioned in particular the work of John Noble, who portrays the wonderfully eccentric Walter Bishop, Bell's onetime colleague in the business of mad science.

"We just met for the first time and it was very enjoyable," Nimoy said, although he was careful not to say whether that encounter was on-screen or off.

For those of you in Southern California, you have a chance to meet Nimoy yourself and even have him shoot your portrait during a photo session. On Halloween, the Santa Monica Museum of Art will be displaying selected works from Nimoy's project "Who Do You Think You Are?" (which will be an exhibit at Mass MoCA next summer); the collection is a series of portraits where Nimoy asked strangers to reveal their secret selves. That "secret self" theme will carry into a costume contest at the Oct. 31 event and there a different price-level tickets. For more details on the event and the possibility of a photo shoot with Nimoy, go right here. 

-- Geoff Boucher

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PHOTOS: Top, Leonard Nimoy on "Fringe" (Fox) Middle: Nimoy at his home. (Christina House / For The Times)

This is a significantly longer version of an article I wrote on Akiva Goldsman that ran Sunday in the Los Angeles Times Calendar section. Goldsman is one of the busiest Hollywood figures in comics and sci-fi projects with four adaptations coming based on DC characters and his new role as a key figure for the Fox series "Fringe." He's also a figure of controversy for fans who have not forgotten the sight of a Bat-suit with nipples. 

Akiva Goldsman arrived at the door of producer Brian Grazer in 1998 with one purpose. "I went there," the screenwriter says, "to beg."

Goldsman, who had enjoyed a steady ascension in Hollywood for years, was coming off a string of films that had badly battered his reputation. He had produced and written the forgettable dud "Lost in Space" -- and far worse, he had written the screenplay that would become the 1997 bomb "Batman & Robin," one of the most savagely disliked movies of the decade.

Given that history of burnt popcorn, Goldsman seemed like the least qualified writer in Hollywood to take on the task of adapting Sylvia Nasar's "A Beautiful Mind" for the screen, but that's the job he sought when he visited Grazer at the offices of Imagine Films. Shockingly, he got the gig, and the eventual film, about physicist John Nash and his slippery hold on reality, would win four Academy Awards, including best adapted screenplay for Goldsman, best director for Ron Howard and best picture.

"It was a profound experience for all of us involved," Goldsman recently recalled. "And I cannot overestimate what it meant for my career at that point."

The breakthrough put Goldsman in a lofty strata in Hollywood, and his screenwriting credits would include blockbusters such as "The Da Vinci Code," "Angels & Demons," "I Am Legend" and "I, Robot." And now, a decade after seeking a bit of largesse from Grazer, Goldsman is undertaking a new career path behind the camera.

He recently directed the season premiere of the Fox series "Fringe" and is now lining up his feature-film directorial debut. And despite having written what is perhaps the most reviled comic-book movie adaptation of all time, he's aggressively pursuing his childhood love of superheroes as the producer of five movies based on Marvel or DC comic books, including the Guy Ritchie adaptaion of "Lobo," the popular anti-hero show in the image on the right.

On closer inspection, comic-book fantasy and dark psychology are the touchstone themes of Goldsman's career. It's a tandem that might make a therapist smirk or reach for their notepad, and the same goes for the 47-year-old's memories of his childhood. The writer is the son of child psychologists Mira Rothenberg and Tev Goldsman, and the nature of his youth was a key reason that Grazer used the writer for "A Beautiful Mind."

"I grew up, essentially, in one of the very first group homes for what was then termed as 'emotionally disturbed children' -- these were days when, unimaginably, childhood schizophrenia and autism were lumped together in the same population," Goldsman said. "My parents founded this home, and I grew up there in this brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and my peers were, um, crazy. My definition of sanity is very labile; it's flexible and open."

Young Goldsman also lost himself in the tales of Batman, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Legion of Super-Heroes and all the other gaudy champions who inhabit the wildly intricate mythos of Marvel and DC. He sees his revisitation to his youthful concerns as a common experience in Hollywood. "I think we're all trying to make sense of what happened [in our childhoods] and that's what's startling -- in getting the chance to make stuff, sometimes, when everything is supended correctly, it feels like it makes sense." 

These days, his office at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank is dotted with comic-book art, superhero statues, sci-fi imagery -- pop-culture signifiers that once would have been viewed as juvenilia but now are as proudly prevalent in Hollywood work spaces as Hitchcock posters and espresso machines.

On a recent afternoon, Goldsman gleefully showed off a personalized drawing that had been given to him years ago by the late Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman, and then debated the finer points of "Days of Future Past," a landmark two-issue X-Men comic-book story from 1981.

None of that, though, changes the fact that Goldsman might be booed off the stage if he were introduced at a comic-book convention. "Batman & Robin," the bloated 1997 movie directed by Joel Schumacher and starring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, certainly possesses an odious place in Hollywood history. Times critic Kenneth Turan said the Goldsman script had the "eerie feeling of having no beginning, no middle and no end." That was on the gentle end of the reaction; Goldsman and Schumacher actually received death threats, which suggests that there are a lot of people in the world who take their funny books seriously.

A few months ago, Kevin Feige, the president of production at Marvel Studios, said that "Batman & Robin" was more than a mere failure. "That may be the most important comic-book movie ever made," said Feige, whose studio is now at work on "Iron Man 2" and "Thor." "It was so bad that it demanded a new way of doing things. It created the opportunity to do 'X-Men' and 'Spider-Man,' adaptations that respected the source material and adaptations that were not campy."

