THEY CAN'T BOTH BE THE NEW X-FILES...

Eleventh Hour

FX, 9pm tonight (and +1)

Fringe (by JJ Abrams of Lost and Star Trek fame) & Eleventh Hour (the US adaptation of the British Patrick Stewart vehicle) have both been described as "the new X-Files" - FBI adventures with a scientific bent. But which one really does have the best chance of filling the TV shoes of Mulder & Scully?

FBI chick who's hot and a hardnut?

Fringe: Agent Olivia Dunham can handle herself, but she often looks close to tears. 7

Eleventh Hour: Agent Rachel Young's first appearance sees her trip up a bloke, put her boot on his neck and point a gun at him, because he may be a threat to the scientist she is protecting. The bloke she takes down is a cop. Yes, blonde hottie, yes, hardnut. 10

Spooky obsessed weirdo hero?

Fringe: Well, scientist Walter Bishop is a complete nutter, with a great line in scatalogical oversharing, but he's a bit old to be a Mulderish hero and too forgetful to obsess over anything. 6

Eleventh Hour: Rufus Sewell plays bug-eyed science genius, but he hasn't got the driving dogma of Mulder 6

Supernatural/extraterrestrial element?

Fringe: Teleportation, a hedgehog werewolf, walking through walls, giant slugs making Alien-style escapes from people's bodies, dead men talking, a weapon that encases victims in amber... That supernatural enough? No proper aliens yet, though. 9

Eleventh Hour: At first sight, these are investigations into unexplainable phenomena, but they usually have a rational explanation. There seems to be a fair deal of Daily Mail-style bad science (we're not really that close to human cloning, are we?), but that's not the same as sci-fi. 5

Shadowy forces forces at work?

Fringe: Who is creating "The Pattern" of strange happenings? Is it the suspicious Massive Dynamic corporation, with its fake-armed spokeswoman and its as yet unseen chairman William Bell? Or is it the creepy David Robert Jones and his fellow-believers in the "Destruction by the Continuing Advancement of Technology". 9

Eleventh Hour: We surely haven't seen the last of the mysterious doctor/scientist woman known as Gepetto, who turned up fleetingly in the pilot. 7

Tragic past?

Fringe: Well, Olivia's boyfriend died in the first episode, but since she was chasing him with a warrant for his arrest when his SUV crashed, this tragedy is somewhat tinged. Not exactly Mulder's sister being abducted. 6

Eleventh Hour: Dr Hood lost his wife to illness not long ago, but it doesn't get mentioned very often. If she was the victim of shadowy forces, that's a plotline yet to be tapped. 8

Unresolved sexual tension?

Fringe: There's going to be a will-they-won't-they between Olivia and Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson - Pacey from Dawson's Creek), the nutty professor's son, which will probably drag on too long. 7

Eleventh Hour: Agent Young does stare with wonder whenever Dr Hood makes a huge logical leap, and she seems even more protective than her job description requires. 8

Funny nerds?

Fringe: Only one, rather than the threesome of The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files, but a belter. Walter keeps a cow in the lab, gives constant updates on his erections, has more food cravings than a pregnant Kerry Katona and conducts his experiments to an Al Green soundtrack. 9

Eleventh Hour: While being briefed on an air crash, Hood drifts off into a seeming daze, before snapping out of it and saying, "Ice cream... Do you have any ice cream? And a hotplate?" It is, of course, an experiment which solves the mystery of the crash in seconds. 8

Going into warehouses with wobbly torch'n'gun combo?

Fringe: Tick. 10

Eleventh Hour: Tick. 10

Total

Fringe: 64/80

Eleventh Hour: 62/80

Fringe shades it...

Fringe

Sky 1

Sunday, 10pm (after Lost)