Backbone.js - data not being populated in collection even though fetch is successful

fetch is asynchronous, your collection won't yet be populated if you immediately call render. To solve this problem, you just have to bind the collection reset event (sync event for Backbone>=1.0) to the view render :

theView = Backbone.View.extend({
   el: $("#temp"),

   initialize: function () {
       this.collection = new theCollection();

       // for Backbone < 1.0
       this.collection.on("reset", this.render, this);

       // for Backbone >= 1.0
       this.collection.on("sync", this.render, this);

       this.collection.fetch();
   },

   render : function () {
    console.log( this.collection.toJSON() );
   }
});

Note the third argument of the bind method, giving the correct context to the method: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/#FAQ-this