Goldsman won't exactly apologize for the film, but he comes pretty close. He said he is proud of the effort put into it and weary of the conversations about its merit. He did learn a lesson from the film. "What got lost in 'Batman & Robin' is the emotions aren't real," Goldsman said, picking his words carefully. "The worst thing to do with a serious comic book is to make it a cartoon. I'm still answering for that movie with some people."

He said honoring the source material is the guiding concept for the projects he has in the pipeline now. Filming recently wrapped on his Warner Bros. project "Jonah Hex," which stars Josh Brolin as the bitter and scarred Old West antihero from DC Comics that dates to the 1970s.

"He's a character that has been described as having one foot on Earth and one foot beyond the grave, that he speaks to the dead . . . at the same time he is very much [like Sergio Leone's] 'The Man With No Name.' "

"Hex," now in post-production, is being  directed by Jimmy Hayward, who is following up his very different directorial debut, last year's "Horton Hears a Who." John Malkovich plays the villain, an evil preacher, while Megan Fox and Will Arnett also star.

After that is a commando film called "The Losers," also a DC adaptation, about a team of CIA operatives who are unwittingly sent on a suicide mission but survive and return to face their superiors.

The film stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- who got strong reviews for his black-ops and black-hearted role in "Watchmen" -- as well as Zoe Saldana and Jason Patric and is due in April of next year.

There's also "Lobo," a blue- and gray-skinned, super-powered alien who has a bad attitude and delights in mayhem; the character, for the uninitiated, looks like a buffed-out, biker version of Beetlejuice and acts like a bar-fighting big cousin of the extraterrestrial scamp from "Lilo and Stitch." There's also some common ground with the hero-behaving-badly tale of "Hancock," which Goldsman produced. 

"Lobo" is being directed by Guy Ritchie, which sounds like an odd fit -- he's rarely succeeded in stories that go past London and this one would take him off-planet -- but Goldsman says he's thrilled with the fit.

"There's something hyperbolic and authentic about a Guy Ritchie movie. His best movie are deeply, deeply  stylized yet they are all grounded; there's a grit of stylization, which sounds like an oxymoron but it makes perfect sense when you've seen his films."

Goldsman added: "We've never seen Guy's sensibility married to a project with such a large special effects budget. "

Goldsman said Ritchie will shoot a test scene in November -- "We've got the character design pretty much done," Goldsman said, "and the test will get us moving forward to the next step" -- and casting will be decided after that.

Then there's "Swamp Thing," which Goldsman said will be closer in tone to the character as presented in Alan Moore's eerie, metaphysical horror comics than the rubber-suit bog creature from the 1982 Wes Craven B-movie.

"We want a film with real Southern, dark horror overtones, a little bit like a classic Universal horror film," Goldsman said, knowing full well that his presence on the project will stir controversy -- it's a character that filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has called one of the "few remaining Holy Grails" in comics. There's also also talk of a Fantastic Four reboot, which has been met, no surprise, with sharply different reactions.

Vestiges of fan vitriol remain on the Internet for Goldsman, but in Hollywood his reputation is stellar. J.J. Abrams has brought him into the fold on "Fringe" as a key story collaborator, and Howard has now directed four films with Goldsman as screenwriter.

Howard said he has been "prodding" Goldsman to direct since watching the writer work with Russell Crowe and others on the set of "A Beautiful Mind."

"There have been many screenwriters who moved into directing with varying degrees of success, but it's not an automatic path," Howard said. "Screenwriters have, of course, a great sense of story and the nuances trying to being achieved, but they shield themselves from the practical matters of getting that story told on film. None of that is a problem for Akiva. He's comfortable having conversations with actors and collaborating."

 

Goldsman puts a premium on his affinity for teamwork and rattles off all the lessons he's learned from collaborators, such as Howard's open and supportive style, Peter Weir's devotion to authenticity, Will Smith's relentless optimism.

Goldsman got his start late in Hollywood. He had graduated from Wesleyan in 1983 and worked in the mental health field carrying the family tradition of sorts, but he found he was gripped more by flights of imagination than clinical challenges. He studied creative at New York University but novel writing defied him. He became an avid disciple of screenwriting guru John McKee’s approaches and had a breakthrough with his 1994 adaptation of John Grisham’s novel “The Client.”

His own literary beacons won't impress anyone with art-house sensibilities -- he talks with wonder about Stephen King's "ability to understand the emotional architecture of our imagination" -- but his populist tastes, skill with story and that old comic-book collection make him a man for the moment in Hollywood. He's now looking for a feature film to direct, and it may end up being a screen version of his favorite novel, "Winter's Tale," Mark Helprin's 1983 fantasy about an alternate-history New York, a thief and flying white horse.

It's yet another new chapter in the career of a man who has specialized in playing well with others in an asylum setting. "I'm very scared of many things, but drop me into world of people raging with schizophrenia and I feel perfectly at home," Goldsman deadpanned. "And I love Hollywood. Go figure."

-- Geoff Boucher

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Photos: Akiva Goldsman on the Warner lot (Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times). Lobo from DC Comics. The cast of "Batman & Robin." Posters for the DC series "The Losers," the upcoming "Jonah Hex" film and "Fringe." Will Smith and Akiva Goldsman in 2007 (Toshifumi Kitamura/Getty images)

ON THE SET

Here's a longer version of my cover story on "Fringe" in today's Los Angeles Times Calendar section. The season premiere is tonight on Fox.

