Fringe episodes posed a “mystery of the week” series, the show later delved deeper into a serialized format. The sci-fi show followed a mismatched group of people (an FBI agent, an archetypal mad scientist, and his estranged son) in their daily lives as part of the Fringe Division of the FBI, which uses fringe science to investigate unexplained cases.
Fringe was arguably one of the Fringe and its cast won many major awards. However, Fringe’s defining sci-fi tropes are what truly made it a pioneer of the genre.
Fringe Laid Out The Textbook Tropes For Sci-Fi & Superhero Shows
Many Shows Copy Fringe Concepts
Fringe provided the textbook tropes for many sci-fi and superhero shows of late. With advancements in technology, recent years have provided some good sci-fi shows, but there is always a tendency to repeat the same sci-fi tropes. The “guy in the chair” (a person behind the scenes helping the hero via computer), time travel, the multiverse, evil alternate versions, technobabble, the mad scientist, secret laboratory bases, dystopian futures, and accidental monster creation, are some of the main modern sci-fi TV tropes seen in modern shows like The Flash, yet they were featured in Fringe every week for five seasons.
In Fringe, glyphs can be spotted throughout the show and correspond with those seen on posters and before commercial breaks. The glyphs were a cypher that, when decoded, spelled out a word relating to the episode, current arc, or show as a whole.
Stranger Things follows Eleven’s escape from a lab experimenting with giving mind powers to children, the same way FBI agent Olivia Dunham was experimented on by Walter. Fringe explored the concept of the multiverse way before Marvel’s What If…? series, or before the wider MCU and DCCU. Furthermore, The Flash has a similar setup to Walter’s hidden laboratory in Fringe, with similarities extending to the equipment and language they use, as the show uses technobabble like Walter. However, while it does showcase Fringe as a pioneer of its genre, no show has matched the clever twist in Fringe’s Observer ending.
Watching Fringe For The First Time Now Is A Very Different Experience
Fringe Has Aged Due To Its Tropes
Despite its high ratings, watching Fringe for the first time now would be a very different experience. At the time, Fringe introduced a lot of groundbreaking sci-fi concepts, exploring the multiverse and using extreme computer skills in a way that sci-fi shows had not yet. While Fringe’s parallel universe plot arc setup was one of the most inventive and interesting payoffs for the show, the multiverse is now a frequent topic for many movies, including franchises like Marvel and DC. Therefore, years on, Fringe is no longer an inventive sci-fi show because its tropes have become commonplace in the genre.
On the other hand, it was only because of Fringe’s usage that shows like The Flash were able to use its sci-fi tropes.
On the other hand, it was only because of Fringe’s usage that shows like The Flash were able to use its sci-fi tropes. Although watching Fringe today may be a different experience due to seemingly tireless tropes, Fringe was partly responsible for the sci-fi tropes in the first place, making it an important sci-fi series. Some fans have even vied for a reboot of the show, bringing it to a modern audience with fresh concepts, arguing that a Fringe revival will answer many questions left by the show. Regardless, Fringe will always remain a part of sci-fi TV show history.
This sci-fi procedural follows the FBI's secretive Fringe Division and its agents Olivia Dunham, Walter Bishop, and Peter Bishop. Together, they investigate cases regarding strange events that threaten society, including cases of parallel universes, human experimentation, and other strange phenomena.
- Writers
- Roberto Orci, J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman
- Seasons
- 5
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