"Fringe," you've won me back, and I promise never to leave you again!

Rarely does a television viewer's patience get rewarded. More often than not, shows that start out weak end up weak. And a lot of times, shows that start out great take a nosedive by the end of the season. But sometimes, there's that rare show that falls down at the beginning, takes a moment to get up and dust itself off and then never looks back. "Fringe" is one of those shows, and this season, it's quickly become the one series I look forward to more than any other.

When "Fringe" debuted last fall, I eagerly tuned in because, hey, a new J.J. Abrams production. While the show had some intriguing ideas, a good cast and some nifty effects, it lacked heart and it lacked drive. It was like getting a beautifully wrapped gift and finding nothing inside. So I stopped watching about halfway through the season.

Just recently, the husband and I decided to try again, and we quickly Netflixed our way through the rest of season one. It was difficult not to be thoroughly impressed with just how good "Fringe" got by the end of that first year. Our heroine Olivia became interesting! From the beginning, I'd felt that the Olivia character was the weak link in the show. Such a stiff, she had nothing to do but get creeped out by the ghostly memories of her dead boyfriend. Granted, adding a sister and a niece didn't really do the trick either, but putting her front and center in the series' grand mystery and tying her more closely to the dark pasts of mad scientist Walter and his son Peter finally made the show take off. It's amazing what having an active protagonist can do!

And oh boy, did the show ever flesh out the Walter character. John Noble is, hands down, the main reason to watch "Fringe." His portrayal of Walter is so charming and so heartbreakingly...well...delicate, you can't help but be moved. And yes, I may have sniffled when Olivia gave him a smackdown at the end of season one -- sure, it was deserved but Walter can't help what he's done!

It's taken until the new season for Joshua Jackson's Peter character to really take off. Finally, he seems to be more of an active participant rather than just a snarky tag-along who looks really good in sweaters. I'm very much looking forward to finding out how a rather large discovery last season plays out for his character.

All of the peripheral characters are beginning to shine as well from Astrid, who's quickly becoming Walter's best friend and not just his reluctant caretaker, to Broyles, Olivia's FBI chief who definitely seems to have some sort of juicy past...yet who still scares me because he's played by Lance Reddick, who was so effectively creepy on "Lost."

And best of all, I love the fact that this show has embraced its "X-Files"-y nature. The little nods to the series this year shows me that "Fringe" has stopped trying to pretend it's not a rip-off (in the best possible way) of "X-Files" and instead just seems focused on avoiding all the mistakes that led to its predecessors downfall. For a show that just keeps getting better and better, I think there's a very good chance it'll do just that.

How about you? Are you enjoying the new season so far?

Tuesday Odds & Ends: The Guild, Legos, Fringe, Marvel and unforgiveable accents

+ You know "The Guild" has made it when it's featured in "The Wall Street Journal." It's a pretty interesting article on how Felicia Day cultivated it as an independent project. Also, episode one of the new season is now embeddable, which means it's below. Enjoy!

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msn video&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:6f31eb66-4360-439a-ad62-f2bdf28f550e&showPlaylist=true&from=IV2_en-us_v11HP&fg=gtlv2" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 1: Expansion Time">Video: Season 3 - Episode 1: Expansion Time</a>

+ Remember a while back I mentioned that James May was building an actual house built out of Legos? Well, he did, using more than 816 million Lego blocks. Here's what it looks like, mid-build:

+ This Thursday night, you'll be able to Twitter along with the "Fringe" cast during a rebroadcast of last year's "The Road Not Taken" episode. You'll be able to post your own comments as well. I encourage you to ask Joshua Jackson if he's wearing pants...celebrities like that plus, it's just a good thing to know.

+ Cinemablend tries to quell the massive freak-out storm over Disney's acquisition of Marvel. Here, they share their five reasons not to lose sleep over the deal. But then you've got The Hollywood Reporter which is pretty much all about the big changes and why, yeah, you might want to freak out just a little bit.

+ I really enjoyed this list of the Empire Magazine's "Worst British Accents Ever." It comes with helpful video to prove the dialectical sins. Poor Kevin Costner, he'll never live down that "Robin Hood" fiasco...

+ And finally, if you're like me and find yourself trolling the Internet constantly for "Doctor Who" news, may I recommend this site which seems to include every up-to-the-minute spoiler you'd ever want? It's got me really looking forward to the new season.