The low-slung motel looked like the sort of place Norman Bates might open as a north-of-the-border expansion of the old family business. The roadside sign promised “TELEPHONES” in every room but the brownish-orange carpeting and peeling paint were nothing to call home about. The radioactive Russian cosmonaut in the parking lot, however, was something you don’t see everyday.

“Who comes up with this stuff?” asked a smirking Joshua Jackson, one of the stars of the Fox series “Fringe,” which returns tonight with the premiere of its second season of conspiracies and codes, parallel worlds and evil corporations, mad scientists and con men. “Seriously, who are these people?”

Jackson was waiting for the camera to start rolling again on a bright, crisp afternoon during an on-location shoot for a mid-season episode of “Fringe.” Nearby, the show’s other stars made idle chit-chat or had their make-up checked while a quartet of extras outfitted in FBI haz-mat suits practiced their task – wheeling around a shiny metallic casket with ominous radiation stickers and assorted pseudo-scientific warnings in Russian. Well, everyone involved hoped they were pseudo-scientific warnings.

“Can we get a translator and find out what this writing means, specifically?” asked Jon Cassar, director of the episode and an industry veteran with 59 episodes of “24” on his resume. “Maybe it says ‘Do not open until Christmas’ or ‘Watch ‘The Simpsons’ on Sunday night,’ knowing Fox.”

The mood on the set was upbeat and with good reason. A few hours later the cast – led by Anna Torv as FBI agent Olivia Dunham, John Noble as the kooky, scene-stealing Dr. Walter Bishop and Jackson as slippery genius Peter Bishop – would be at party celebrating the release of the first season on DVD and, more importantly, there is a strong expectation that the show is poised to finally realize its often cited potential.

“The second year is much tighter,” says Blair Brown, who plays the mysterious Nina Sharp, who may or may not be the villain of the show. “The writing is wittier, more complicated but also there’s clarity to the stories and character. And we are all speaking with quite different voices. The rhythm of show is clear now.”

Early on, “Fringe” was neither fish nor fowl (nor was it amphibian, like those strange frogs in the opening sequence). The show possessed the same trench-coats-and-autopsies ethos as Fox’s signature 1990s sci-fi show “The X-Files,” but it was also informed by more recent, purer procedurals such as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and even “Bones,” which teams a federal agent and laboratory oddballs but with far more flirting.

Lance Reddick, a tall, lean actor whose withering scowl is known to viewers of “The Wire,” “Lost” and “Oz,” portrays Phillip Broyles, the federal agent who supervises the “Fringe Division,” which investigates teleportation, telekinesis and, well, anything that would have been filed under the letter “X” in Fox Mulder’s basement office at the FBI.

Reddick said as the cast found their characters and the writers sharpened their intentions, “Fringe” became its own series last season as opposed to a well-polished collage of other shows.

“We found who we were in episode 10, the episode where Olivia got kidnapped,” Reddick said. “We were trying to hedge our bets and trying to be too many kinds of shows at once. I’m not saying we got rid of the procedural element because each episode still is on a case – a case in terms of the quote-unquote police work -- but it’s not formulaic, not like the early episodes. What keeps the show most watchable is the fact that it is character-based.”

Those characters have kept critics on the side of the show even when “Fringe” left viewers rolling their eyes or scratching their heads. Noble, in particular, has been a sensation as the mad scientist Bishop who was extricated from an mental hospital to help solve the mysteries of fringe phenomena, which are increasing due to a worldwide pattern that is a key thread in the show’s larger tapestry.

Critics have been as uniformly kind to Torv, who some call wooden or the show’s weak-link cipher. But Robert Lloyd, reviewing the first season’s finale in the Los Angeles Times, said Torv and show as a whole have “soulfulness of a dry, cool, wintry variety” and said Torv is fine amid the more vivid cast members since “much of the drama is located in her ‘Alice in Wonderland’ eyes.”

In person, Torv is much more reserved than her two lead costars. “I’m all serious, they have all the fun,” she said with a wink of her buttoned-down character but perhaps referring a bit to herself as well. She said the job of a working on a creepy sci-fi show does have its perks however: “The other day Olivia got to eat worms. So there was that….”

The 30-year-old Aussie (who last year married Mark Valley, who played her partner in the pilot of “Fringe”) said she is different from her fellow cast members in one major way – she doesn’t enjoy the slowly unfolding mysteries of the show, she’d prefer to know where everything is going now so she could modulate her performances.

“This is a completely different world we jump into and I’d love to be able to plot out for myself where it’s going,” Torv said. “I think I’m the only one, though, after having this conversation the other day. I think some of the others who have so much more experience than I do, they like making it up as we go.”

By all appearances, nobody knows for sure where “Fringe” is headed. J.J. Abrams created “Fringe” with his “Star Trek” collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and like his hit ABC show “Lost” the Fox series has a sometimes-dizzying mythology to sort out. The challenges is stitching together the big story arcs but not scaring away casual viewers who want an hour of digestible science fiction.

“That’s the monster challenge in a show like this, how do you do a show that has mythology ongoing, a continuum, but is also somewhat stand-alone?” Abrams said. “For me, last season the introcution of the character Mr. Jones played Jared Harris [the son of the late Richard Harris] was the turning point. I think it felt like there was another point on the map. Now we know where we’re going. Now it’s not just sort of seemingly arbitrary, random stuff. Ironically, that and later episodes actually ended up connecting to things that we did in the early stories. It all started to feel inevitable, that we had a mythology and arc that we were following.”

This season, “Fringe” will delve further into the relationship and history between Walter and Peter Bishop. There will also be a more complete portrait of the elusive William Bell, a linchpin figure in the show’s mythology who was revealed in last season’s finale (played by Leonard Nimoy) alive and well on an alternate earth where the World Trade Center stills stands in New York.

Behind the camera, the season premiere tonight was directed by Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriter who won an Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind,” who has now been added to the show’s circle of creators.

Season two will also, according to Orci, explain in detail the nature of the Observers, the strange, bald visitors who will “get riled up” and become less passive. There will be more on the background of Reddick’s character, too, and look at the events in his life that led to his divorce.

“We learn about his military background,” Reddick said, “and see events in his past that explain his relationship to the United States government.”

For, the three main characters, the emphasis will be fine-tuning the portrayal of Jackson’s Peter Bishop, who will be finding out some unsettling truths about his background. Jackson, all grown up from his days on “Dawson’s Creek,” made it near the top People magazine’s “sexiest men alive” list last year and gives “Fringe” a cynical edge as a world-class thinker who has the heart of a self-interested con man.

“He’s the kind of guy that, when he leaves the room, you should check to see if you still have your wallet,” Jackson said. “I think we make sure that stays within the character, that he has that edge and that capability to do things that the audience finds unsavory and unethical. That’s the tug with this character.”

If anything, Peter will be going back to the way he was at the start of the show, when he was less shiny and happy and far less ethical.

Perhaps more than any other series in primetime this season, “Fringe” is looking to finally deliver on its promise by solving the mystery of its own identity. Watching the DVD of the first season, Abrams said, offers clues to that mystery but also feels at times more like a scavenger hunt than a series.

“Anytime you go back and look at the very first episode of almost any series there’s a charming incongruity to it,” Abrams said. “It’s not the show you’ve come to know. It’s all promise but no clear trajectory. It’s those next few episodes that kind of determine where it’s going. I think frankly those early episodes of first season we were on shakier ground. By the third, fourth, fifth episodes we began to find out footing. And now this season, we start running I think.”

-- Geoff Boucher

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Photos: Top, Joshua Jackson, left, and Anna Torv lead the way on "Fringe." Second photo:  Jackson and John Noble. Third:  Torv. Fourth: Jackson, Torv and Noble. Credit on all: Fox. 

I'm still digesting last night's epsiode of "Fringe" (and wondering why Leonard Nimoy was grinning so zealously in that anti-climatic ending -- and why exactly the makers of the show felt compelled to shroud Nimoy's face in shadow for so long when his name is in the opening credits), but I wanted to draw attention to Robert Lloyd's review of the season finale. As usual, he is sharp in his analysis and I particularly like this vivid paragraph:

Like most science fiction, the show is an invitation to obsession, but like much science fiction, it helps if you think more about the fiction and less about the science, which is, one might say, loosely based on a few convenient facts. But what makes the show work in any case is not so much character and plot — the first is barely explored, except as regards Walter Bishop, and the second is not always easy to track — as it is mood and event. That and its soulfulness, albeit soulfulness of a dry, cool, wintry variety, qualities [Anna] Torv herself embodies. Much of the drama is located in her Alice in Wonderland eyes.

READ THE REST

-- Geoff Boucher

RECENT AND RELATED

"Fringe" star set sights on "Human Target"

"Fringe" actors secretly marry

J.J. Abrams, the Hero Complex interview

Fox executive: "Fringe" building momentum

Dr. Walter Bishop, the latest lab-coat in a TV science surge

Photos courtesy of FOX

I was a huge fan of "Detective Comics" and "The Brave and the Bold" comics as a kid so I smiled when I read a brief item in the trades today about a new television series featuring Christopher Chance, the Human Target, a character that popped up in both those comics in the 1970s and 1980s.

Here's the brief blurb today by Nellie Andreeva, who notes that one of the stars of "Fringe" (and an oft-mentioned but so-far-unofficial candidate to play Captain America) will star...

Mark Valley has been tapped as the lead in Fox's drama pilot 'Human Target' for director Simon West, while Kathryn Hahn has been tapped to star in Fox's comedy pilot 'Absolutely Fabulous.' 'Target,' from WBTV, DC Comics and McG's Wonderland, is based on the DC Comics title and centers on Christopher Chance (Valley), a mysterious security freelancer who assumes the identities of those in danger, becoming the "human target" for his clients. Endeavor-repped Valley recurred on another Fox/WBTV drama series, "Fringe," this season.

The plot conceit of "Target" is pure genius as far as television series goes and recalls a bit of the satisfying "Mission Impossible" masquerade gimmicks: Chance is a master of disguise for hire whose specialty is disguising himself as a person who will be targeted for murder, which opens up all kinds of assassination motifs and tense suspense sequences.

"Target" has been resurrected before, of course. In recent years, Peter Milligan brought the character back with a memorable Vertigo Comics series that added more mystery, sex and gritty shadings to the face-changing exploits of Mr. Chance. (You can see one of the covers above on the right.)

There was also a 1991 comics revival for a blink-and-you-missed-it 1990s television adaptation starring "Jesse's Girl" singer Rick Springfield, but the less said about that the better.

(Random fanboy trivia: Did you know that heartthrob Springfield released a 1974 album titled "Comic Book Heroes"?)

Here's a look at Springfield tussling with David Carradine (!) on an episode of "Target"...

--Geoff Boucher

RECENT AND RELATED

"Fringe" stars secretly marry

J.J. Abrams, the Hero Complex interview

Fox executive: "Fringe" building momentum

Dr. Walter Bishop, the latest lab-coat in a TV science surge

Elsewhere: The official website for "Fringe"

Mark Valley from "Fringe," photo from Fox. Photo of Anna Torv and Mark Valley from Wire image.

Welcome to today's edition of Everyday Hero, your roundup of hand-picked headlines from across the fanboy universe ...

A WEDDING GOWN WITH "FRINGE": Ah,  weddings always make me cry ... especially when the groom is a dead counter-agent involved in a shadowy global conspiracy. I'm a big fan of "Fringe" and its star, Anna Torv, and apparently so is coy costar Mark Valley (whose name, by the way, keeps popping up when people discuss the film adaptation of certain Marvel Comics icon). Here's the report from gossip writer Kristin Dos Santos: "A rep for Anna Torv has just confirmed to us that the 'Fringe' star secretly married Mark Valley, who plays her love interest on the Fox show. OK, 'love interest' may be simplifying things just a wee bit. Mark plays her ex-lover John Scott, who turned out to be evil and died, but then came back to the series through hallucinations. (Just another day in the world of J.J. Abrams.) So when and where did the wedding ceremony go down? And more importantly, who even knew these two were together at all? Though Torv's rep declined to provide further details, sources on the show tell us the small, private ceremony took place over the holidays. The pair has been quietly dating for several months -- so quietly that many of their fellow castmates and crew members weren't aware they were together. Neither was the press. On Thursday, Valley took part in a conference call with reporters, and talked about his new bride (without referencing her as such). 'I think [Anna] is just a fantastic actor and I really like working with her,' he said. 'She's my favorite on the show, to be honest with you.' (We should hope so!)" [E! Entertainment]

IF YOU PLAN TO E-MAIL WORF... : I read this story saying that Klingon is now the "world's most widely spoken fictional language" but ... uh ... is it really fictional if people actually speak it? I mean, is it less real than pig Latin? I'm just saying. Anyway, the story is about a computer keyboard for Klingon speakers. I'm absolutely serious, and so is reporter Alex Fletcher's story: "Keyboards featuring the letters from the Klingon alphabet have gone on sale in Britain. Designed for Star Trek fans who have learned to speak and write in the alien language, they are priced £43.99. Developed into a full language by Marc Okrand, Klingonese was first devised by actor James Doohan for 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture.' 'The Klingon keyboard is the first step in providing PC input devices for all Federation cultures and will aid communications between Earth and other cultures within the Federation that fall outside the domain of Starfleet command,' said Cherry Electrical Products' Michael Groom. 'Of course, this keyboard demonstrates our capability to deliver custom keyboard designs, keycaps and layouts -- whether on this planet or elsewhere in the universe.' It is reportedly the most widely spoken fictional language in the world, and texts such as the Bible and the works of Shakespeare have been translated into the language." [Digital Spy]  ALSO: For great moments in the Klingon language -- such as Frasier Crane's speech in Klingon -- check out the video at the very bottom of this post ...

VIVE LE POTTER!: The Associated Press reports that "Harry Potter" is all the rage in Paris. "France paid homage to the author behind fiction’s most famous boy magician by inducting 'Harry Potter' series author J.K. Rowling into the country’s prestigious Legion of Honor on Tuesday. French President Nicolas Sarkozy bestowed Rowling with the honorary title of knight in the legion during a ceremony in a gilded hall in the Elysee presidential palace. The British writer leapt to worldwide fame with the 1997 publication of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,' the first of her mega-hit seven-part series. The books have sold more than 400 million copies and been translated into 67 languages, including French. In 2003, even before it was translated into French, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' — the fifth book in the series — became the first book in English ever to top the French bestsellers list. Created by Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century, the Legion of Honor is France’s elite national merit society. Although foreigners cannot be officially inducted, they are routinely made honorary recipients." [AP]

JOHN CARPENTER, INSTITUTIONALIZED: Here's a short blurb from the trades about a horror icon's next project: "Director John Carpenter is back, signing on to direct ghost story 'The Ward' for indie Echo Lake. Amber Heard ('Pineapple Express') will star as a haunted woman in a mental institution. Carpenter hasn't directed a feature since 'Ghosts of Mars' in 2001; 'The Informers,' starring Heard and helmed by Gregor Jordan, bowed in Sundance. [Variety]

"TRON" AS VIDEO GAME: Gaming blogger Ben Fritz has a good-news/bad-news update about the making of a video game to complement the big "Tron" revival that is start to ramp up: "Disney Interactive Studios is starting work on a new 'Tron' game at the same time it's joining the long list of companies laying off staff and consolidating development studios. A spokesperson declined to comment, but sources tell me DIS is talking to developers about a 'Tron' game that will be tied to 'TR2N,' the film sequel that its sibling studio is producing. The movie, which will star Jeff Bridges, Garret Hedlund and Olivia Wilde and be directed by Joseph Kosinski, is tentatively scheduled for 2011, which is when we can expect to see the game too. This is, of course, a no-brainer. 'Tron' was a movie about video games that spawned several successful arcade games (classics of my youth), as well as a sequel in 2003. So with a new movie coming out, what were the odds Disney was not going to do a new video game?  Nonetheless, it's exciting news to have a full-fledged new Tron coming. And it's good news that the movie is more than two years out (I'll go out on a limb and say Disney won't release it in the winter), since that means the game will have a solid amount of production time.  But it's not all light cycles and ricocheting discs at Disney Interactive. The media conglomerate's video game arm laid off almost 30 people at its Propaganda Games studio in Vancouver, maker of last year's fairly well received (I thought it was pretty good), so-so seller 'Turok.' " [Cut Scene blog, Variety]

ON THIS DATE: It was on this day in 1958 that the sixth and final season of "The Adventures of Superman" opened with an episode called "The Last Knight" which presented the Man of Steel flying in a suit of armor; it's the only time in the series that George Reeves went airborne in anything other than the hero's familiar costume. I imagine Reeves was pretty well sick of the show by that point.... To mark this modest anniversary, let's all stick to wearing our own cape today.

