"Fringe" on Fox HD - Page 158

To be fair, on these two particular plot points (that since creation of the bridge, the Redverse was healed, and that Peter believes he can use the machine to return to his timeline), it was completely spelled out by dialogue on the show.

You have an internal contradiction within your own hypothesis. In the Observer's original timeline, Walternate develops a cure for Peter and Peter goes on to do some mysterious great thing. September changed the timeline when he distracted Walternate, who failed to notice that he had successfully created a cure.

The Observers could not descend from alternate-universe Peter and normal-universe Olivia because in the Observers' original timeline Walter does not cross into the other universe to try to save Peter (which set off all of the other events that brought Peter and Olivia together).

But who is to say that a Walternate-cured Peter never discovered a way to travel to the Blue Universe under less hostile circumstances, or Olivia crossed by herself to the Red universe and started the romantic chain of events?

The Observer said Peter was supposed to be with Blue Olivia but he never said that being brought there by Walter was the only course of events that allowed that to happen.

Which would make sense for September to ensure that Peter survived the accident in the lake when he was involuntarily brought into the Blue Universe. That way Peter still crossed over and met Olivia. The side effect being a war which threatened both worlds. Ever since then September has been trying to steer things back to harmony between universes and keep Olivia and Peter together.

It would be incredibly odd for the other Observers to insist that Peter cease to exist if their own existence was linked to him.

Unless they really like rules.

I don't know, I'm making this up as I go.

But this would be the same as the machine... If not Peter, then some other "Special" Red would crossover and knock up a "Cortexiphan" Blue... Maybe they wanted different parents, or they are trying solve hip displasia, melanin deficiency, or weak taste-bud traits within the old breed...

v/r,
C-F

http://www.theinsider.com/tv/49440_J...ers/index.html

The article is about a month old, but I never recall reading it (usually I'm all over FRINGE-related stuff).

Anyway, the linked article is an interview w/ the lovely Jasika "Astrid Farnsworth" Nicole. While discussing her recent episode playing both versions of Astrid, she does comment on the possible future of the show. Nicole states that while nothing official is known as of yet (or at least last month - surely the same situation now), the feeling among cast & crew on the set of FRINGE is that the show will be back for an abreviated 13-ep S5 to wrap things up properly.

I certainly hope she is right. Maybe WB & FOX can in fact "pull a CHUCK" & allow the overall story to be relatively wrapped up via a shorter - and cheaper - season.

Good news for 'Fringe' fans, FOX Cancels 'Terra Nova'.

Sounds like they're now redefining September through December as a "season" .

How is that great news? Terra Nova had around ten million viewers a week after DVR watchers were added. Fringe doesn't come close to that. Which makes it even more likely that Fringe will be canceled too.

Wow. People (esp. on AVS) will bitch about anything. I for one love the show. If I knew how the plot ended up, then why the hell would I watch it? Thats the reason why I never watched Saw 3,4,5,6 and Hostel 2.

It's not great news, but it could be positive news for a few reasons:

1) It says that Fox is cost conscious. This could be a signal to WB that if they don't cut the fee, Fringe is gone.

2) It takes one hour of sci-fi off the schedule, which is good for Fringe, as Fox developed a bit of sci-fi overload this year--Terra Nova, Alcatraz, Touch, Fringe.

3) It means there's one more opening on Fox's schedule. How many shows realistically is Fox going to cancel when it's seen significant ratings erosion this year? Stick with what you know, even if that means ratings less than you'd like on Fridays at 9:00.

I tend to think this is good news for Alcatraz more so than good news for Fringe, as Alcatraz and Terra Nova were likely competing for the Monday 9:00 time slot. But Alcatraz's ratings are abysmal. Can't imagine it will be renewed.

If this opens up a slot on Monday for Bones, however, then I say Fringe's chances at a renewal are close to 100%.

Not Much Available To Make Case For 'Fringe'

But at least its audience is more stable than 'The River'

by MICHAEL HINMAN, posted Feb-25-2012
Source: Inside Blip

People who tune in to "Fringe" each week will be the first to tell you how much the show deserves to get at least one more season.

But despite the fact time-shifting viewing on DVRs and iTunes double its audience, it's still a money-loser for Fox. And the chances that the network will keep the show going, no matter how much the decision-makers love it, are slim to none.

Yet, despite "Fringe" competing more with The CW's best programming, like "Vampire Diaries," than the likes of NBC and CBS, it still has a very stable audience. In fact, its Audience Loyalty Index rating, as tracked by the GenreNexus, is a 92.9. That means of all the people who have tuned in to see at least one episode of "Fringe" this season, just under 93 percent of them return each week to watch it live.

So what is killing "Fringe"? Some might say it's the Friday night timeslot. But even before Fox moved it to this night at mid-season last year, the show was losing audience and losing ground. The move may have been one that got fans worried, but it might be the only reason why there was a renewal to this season in the first place.

Whether or not there will be more "Fringe" after this year will be decided soon, or at least announced soon if the decision has been made already. Fox has promised fans they will get closure if this season is indeed the end, but fans who have remained loyal to the show don't want to see that end quite yet.

In the meantime, fewer may even notice that other shows like Fox's "Alcatraz" or ABC's "The River" have ended. No decision has been made on either one just yet, but the future there doesn't look promising.

"Alcatraz," from J.J. Abrams, earned just a 3.6 rating/5 share, according to Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co., this past week. It was only down 5 percent from the previous week, but it's off 40 percent from its premiere.