Wednesday Odds & Ends: Transformers, new Indiana Jones and GIMPS

+ FOX announced its fall schedule this week. Thursday will apparently be the night I don't leave the house as "Bones" and "Fringe" will be back-to-back those days with "Dollhouse" following at 9 p.m. on Fridays. "Bones" and "Fringe" return on Sept. 17 with "Dollhouse" debuting the next night.

+ "Variety" has its review up on "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." The general gist is this: it's pretty much the same as the first one except 'splod-ier. Sounds good to me!

+ Another new "Indiana Jones" movie on the horizon? Yes, says Shia LaBeouf. The good news? Apparently Spielberg came up with the story this time.

+ Guess what? Another comic book series is being turned into a film. The upside to this one is that it's "Deadworld" and it's about zombies. There can never be enough movies about zombies, especially sentient ones. The film will be written by the "Watchmen" screenwriter David Hayter. Hopefully, it will be less bad than "Watchmen." (Sorry, I just didn't like that movie.)

+ Wow, I know nothing about math but this item on the discovery of a new Mersenne prime number is fascinating. What's even better? The people who look for these numbers are part of a group called GIMPS. No, really. It stands for "Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search." Awesome.

How 'bout that "Fringe?"

Just finished watching the debut of "Fringe," the latest series by J.J. Abrams that makes air travel look like the worst idea ever. And...it was pretty good. It doesn't blow you away like the pilots for "Lost" and "Alias" did, but it has promise. In case you missed it, the premise of "Fringe" revolves around an FBI agent, Olivia Desmond, who has to solve the origins of a mysterious disease with the help of a formerly institutionalized scientist and his son. In other words, the show is pretty much a revamped "X-Files" with better title cards.

So what does "Fringe" do right? Well, half the cast is really, really good. Joshua Jackson has a Sawyer-esque quality as the scientist's son and has a surprisingly sexy quality that I would not have associated with the dude who played Pacey on "Dawson's Creek." He's totally going to be a new sci-fi hottie. And John Noble as crazy scientist Walter Bishop is truly endearing and brings some much needed levity to the proceedings. Anna Torv, who plays Agent Dunham, looks distractingly like Cate Blanchett and is solid although not stellar. I think she'll grow into the role, though, and she's got a nice bad-ass quality brewing.

"Fringe" also does a nice job of maintaining a certain sense of realism in the midst of the craziness, which makes it eerier than it might otherwise be. And judging by the previews for upcoming episodes, it looks like that creepy factor is going to be ratcheted up in the near future and that can only be a good thing.

The other awesome thing? Bishop's got a cow named Gena and she likes to watch "Sponge Bob." TV would be so much better if every show had a cow named Gena.

Despite the awesome cow, "Fringe" does have room for improvement. The pacing of the first episode was erratic and failed to build to as strong a climax as it could have. Some of the plot was fairly predictable as well without giving us any of the "holy shit" shocks that we're used to on "Lost." Again, though, I have a feeling these things will change over time and evolve into a stronger, richer show.

Until then, I'm confident Joshua Jackson and Gina the cow will sustain me.

Polishing up the rabbit ears for a new TV season

Much as I’ve enjoyed watching absolutely nothing of consequence on TV for the last four months, save DVDs of “The Sopranos” which I’m about ten years late in recognizing is awesome, I’m extraordinarily thrilled that the new TV season is almost upon us. There are four new shows in particular that have tickled my fancy and which I’m hoping will live up to my inflated and childishly overwrought expections:

"Fringe" (debuting Sept. 9 on FOX)
Okay, even though there’s a Whedon production waiting in the wings, this may be the show I’m actually most excited about. Developed by J.J. “I’m fucking awesome at pilots and I spent $10 million on this one” Abrams, “Fringe” is about two FBI agents who are forced to work with an institutionalized scientists to solve unexplained phenomena. This series has a lot of things going for it: one, Abrams, who has yet to disappoint me with a series; two, it sounds like a total rip-off of “The X-Files” but in a good way, like they might actually know where they want it to go and how it will end – crazy! – and three, Joshua Jackson is one of the leads. Now, I was a “Dawson’s Creek” snob but I gotta tell you, I always liked that Pacey kid. This one rates a 9 out of 10 on my anticipation scale.