Welcome to today's edition of Everyday Hero, your roundup of handpicked headlines from across the fanboy universe....

WHAT PRICE WILL BE PAID?: The nasty legal squabble over "Watchmen" is winding down but what's the bottom line for Warner Bros.? Reporter John Horn gets into the nitty gritty and finds that Larry Gordon, the colorful producer who brought landmark action films such as "48 Hrs.," "Die Hard" and "Predator" to the screen, may get stuck with part of the sizable bill in the property dispute: "The court fight over 'Watchmen' is costing Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, but the biggest bill of all could fall to the film's producer, Larry Gordon, his lawyers and their insurers, who could be on the hook for substantially more money. Court documents in the nearly yearlong dispute over the superhero movie's distribution rights show that Warner Bros., which is poised to lose valuable rights to 'Watchmen' after a judge's favorable ruling for Fox, is pursuing Gordon 'for all damages Warner Bros. suffers as a result of Fox's claims' ... Two people familiar with the dispute said that those Warner Bros. damages could potentially total tens of millions of dollars. Among the possible settlement terms under discussion is a deal in which Fox could end up with as much as 8.5% of 'Watchmen's' gross receipts, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. 'Watchmen' director Zack Snyder's last film for Warner Bros., 2007's '300,' grossed more than $456 million in worldwide ticket sales. It is unclear whether Gordon has initiated an insurance claim against the law firm that negotiated his 'Watchmen' deal with Warner Bros., but Gordon has said in a letter that the same lawyers may have made 'a unilateral mistake' as part of an earlier deal involving the film's rights." [Los Angeles Times]

"FRINGE" BENEFITS: The television show "Fringe" really found its rhythm as its first season wore on and Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told the assembled press at the Television Critics Assn. gathering that its paranormal pursuits are building momentum. "It's a keeper ... they've really found the storytelling model now ... what you're going to see in the second half in the year, if you follow the serialized story you're going to find [satisfying content each week and yet] the stories really do re-set themselves each week ... I would not expect it to take off after 'Idol' but I do think it will tick up another level." [The Hollywood Reporter]

HEATH LEDGER'S GLOBE, A POSTSCRIPT: Chris Nolan made a lovely speech in accepting the posthumous Golden Globe for Heath Ledger and now Melanie Ambrose has a piece about the late actor's family and its plans for the prestigious but bittersweet trophy. Ledger's daughter, 3-year-old Matilda, will get it: " 'It will belong to her because she is part of him,' Ledger's mother, Sally Bell, tells WHO. 'I should imagine that eventually it will be going to Matilda,' Bell says from her home in Perth, Western Australia. 'At this stage she is only so young, but down the track she will have all these things. It will belong to her because she is part of him.' Bell says her family is 'bursting with pride' over her son's recognition for playing the Joker in 'The Dark Knight,' a role he 'loved.' 'It is such a fantastic and wonderful legacy for his daughter. Matilda will have so many people who will be able to speak to her about her father's abilities and the respect he had in the industry. That is such a wonderful legacy to leave.' Bell learned of his Golden Globe win before boarding a flight in Australia and admits there were 'a few tears.' 'There is a lot of emotion tied up in this, and we have to deal with that emotion first before we can relax and enjoy the moment, if you know what I mean,' she explains." [Who Magazine]

ON THIS DATE: The late Jeff Morrow (1907-1993) was born on this day in New York City and had a long and varied professional life (he worked, for instance, in theater productions with Katharine Hepburn and Mae West in his younger days) but he is best known for roles in sci-fi films such as "This Island Earth," "The Creature Walks Among Us" (which was the sequel-to-the-sequel of "The Creature From the Black Lagoon") and the unintentionally hysterical "The Giant Claw," which presented a terrifying avian creature who wasn't very terrifying at all. He was also one of three astronauts confronted with a mystery in "The Twilight Zone" episode "Elegy" during that iconic show's first season. To celebrate his birthday, let's remember that acting in bad movie is harder than acting in a great one. To see some, uh, great scenes featuring Morrow, go to the bottom of this post.

Here's the latest edition of Everyday Hero, your roundup of handpicked headlines from the fanboy universe...

The Oscar goes to ... ?: Reporter Rachel Abramowitz of the Los Angeles Times (who also did a great article a few months back on Hollywood's sad treatment of the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien) takes a look at the tricky business of campaigning for a posthumous Oscar in a Calendar article on Heath Ledger. "How do you run an Oscar campaign for Heath Ledger, the widely admired young actor who died last January of an overdose of prescription drugs? Very carefully, it seems, as Warner Bros., the studio behind 'The Dark Knight,' tries to tread the line between tribute and exploitation in rallying academy support for Ledger's performance as the maniacal, nihilistic Joker.... It is a near-consensus in Hollywood that Ledger is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for supporting actor and might even win, which would make the forever young Australian the only actor besides 'Network's' Peter Finch to earn an acting Oscar posthumously. Still, he faces strong competition from other contenders, who could include Philip Seymour Hoffman ('Doubt') and Michael Shannon (for his breakout performance in 'Revolutionary Road'). Already, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members say that if Ledger is nominated, his spectral presence could help reverse the ratings slide for the Academy Awards show as fans tune in to see if his riveting turn as the demonic Joker is honored." [Los Angeles Times] .... ALSO Read my recent interview with Christopher Nolan in which he talks about an Oscar for Ledger.

