Why does a TV show make me so angry?

Have you seen the new Fox TV show Fringe? I fucking hate that show. I hate it enough that I post comments about how much I hate it in chat rooms. I hate it so much that I purposely watched it again last night so that I could write about my hate in a semi-educated manner.

Why so much hate? I can't stand shows like According to Jim and Til Death and would never watch them, but I don't feel the need to proselytize about my hate for those shows. Just Fringe.

This hate is completely irrational and a little pathetic, I admit. I totally need to get laid. Not denying that. But while I am not getting laid, I am going to explain why I am such a hater.

The show centers around FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham, mad scientist Walter Bishop, and his genius son Peter (aka Pacey from Dawson's Creek) as they investigate events involving fringe science, such as telepathy and reanimation. If you are thinking, wow, this sounds A LOT like the X-Files, you are right.

In fact, there are so many similarities, I think X-Files creator Chris Carter could sue J.J. Abrams for violating his intellectual property rights. Of course, the X-Files borrowed from other science fiction, no question. But Fringe, at its core, is the X-Files, without the originality, charm, subtlety, and of course, Mulder and Scully.

This, fundamentally, is why I hate Fringe. It offends me. It cheapens something I admire and value. I hate it for the same reason why Hollywood (so far) hasn't remade classic films such as Gone with the Wind. It is impossible to imagine anyone but Vivien Leigh playing Scarlett O'Hara. It is impossible to imagine Gone with the Wind remade with CGI or in HD. Some things are better left untouched, unremastered, and unadulterated.

Fringe is completely derivative of the X-Files, in big ways (FBI agents investigate paranormal activity potentially linked to an international conspiracy) and in smaller ways. One example: on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully frequently busted out flashlights in dark rooms, often providing the only lighting in the scene and creating the show's trademark creepy ambiance. In the Fringe episode I watched last night, Olivia (the main FBI agent) took out a flashlight of her own at a crime scene ... in broad daylight.

What amazed me the most about last night's Fringe episode was that it borrowed from not one, not two, but at least three X-Files episodes to cobble together a single plot. In this episode, a serial killer kills women to extract their pituitary glands in order to slow a rapid aging process. I immediately thought of the classic X-Files episode in which a genetic mutant killed people to extract their livers so that he could hibernate for 30 years and yet another X-Files episode in which an African immigrant in need of certain hormones killed people to extract their pituitary glands. In another scene, the mad scientist admits that he used to be part of a government program designed to cultivate soldiers. This immediately reminded me of the (somewhat ill-advised) X-Files mytharc involving the government plot to create super-soldiers out of alien DNA. (OK, it sounds stupid when I write it).

In addition to being completely derivative, Fringe has a fatal flaw: the show lacks a skeptic and therefore lacks a constant, a basis in reality. From Episode 1, the seasoned FBI agent Olivia was quick to believe in the crazy ass shit the mad scientist was dishing out--you can talk to your dead boyfriend telepathically as long as he hasn't been dead for more than 6 hours!!! As annoying as Scully's incessant "Mulder, you aren't suggesting that..." and "Mulder, do you expect me to believe..." was at times, Scully's skepticism kept the show honest. Without a skeptic, Fringe is like MacGyver on paranormal steroids. In last night's episode, the FBI agent was able to solve a crime using an "electric pulse camera" to capture the last electric impulses that traveled along a murder victim's optic nerve and therefore reveal what she saw before she died.

Over-reliance on this sort of deus ex machina = boring. If, when confronted with a seemingly intractable problem, the mad scientist can just say, "Oh, we can solve that, all we need is a flux capacitor, some chicken wire, and a set of 30 weight ball bearings"--without a single character batting an eyelash--then I am not interested.