"Caprica" (mini-series debut in December on SCI-FI)
From the makers of “Battlestar Galactica” comes this prequel, set 50 years before the Cylon War and focusing on the interaction between two families: the Adamas and the Greystones. The latter has developed the artificial intelligence that will one day become the cylon race and result in the near annihilation of humanity. Honestly, I can’t keep track of whether “Caprica” has been picked up as a series or not, but from all the rave reviews the pilot has been getting, I’m guessing it’s a foregone conclusion unless every BSG nerd’s television breaks on the night of its debut and the thing scores a zero in the Nielsens. Truth be told, I wasn’t too amped up about the show until I saw some of the previews and now, I’m waiting as patiently as a golden retriever with a biscuit on its nose. The set design looks spectacular. I’m totally intrigued by the storyline. And who doesn’t love them some Eric Stoltz from time to time? This one’s hammering me with a 10 out of 10 in anticipation.

"Dollhouse" (debuting in January 2009 on FOX)
Holy hell, it’s a new Joss Whedon show! I’m trying very hard not to get my hopes up for this because Joss Whedon shows on FOX are like goldfish that you get at the fair. You fall in love with them and then FOX kills them…or something like that. The series stars Eliza Dushku (who, let me just admit right now, I kinda hated a lot as Faith on “Buffy”), Amy Acker (who I kinda loved as Fred on “Angel”) and he of the soulful forehead and sexy overbite, Tahmoh Penikett from “Battlestar.” The show revolves around a human lab rats who are sent out to complete various assignments and are given different personalities and memories to best serve their mission. The concept doesn’t really do it for me but then neither did the first couple episodes of “Firefly” and I quickly proved myself wrong on that one. I should just learn by now to “Trust in Joss” because he has never, ever done me wrong. Except on “Alien 3” and that totally wasn’t his fault. And hey, because this is a Whedon show, who wants to take first bets on who the lesbian character will be? I’m guessing Tahmoh but I could be reaching. Also, I can tell you right now that in the last episode, a beloved character will get killed off for no reason. I learned some stuff from "Buffy." Anticipation scale? I’m clocking in at a 8.5 on this one.

"Virtuality" (debuting sometime in 2009)
Another one from the makers of “BSG,” this show revolves around the Phaeton, Earth’s first starship, and the virtual reality modules installed on the ship to keep its human crew from going insane on a ten-year mission to explore the solar system. Naturally, things go wrong. The details are still pretty hazy on this one, but at this point, I’ll tune in to watch Ron Moore’s home movies so sign me up. Looking at a 7 out of 10 on the scale but only because I don’t know enough yet to know how awesome it will be.

I’m also looking forward to “Kath & Kim” but only because I tangentially knew Selma Blair growing up and she always seemed really nice. Also, she set fire to things in “Hellboy,” so, go Selma!

What are you looking forward to?

News of the Day -- Tuesday, June 24

+ Via Ain't It Cool News, a preview write-up of J.J. Abrams' fall pilot "Fringe," a sci-fi FBI show. By all accounts, it sounds pretty awesome. Thanks to Alyson for the tip!

+ If you're in the Columbus, Ohio area this week, don't forget to check out The 2008 Origins Game Fair. It's a huge, five-day, 24-hour a day gaming event starting tomorrow and running through Sunday. The husband and I will be checking it out this weekend, and I'm totally looking forward to it.

+ Report from the LA Film Festival on The X-Files panel with Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz and the luscious Mr. Duchovny. I wasn't really that thrilled with the clip they described. It made me just a tad bit worried about how good this movie is going to be. Honestly, though, who cares about quality at this point? I just want my two favorite FBI agents on the big screen again.

+ Top Ten British Crop Circles! This alien wants us to recycle:


(Okay, it's not an exact recycling symbol but it looks pretty darn close, right?)

News of the Day -- Thursday, May 15

+ Sweet fancy Moses, I'd like one of these:


It's a personal size jet. Yes, it's just like a jet pack but it makes you look like a flying squirrel which is about a billion times more awesome than anything ever.

+ Io9 has tons of details on J.J. Abrams new upcoming TV series, "Fringe," which is about an FBI agent who investigates weird stuff but is named neither Fox nor Mulder. Despite that, it still sounds pretty interesting. Hell, after "Alias" and "Lost," I'll watch anything J.J. offers. Unless it stars an Olson twin. I have standards. (They are low.)

+ E.T. and Mork have been on the edge of their religious seats for years now on this question, but the Pope has finally given the theological thumbs up to aliens, decreeing that it's A-OK to believe in life on other planets. This gives Alf hope that he'll one day receive absolution for that guy he knifed at the Macy's white sale a few years back. He goes INSANE around 300-thread sheets.