Super cameo in "Green Lantern"?: Screenwriter Marc Guggenheim talked to Jennifer Vineland about the Green Lantern screenplay he is working on with Michael Green and the film's director, Greg Berlanti. He explains that the core story is locked in and now they are working on streamlining it with an eye on budget matters (such as limiting the number of locations). He also said that during their fanboy tangents they chew on topics such as cameo appearances for other DC heroes: "And while there's already a lot of speculation over who would play Green Lantern -- Ryan Gosling? Matthew Settle? David Boreanaz? -- what about Clark Kent, who will make a small cameo? Will the part go to someone already established on film or television to be the Man of Steel, like Brandon Routh or Tom Welling? 'There were rumors that Tom Welling would have a cameo in "Batman Begins" as a young Clark Kent, to meet up with a young Bruce Wayne,' Guggenheim noted. 'But you have to be careful when you do things like that, because it sounds great in concept, but when you sit down to watch it, it poses the danger of pulling you out of the film.' But as a self-proclaimed 'sucker for a good Easter egg,' Guggenheim said, 'The fanboy in me would love that. Robert Downey, Jr. in "The Hulk" was awesome. I love that stuff in general, and I think the fans would enjoy it. Brandon Routh or even Tom Welling [in "Green Lantern"] would be awesome. And anything is possible. The beauty part of being the writer, though, is that I don’t actually have to make that judgment call.' " [Splash Page blog at MTV]

Beedlemania!: The boy wizard may be gone, but the magic endures. Here's a report from Ben Hoyle in the U.K.: "A year and a half on from his seventh and final adventure, Harry Potter mania has erupted again. J.K. Rowling’s latest book 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' went on sale early this morning, forcing thousands of parents out of bed and into frostbitten queues outside bookshops long before dawn. Booksellers said that the collection of fairytales, which do not feature the boy wizard, was bound to be the Christmas number one, the first time that a work of fiction has claimed that position in recent memory. More than seven million copies of the book have been printed in 28 languages. Last night it was ranked first on Amazon's British and US websites. The online retailer is printing 100,000 copies of a leather-bound collectors' edition priced at £50. While her previous books have made her an estimated fortune of more than £500 million, Rowling has donated all the profits from 'The Tales' to the Children’s High Level Group, the charity she set up with Emma Nicholson, the MEP. 'The Tales' are a central part of the final Harry Potter book. Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, bequeathed a volume containing five wizard fairytales to Harry's friend, Hermione Granger. It offered clues to help Harry to defeat his great enemy, Lord Voldemort." [The Times of London]

She blinded me with science: Here's a fun one. During her channel surfing, Mary McNamara, the TV critic for the Los Angeles Times, has noticed a lot of lab coats lately: "In the beginning, there was the Professor. Though he never could figure out how to repair the S.S. Minnow, Russell Johnson's high school science teacher, stranded with the other castaways on 'Gilligan's Island,' was so ingenious he could re-charge a battery using only bamboo and coconuts, so morbidly cerebral it never occurred to him that he was the most likely mate for Ginger and Mary Ann. Now, there's Walter Bishop (John Noble), a psychiatrically challenged scientist so ingenious he can take a few wires, some ice cubes and a big battery and talk to the dead on Fox's 'Fringe.' Or Dr. Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell), who's too busy deconstructing experiments in cloning and mind manipulation at the 'Eleventh Hour' (CBS) to notice that the agent protecting him (Marley Shelton) is pretty hot. Over at 'Bones,' also on Fox, it's the same situation in reverse -- Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) would rather be performing her miraculous autopsies on the ancient dead but reluctantly solves more modern crimes with the emotionally irrepressible Det. Booth (David Boreanaz). Flip through prime time on any night, and along with the requisite numbers of cops and docs and lawyers you'll find an astonishing number of scientists. On CBS alone, there are the adorable physics geeks (played by Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons) of 'The Big Bang Theory' and Charles Epps (David Krumholtz), the mathematician turned detective of 'Numb3rs,' and the former fake psychic (Simon Baker) of 'The Mentalist,' who uses the power of informed observation to unravel mysteries. More than 40 years after the Professor talked Gilligan out of some ridiculous scrape or another while rigging up an irrigation system, rational thought has taken over television." Read the rest, it's clever and well-written. [Los Angeles Times]

-- Geoff Boucher

"Fringe," the new show from J.J. Abrams, premieres Tuesday night (8 p.m., Fox) and Abrams has been pledging for weeks that it will be easier to follow than some of his other shows, which he believes left some viewers feeling, well, "Lost."

How does "Fringe" compare to his past work?

Is it too derivative of shows such as "The X-Files" or his own baby, "Alias"?

Here's the lowdown from Los Angeles Times television critic Mary McNamara, who has a mixed-bag review of the show:

The poor airline industry. As if rising gas prices, increased security measures and constant cost-cutting were not enough, now there’s another J.J. Abrams pilot. Travelers who have finally shaken the anxiety-provoking images of cult-inducing “Lost” can look forward to a whole new set of phobias thanks to the opening moments of Abrams’ new show “Fringe.”

