Los Angeles–The first "buzz" show of the Television Critics Association tour has emerged a potential cult phenomenon of Lost proportions, coming as it does from beyond the fringe.
And indeed, it is Fringe – the latest offering from the J.J. Abrams fantasy factory (Alias, Lost, the Star Trek remake) – and it actually emerged weeks ago, when an early version of the pilot was widely leaked on the Internet (skeptics suggest by the producers themselves, which they naturally all vehemently deny).
At the official debut screening here, reaction among critics was somewhat mixed, yet skewed toward positive. But then we are all tired and old and jaded and cranky, and still wary from being burned in the past by other zeitgeist serial dramas like 24, Heroes and Lost.
If you ask me, this thing has break-out hit written all over it.
Take one bad-boy genius (our own Joshua Jackson), his estranged mad-scientist dad and a hot blond FBI agent (Aussie actors John Noble and Anna Torv, respectively) set them on the trail of an unspeakably icky biological terrorist threat ... what's not to love?
Well, one thing: the slickly stylized new Fox drama is now shooting in New York, instead of Toronto, where the pilot episode was filmed (and it is somehow even more thrilling to see a high-speed car chase careen along the Gardiner than it was watching the Incredible Hulk trash Yonge).
The production may have moved stateside, but it took along with it Vancouver expat and former Dawson's Creek heartthrob Jackson.
His casting, says Abrams, "was very last minute. It was like when we found Evangeline Lilly in Canada (for Lost). And Scott Speedman came in from Toronto at the last second for Felicity. Canada's been very good to us."
One Canadian player from the pilot did not survive the show's relocation to New York: a scene-stealing bovine bit-player that was reluctantly sent back to the farm.
"The cow is a regular," Abrams confirms, "but it's a new cow. Turns out we weren't able to transport the (original) cow down from Canada. We had to recast. There was even some discussion of (disguising it with) makeup, so people wouldn't notice that it wasn't the same cow."