Hi, I’m Marisa. As Dan mentioned, I’m going to get to chime in with my television opinions. (And I’m psyched!) I occasionally write about TV for PopMatters, but I watch way more TV than those reviews suggest. My favorite shows include more cartoons than most, especially long-gone favorites like Home Movies and Mission Hill. If you’re one of the lucky one million that lives in Westchester County, you can also tune into my other blog for everyone’s favorite pop-cultural coverage–the regional kind!

Okay, I’m done with my awkward introduction. On to Fringe, which had its 95-minute premiere last night. Coming from J.J. Abrams, I expecting nothing short of utter madness. After Alias, which I didn’t watch but I know that it had something to do with the prophecies set forth by a 15th-century artist, and Lost, with its smoke-monster that bludgeons people to death, a certain level of wackadoo had to be built in, right? So I stacked the first episode of Fringe up against Lost with regards to some common elements to see if J.J. has outdone himself with craziness.

**Warning! These comparisons contain massive spoilers!**

Here goes:

Unfortunate Plane Incident

Fringe: Passengers liquefy, leave skulls neatly in their seats.

Lost: Mysterious forces ground the plane abruptly on a freaky desert island.

Advantage: Fringe. Because, eww.

Crazy-Ass Experiments

Fringe: Brain-melding, reanimation, mind control, telekinesis.

Lost: Meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, and electromagnetism.

Advantage: Tie. Zoology doesn’t sound all that crazy, but it is when it involves corporate-logo-branded sharks.

Mad Scientist Performing Crazy-Ass Experiments

Fringe: Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), a semi-lucid, formerly institutionalized quack with a thirst for ginger ale.

Lost: Dr. Marvin Candle, who comes across as almost pleasant in those Dharma training videos.

Advantage: Fringe. Never trust a man who prefers ginger ale to cream soda.

Shadowy Behind-the-Scenes Corporation

Fringe: Massive Dynamic

Lost: The Widmore Corporation

Advantage: Who knows? It’s another tie, but I was leaning toward giving this round to Lost, since “Massive Dynamic” sounds like it has too many MBA buzzwords to be truly lethal.

Animals When You Least Expect Them

Fringe: A cow is brought to the wackolab because, apparently, cow DNA is very similar to human DNA. The cow’s true purpose was a cheap site gag that was one chromosome away from being a cow reaction shot.

Lost: Polar Bear out of nowhere.

Advantage: Lost, because I believe the polar bear really will serve a purpose. Remind me of this post when the series ends and I turn out to be horribly, horribly wrong.

Limb With Inappropriate Number of Digits

Fringe: The bumper graphic before a commercial break shows a hand with six fingers. Princess Bride fans perk up.

Lost: That they-promised-they’d-explain-it four-toed statue.

Advantage: Lost. Who knows if Fringe will deliver on the promise of a six-fingered person?

Proclivity for Nicknames

Fringe: Peter Bishop (Joshua “Pacey Forever” Jackson) calls Olivia Dunham (Anna “Wasn’t on Dawson’s Creek” Torv) “Sweetheart” an unnatural number of times.

Lost: Sawyer calls everyone everything from Chewbacca to Short Round

Advantage: Lost. It really is quite hilarious when you hear them all in a row like that.

So, for now, it looks like Lost is still the standard-bearer for craziness. But Fringe almost squeaked by with only one episode under its belt. I’m sure crazy is Fringe‘s growth industry. We’ll see how they compare at the end of their seasons.

…and no, I haven’t gone and adopted a wee future blogger.  Yet.

As you can probably imagine, blogging takes some time and quite a bit of mental energy.  Blogging anything that anyone wants to read takes even longer.

To put it bluntly, I’ll say this: Mama’s getting tired.

Trying to churn out something every weekday, even when it’s midnight and I’ve had a few beers, can be a bit of a grind. And you deserve better than my drunken wee hours ramblings (although, to be fair to myself, some of my more inspired posts have been under the influence).

But never fear, dear readers. I’m not giving up the ship — I’m calling in for reinforcements. While John’s been doing a glorious job at keeping the news running, I’ve recruited two more folks to help do some heavy lifting.

Meet Jesse and Marisa.

They’ve been known to pop up in the comments. They’re also writer-y, art-y folks.  Full disclosure, I’ve never actually met them, but they seem lovely.

In fact, you’ll get to meet Marisa in a matter of hours as she has some opinions on last night’s Fringe premiere that she’d like to share. So stay tuned for that.

Also, Sara (who you remember as the editrix of our Olympics coverage) will also be picking up some writing slack with some regular posts.

We’re not quite sure how all this will coalesce into a jiggly Jell-o mold of pop culture frivolity, but I’m sure we will find our rhythm sooner or later. The more voices we have, the more interesting things will be.  And the less you have to hear me talking about which boys I think are cute because I haven’t got another God damn thing to say.

Anyways, onward and upward. Let’s blog until our fingers bleed.

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