As lightning crackles around an international flight to Boston, a wild-eyed passenger injects himself with something one can only hope is a tranquilizer and then next thing you know ... well, I don’t want to spoil anything for the 19 people who haven’t seen the pilot online, but it results in the assemblage of every law enforcement agency in the country donning hazmat suits.

Because comparisons are unavoidable, it must be noted up front that this is not the same sort of jaw-droppingly, what-the-heck-kind-of-show-is-this pilot that “Lost” had. Frankly, we know what kind of show this is going to be. “Fringe” stands for Fringe Science, which includes everything from mental telepathy to reanimation, so much of your enjoyment will depend on how much you still miss the “The X-Files.”

While “The X-Files” told us the truth is out there, “Fringe” posits the equally vague notion that “Everything is Part of a Pattern.” So, if you’re the type of person who needs every little thing, or indeed any little thing, to make sense in a pilot, then you should probably watch “Fringe” in solitude, preferably with the door closed, so the rest of us can enjoy it for what it is — an uneven, but promising jumble of horror, thriller and comedy that is not afraid to reference SpongeBob and “Altered States” in practically the same scene.

Let the games begin.

It's just the preview night, but the 'exclusives' sellout frustration, shoulder bumps, stroller trips and aisle clogging fun is already in full stride.  A few highlighted items, besides the crowds and $5 pretzel dogs:

-- Every year, there's THE bag.  The prized big bags that patrons will most likely carry around throughout the Con and are often completely given out by Friday. Bags from Warner Bros. (a vintage WB network bag with "Smallville," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Veronica Mars," and "Gilmore Girls" pictured (below), and a Wonder Woman bag), Little Big Planet, BET Animation, and a big frakkin' bag from the Sci Fi Channel were the ones making the rounds on the floor. Bag, you say?  While it may not seem like much, they are coveted, as evidenced by the fact that many sported last year's well-received Warner Bros. "Smallville" bag.

-- Hot booths included the California Browncoats (fans of Joss Whedon's "Firefly") booth which had an exclusive "Serenity" comic book and were the only booth to sell t-shirts from Whedon's recently released Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog); the NBC-Universal booth, which sported two-headed Hiro "Heroes" dolls and a sold-out "Battlestar Galactica" toaster; the Mattel booth, the DC booth (showing the "Watchmen" trailer ad infinitum; the"Star Wars" booth because ... it's "Star Wars"; and the Sideshow Collectibles booth, which showcased some alternative looks at Darth Vader among other things.

-- Wednesday's preview night is usually reserved for shopping the floor exclusively, with no TV or film programming, but in a first for Comic-Con, new TV show "Fringe" had a 6 o'clock airing in the huge Ballroom 20 area.  J.J. Abrams sent along a personal video introduction in which he congratulated the crowd on seeing the "first not illegal, unleaked, evil internet screening" of the much-hyped show.  A harrowing opening few minutes involving planes, mysteries, government agents in bed and melting faces left some of the sparse crowd gasping.

-- Jevon Phillips

Once J.J. Abrams and "Fringe" stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble wrap their Saturday Comic-Con panel, potential "Fringe" fans will embark on a scavenger hunt to find...well, that's top-secret, but we hear the payoff will be worthwhile.

Participants need to sign up at ExploreTheImpossibilities.com to register to receive their first clue -- it will be sent out Saturday after the session, so laptops, iPhones and other Web-friendly cellphones are recommended -- but we here at Hero Complex have already secured an *exclusive* sneak peek at the first clue for you. Here's your jump start:

During last year's Comic-Con, Warner Bros. put on a similar interactive event for "Dark Knight," where crowds slowly morphed into the Joker -- the studio provided the makeup -- as they chased clues throughout San Diego.

-- Denise Martin

This post in from Christie St. Martins, blogger extraordinaire of Funny Pages 2.0:

Every year, I check out the fall line-up and pray that maybe I'll get something to fill in the gap between my lost and beloved "Star Trek" series and of course the lulls between "Battlestar Galactica" seasons and their often questionable TV-made movie attempts. Every year, I see a few potential hopefuls that are always squashed for me by cynical bloggers getting the scoop before I see the pilot. You know that, OR I find out that the sci-fi show I was excited about was produced in Canada. Either way, every year I lose a little more hope.

You would think, with the success of the box office for the last eight years for graphic novel film adaptations that they would really try to up the ante for prime-time television. "Heroes" sure, thank you Fox, but guess what? We rather patient and loyal geeks have to wait months and months with only awful reality TV ("So You Think You Can Dance," excluded. Whatever. Mock me all you want, it's great.) to keep us company.

This brings me to the potential ray of light in my sad geekless televised world, "Fringe." "Fringe" is the fourth TV series created by  J.J. Abrams, of most recent "Lost" fame, that aims to explore mysteries of the paranormal as well as the relationships between the characters while steeped in yummy mythology. I was even one of Abrams loyal viewers with "Alias." (Yeah, I loved "Felicity" too, but this isn't a sleepover so I'll keep my mouth shut. Sort of.) Although, I am not particularly proud of the "Alias" years. After the fourth person died, but didn't really die, because, oh look, they are back in Sydney's life again, it was just a bit too much. Then "Lost" came around, oh happy day! Plane disaster stories. Delicious.