Fox drama 'Fringe' thrives

From year to year, TV just seems to get stupider, a process hastened this fall by the truncated development season resulting from last winter's writers strike, as amply proven by two new shows this week: Fox's "Do not Disturb" and the CW's "Privileged."

Yet you know what? On another new show, a little dumbing down seems to actually suit J.J. Abrams.

Abrams, of course, is the wunderkind writer-producer behind "Lost" and "Alias," two shows that got mired in their own developing mythology as they went along. Yet now he's back with "Fringe," debuting at 7 p.m. today on Fox WFLD Channel 32, which he devised along with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. It's a high-concept show, to be sure, but this time Abrams and his writing team keep the back-story conspiracy largely hidden and instead concentrate on the police-procedural elements. The result is a tense series debut that comes off almost as a self-contained two-hour TV movie, tantalizing in what it leaves unsaid and yet to be addressed.

Like "Lost," "Fringe" begins with disaster in the air, as a man on a transatlantic flight triggers a catastrophic outbreak of some unknown virulent disease. Once down on the ground, the series stars Anna Torv, who could double for Cate Blanchett, as Olivia Dunham, an FBI agent with more than a working relationship with fellow agent John Scott, played by Mark Valley. They're assigned to track the case, but just as they avow their love for each other as they're about to apprehend a suspect, Scott gets blasted with a dose of the trigger agent and comes down with the blight himself.

That leads Dunham to redouble her efforts, in spite of the obstacles placed in front of her by Homeland Security special agent Phillip Broyles, played by Lance Reddick (who like Tristan Wilds of the new "90210" has found sanctuary in prime time after starring in HBO's largely unseen "The Wire"). They have a conflict relationship going back to a previous sex-harassment case she prosecuted, and to subtly emphasize the point people keep calling her "honey" and "sweetie."

Here's where the series elements kick in. Dunham's efforts to determine the active agent - and undo the disease in her lover - lead her to Walter Bishop, an institutionalized old master of the "fringe sciences" (read "paranormal phenomena," a la "The X-Files") who as played by John Noble comes off as a hyper-self-absorbed, if well-intentioned Unabomber. To get access to Dr. Bishop, however, Dunham needs a family contact, which leads her to Peter Bishop, played by former "Dawson's Creek" humble hunk, Joshua Jackson.

How much does he want to visit his crackpot old man? He'd rather stay in Iraq doing risky business deals. Yet Dunham compels him to join her cause, and before long he's joining her on foot in pursuit of a suspect.

I'm not going to say much else, in order to preserve the genuinely surprising twist this show takes toward the end of the pilot. Yet I will suggest that it has a playful manner and untapped resources of "X-Files" paranoia, manifested in Blair Brown, who plays the placid public-relations face of Massive Dynamic, a hugely fearsome corporation run by a former colleague of Dr. Bishop's. (Aha!)

This show has promise of becoming an anxious allegory of global capitalism, and it's not just the super-sharp halogen flashlights that remind a viewer of "The X-Files." If Abrams keeps his urge to overreach under control and lets the mystery seep out organically over time, while tracking the shifting three-way relationship between Dunham and the Bishops, this could be a very good and even significant TV show.

No so "Privileged," the CW's new class-conscious, but otherwise bubbleheaded exercise in elitism and how the other half lives, debuting at 8 p.m. today on WGN Channel 9. JoAnna Garcia, who could double as Amy Adams' baby sister, stars as Megan Smith, an aspiring writer who ends up serving as tutor to two bratty Palm Beach teens: the more humble Rose, played by Lucy Kate Hale, and the more ferocious and dominant Sage, played by Ashley Newbrough. Anne Archer is their grandfather (say it ain't so, she can't be that old), who hires Megan and promises to pay off her "Yale loans" if she can get them accepted to Duke.

Good luck with that.

Garcia has an appealing girl-next-door quality, but she knows it all too well, so she can't help indulging in cutesy face contortions. (Just study how she reacts to Grandma calling her "quirky.") Oh, there are some studmuffins hanging around, and there's another angle involving her estranged family as she's returning home to Palm Beach, but tonight's pilot cuts off right where it might begin to get interesting. As it is, this show couldn't be more predictable or less compelling.

Finally, there's the aptly named "Do not Disturb," premiering at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10 on Channel 32. It stars Jerry O'Connell, who was the best thing about the canceled "Carpoolers" (except maybe for T.J. Miller's Marmaduke), as Neal, the horndog manager of a well-to-do hotel. He's pitted against Niecy Nash's Rhonda as the strident head of human relations, and the glimpses critics and advertisers got of it last spring seemed faintly promising in spite of the simple-minded premise. Yet the premiere, entitled "Work Sex," puts Rhonda in something more than a working relationship with a hotel security guard, apparently because she must have seemed too forthright otherwise. Her character is softened as a result, but so is the humor, leaving nothing to strike sparks when these apparent opposites collide. I don't know how it is Fox can produce such high-minded dramas and such idiotic comedies, but my guess is this series will be forcibly removed from the Fox schedule before the baseball playoffs move in come October.

In the air

Remotely interesting: CBS airs its annual "Fashion Rocks" special at 8 p.m. today on WBBM Channel 2. The "Greatest American Dog" finally gets named at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10 on Channel 2.

Fox WFLD Channel 32 is getting into the online-community dating business. Like-minded Fox viewers can enter a profile on "YourDatingSpot" at myfoxchicago.com. ... HBO's "In Treatment" is out on DVD today, while NBC's "Heroes" puts out a soundtrack compilation.

End of the dial: The Third Coast International Audio Festival presents highlights from its 2008 challenge "Radio Ephemera" at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10. The highlights are culled from about 80 submissions of short audio stories. It's $8, $6 for Chicago Public Radio members.

WFMT 98.7-FM has added Bethany & Rufus and the Makem & Spain Brothers to its Midnight Special Folk Festival set for Sept. 28 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie.