Looking for the "Fringe" elements

It's not shaping up to be a particularly auspicious fall TV season: Usually by this time, we have received screeners of all new broadcast network shows. This year, only CBS has come through (and we'll discuss their lineup later). NBC (which ordered many of its series without producing pilots), ABC (which has only one new scripted show premiering in the fall, "Life on Mars," which is going through a period of anxiously recasting several roles), Fox (which has the most promising new lineup) and The CW (which should consider itself lucky to still be in business) - have all saved on postage by keeping their screeners out of critics' hands.

But according to this report, if I went on a forensic search of the Internets, I could probably find J.J. Abrams' pilot for Fox's highly anticipated "Fringe" out there somewhere:

"Fox was very careful with this expensive pilot, opting for private industry screenings rather than mailing out DVD screeners. The network is trying to sell the show to advertisers at a premium in exchange for episodes running with fewer ads. Once on BitTorrent, halting a file's distribution is pretty much impossible, though 'Fringe' studio Warner Bros. is one of more aggressive and schooled companies on such matters."

For what it's worth, BitTorrent currently seems to claim no knowledge of "Fringe" - which stars Anna Torv and Lance Reddick as Feds and Joshua Jackson as the son of an institutionalized scientist investigating paranormal activity and really gross stuff. After some random noodling online until I got bored, I found a couple of sites that seemed to have it but weren't particularly forthcoming with the goods (hey, but I found a site where I could've watched "The Incredible Hulk" with Japanese subtitles as shot from the far left side of a movie theater!).

Nonetheless, online reviews suggest the show is living up to its hype - it's favorably compared to "Lost" and "The X-Files;" there's even whispers that the pilot was intentionally leaked in order to boost the buzz further.

According to the link above, "Fringe" has one Fed seeming to crib, then invert, a catch phrase from "The X-Files:" "The truth ... the truth is ... we're irrelevant."

And so are TV critics once everyone gets so paranoid about spoilers that they eventually don't even allow the show to be aired because they don't want anyone knowing what happens.