I liked Fringe. However, I do think JJ Abrams is very much over-rated. Everything he's done seems to be very derivative. And that's putting it loosely in some respects.

Fringe is the X-Files. Period.
Lost borrowed a lot from Earth 2.
Alias borrowed from a lot of previous shows.

The other thing that worries me about the creators is that they're fickle. Alias went to trash after the second season. Lost was about to hit the bin and somehow they turned it around last season and made it interesting again.

I worry the follow-on episodes for Fringe won't live up to the pilot. We'll see. One thing they can do to vastly improve on the X-Files is to keep continuity and the story arc evolving. The X-Files was a mess in this regard and it bugged me right from the first season.

I don't know about anything else newly premiering this season that I should check out. I'll do a quick peek at the shows Matt mentioned to see if they're worth a spot on the PVR.

True Blood is something I'm grabbing for a friend, but I may watch the first episode to see if it's any good.