It's also averaging what "House, M.D." did for Fox both in that timeslot earlier in the season, and one hour earlier now. The only difference, according to our sister site Inside Blip is that "House" has averaged a 4.3/6 in its last three outings, while "Alcatraz" has managed just a 3.8/6.

That means "Alcatraz" is losing nearly 12 percent of its lead-in audience from "House," which is now in its last season on Fox.

Yet that doesn't necessarily open the door for "Terra Nova," which is now averaging the same as "Alcatraz" in terms of audience. "Terra Nova's" per-episode cost is more than "Alcatraz" and "House" combined -- so just a comparison of raw numbers won't be enough to try and anticipate what the Fox bean-counters are going to decide.

But the network could give "Alcatraz" a chance to shine under a new showrunner and maybe in a different timeslot.

It looks like Fridays may be open very soon.

To find out how network television did as a whole for the week, check out our sister site, Inside Blip.

http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/8978

We all just have to hope that 'Terra Nova's demise means 'Fringe' may live a little longer. And as I've been saying all along, if 'Alcatraz' has to die as well for 'Fringe' to give us another season, truncated or not, I'm okay with that too. 'The River' will almost surely get canned, but that's a different network. 'Touch' and 'Awake' look more like basic procedurals to me with a thin veneer of sci-fi thrown over the top in an effort to 1) distinguish them from all the cop/doc clones and 2) to try and attract some of the uber-loyal genre audience. I'm not particularly excited about either one.

It's looking like another sci-fi/fantasy bloodbath this year.

Terra Nova was ridiculously expensive for FOX. The only way it would have worked is if the ratings were double what they were. I do think this may be good news for Fringe. Fringe doesn't get close to Terra Nova's audience but it's audience is fiercely loyal, it's on a Friday night, and the show is water cooler TV. Terra Nova was consistently mocked in the media for the crummy (yet expensive) effects, bad writing and characterization, etc. Fringe doesn't have any of those issues. If anything Fringe is a media darling.

Put yourself in Fox's shoes. Your tentpole sci-fi show you hyped more than the second coming just died. Your most critically acclaimed and long running show that is a staple of your network (House) just closed its doors. Your new babies (Alcatraz and Touch) have potential but one has already seen some of the luster wear off and the other is still to be determined. Cancel Fringe and outside of a miraculous Pilot that blows the socks off people in the fall your fall 2012 network schedule is...meh. And the last thing a network needs is derision coupled with bad ratings (hello NBC!).

Count me optimistic. I bet WB plays ball and drops the cost of the show (I bet they push for more MOTW/procedural shows to reduce effects). They at least let us get 1/2 a season to finish the show next year.

I disagree. The effects on 'Terra Nova' were first rate and expensive, especially for TV. That wasn't where the problem was.


If 'Fringe' gets another half-season to finish up, they won't have time for any more MOTW episodes and the remaining fans don't want any more of those schedule-fillers anyway. As Ron Moore once said about his last season of BSG, they've got all the audience they're going to get and any pressure from the network to modify things is over. The last season will be for the fans. Now, that's not to say the budget won't have to be lowered (again), but I suspect there's not much fat left to trim at this point. They're pros; they'll figure it out.

I think they would save more money by not having MotW.

I watch Fringe for the character interaction now, not which bio-blob is going to appear. Put Olivia in a red wig and Walter in suit and that's the only expense they need to have. Good writing doesn't need special effects and based on the excellent character scenes from the last couple of seasons, that's a resource they already have.

Disagree. I would say the top three episodes of the series are (primarily) MOTW episodes: White Tulip, Marionette, and One Night in October. They draw on the mythology, and they succeed precisely because they are stories strong enough to stand alone as compelling science fiction while simultaneously resonating in powerful ways with the characters on the show and their present experiences/conflicts/emotions.

And I disagree with that. "Peter" should always be in the top three.

I don't even remember those episodes you refer to in comparison to "The Arrival", "There's More Than One of Everything" and "Over There".

I don't know all the episodes off hand so I had to look up the ones you guys listed, but if we are keeping score, I think the three that URFloorMatt listed are much, much better than the three that VisionOn likes (Peter was an excellent episode for me, though).

I'll take a "bad" FRINGE episode over the best (insert higher rated, but less "cool" show title here) ever produced any day of the week.

I agree. I would take an average episode of Fringe over the entire season (such as it was) of Terra Nova, or Falling Skies. Yes, I am aware that each one only had ten episodes per season. I'd take any average episode of Fringe over the total of twenty episodes for both series. Neither of them engaged me like Fringe does.

The difference is how much each show costs to make. I think Fringe hangs on one more season and wraps.

Solution - Make a Sci-Fi CSI type of show.

Some interesting comments from TV critic Matt Roush about our favorite show. Lifted from a post in the HOTP thread.

You were probably joking but I think is a fairly decent premise for a show.

"Alien Nation"?

v/r,
C-F

I guess those rabid fans must be the shippers over on the CW forums because I don't think I've heard anything different from reasonable people. Supernatural is still pretty good but it's in aimless coast mode now.

It might help if Fringe wasn't competing with Supernatural too. The numbers might be minute but Supernatural could push a .5 rating over to Fringe if that show was cancelled. And I'm not looking forward to watching Supernatural stagger to a flat end next season. Especially when it kind of squandered a magnificent Kripke-written end two seasons ago.

I agree about Supernatural, they should have ended it with 'Swan Song"

They are. We have 'Alcatraz', which is about to get axed. We have 'Awake', and soon, 'Touch'. All are an attempt to tie a crime-of-the-week procedural format to an overall sci-fi-ish story arc.