"FRINGE Fox Fox's "Fringe" could have easily frayed from all the hype. Instead, the drama -- co-created by the unstoppable J.J. Abrams -- shook off the early "X-Files" comparisons and emerged as the season's top-rated new show, thanks to its addictive mix of weird science and compelling characters (and we don't just mean that eerie bald Observer guy). Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), the FBI agent charged with solving the trippy "Fringe" cases, is a worthy addition to Abrams' oeuvre of smart, tail-kicking chicks, while the tenuous reconciliation between wiseguy Peter (Joshua Jackson) and his brilliant (though mentally unstable) father Walter (John Noble) has infused the series with a surprising poignancy. Such attention to character is a priority for the producers. "If there aren't real human emotions at the core," says showrunner Jeff Pinkner, "then we feel we've failed as storytellers." Still, any sci-fi drama worth its chills demands jaw-dropping twists, and "Fringe" delivered with its season finale, which found Walter visiting a gravestone with his son's name on it and Olivia dropping in on Leonard Nimoy in an alternate reality where the Twin Towers still stand. According to Pinkner, producers are just getting started. "Internally, we're all viewing season one as the prologue," he says. "Season two is when our storytelling really kicks into gear." -- Shawna Malcom" - RAPatton

"TRUE BLOOD HBO As he went to work on the first season of "True Blood," showrunner-creator Alan Ball had one thing in mind. "You hope when you start a project with many contributors that it takes on a life of its own," says Ball. "And when it does, you get out of the way and let it be what it wants to be." In this case, "True Blood" didn't just want to be a story about out-of-the-casket vampires and the mortals who love them. "In the first season, you see the show is about the danger of intimacy, danger of sexuality, the primal nature of ourselves that we project onto sex," says Ball, who wasn't so interested in vampires before coming to work on this show. "And it's very funny about all of that in a dark way." Ball also felt the "supernatural" qualities of the vampires and their story should be as rooted in nature and reality as possible to keep viewers connected to the experiences of the characters. "We worked a lot on the physiology of the vampire fangs," says Ball. "We decided to make them like rattlesnake fangs -- they'd come down whenever a vampire was sexually aroused or was about to get into a fight." More than the fangs, the synthetic blood or the immortals, Ball believes audiences are responding to the characters and their layered dilemmas and dramas. "I'm not interested in stereotypical heroes and villains," Ball says. "It's much more compelling if you have a hero who can also be narcissistic and dark and a villain who can be good and kind, and these characters have that kind of complexity."" - RAPatton

Love True Blood, but never got into Fringe, my husband watches it and I can never stay awake through an entire episode. Maybe it's just not X-files enough for me. - Kelly W.

Kelly W, it became really good in a Lost type way, with a large over arching plot about a war between parallel earths. - RAPatton

wow-I may have to revisit it then and watch the first season... - Kelly W.

In February the start the large arc, but they claim they had to establish a baseline first that will be important as time goes on. If you were to catch up, just start with those episodes forward. - RAPatton

i'll go out on a limb and say that the only reason fringe is seeing some shine is because of John Noble and not the plot. - Carlos Ayala

I think John Noble is fantastic, but I love the large plot. It is one of the low hanging fruit that has just been waiting for Hollywood to take from comics. - RAPatton

I'm a complete True Blood fan from the first episode that condensed 6 of what a 'normal' series would comprise of into one episode :) - Kim