Fringe
FOX | Release Date: September 9, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: The last half-hour of the pilot is by far the best part of Fringe; it’s full of twists, turns, action and suspense. And the first 20 minutes or so, in which a team of federal agents investigate a mysterious occurrence on a commercial airliner, is brisk and efficient, if (like much of Fringe) a little bombastic and overdirected. Aside from a cinematic dream sequence, the middle hour of Fringe is much more problematic. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: Nothing here really pops, even with Torv holding her own as the tough femme protagonist, the welcome presence of "The Wire's" Lance Reddick as her hostile boss and Noble exhibiting alternating strains of brilliance and psychosis. Read full review
60
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: Fringe is just good enough to watch with or without the ads. But with Abrams, you expect more than "just good enough." Read full review
60
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: I just knew that there seemed to be a Duchovny-shaped hole in the universe "Lost" co-creator J.J. Abrams had designed for his new sci-fi show....Fortunately, things pick up considerably in the second half of tonight's two-hour premiere. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith
Season 2 Review: For those of us who can't be bothered to decipher the mumbo jumbo, let alone take it seriously, there is diversion enough in each episode's discrete inner story, which doesn't require a mental decoder ring. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChris CabinSep 26, 2012
Season 5 Review: The cast is so uniformly excellent that one's seduced into following the narrative despite the show's rather glaring narrative flaws. Read full review
50
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: Abrams, the quintessential American dreamer and overindulger, the ultimate boyish idiot-savant imaginator, just can't control himself. He can't exercise a little self-restraint. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: After the electrifying start, Fringe unfolds as an uneven, unwieldy piece of work that provides very few chills and thrills. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: Fringe has the feel of a chemistry-lab concoction, the forced amalgam of preexisting elements. It may not be hydrogen sulfide, which gives rotten eggs their smell, but it's mediocre science. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Season 1 Review: Fringe is a smorgasbord of a show, but one a little too synthetically engineered to allow you the chance to discover what it is Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)John Leonard
Season 1 Review: In the end, it turns out that Homeland Security so desperately needs Olivia on their side of the freak wars that they show her their top-secret Mulder-Scully-esque X-files and recruit both Bishops as her own mercenary team of pattern pods. And I am the queen of the Nile. Read full review
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