Variety is reporting that Fox has agreed to spend more than $10 million on a two-hour pilot for Fringe, a new TV series conceived by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers).  Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci, the writers of the new Star Trek movie, see Fringe as the kind of genre-melding series that like the X-Files blends horror, comedy, and suspense along with an over-riding conspiratorial mythology.  Fringe, which also demonstrates the influence of Paddy Chayefsky's Altered States, revolves around a trio of characters consisting of a brilliant, albeit institutionalized research scientist, his estranged son and a female FBI agent who brings them together to solve various mysterious paranormal happenings on a weekly basis with the episodes playing out against an over-riding series-long mythology.

Fringe is actually the third X-Files-like series recently approved by American Networks.  CBS has ordered the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced science-oriented 11th Hour (see 'CBS Wins 11th Hour Negotiations'), while ABC has greenlit six episodes of Zak (X-Men) Penn's Section Eight, about an investigative cadre teeming with mental abnormalities (see you one Monk and raise you five more).  Of the three shows, which will soon be battling it out for the cult TV show audience, Fringe appears to have the most science fiction, Twilight Zone overtones.