Great Scott! Fringe returns tonight with a brand new episode. In “The Firefly” Christopher Lloyd (Back from the Future) guest stars as Roscoe Joyce, an 80s keyboardist who happens to have many bizarre connections with Walter. If you’re a long-time Fringe fan, I have no doubt you’ll be following it to its new night. If you’re a newcomer to the epic sci-fi series, do not hesitate in giving it a shot. If you’re a supporter of good TV, join the fun and let’s keep this show chugging for many years to come. If the show retains its Thursday night ratings and manages to attract some new viewers, the Friday night “death slot” can be reinvented. Let’s do it!
Look in the gallery below to see stills from tonight’s episode, and jump after the break to watch a FOX-produced Fringe music video that nicely summarizes what’s been going on lately and another video featuring the producers talking about the big move. Fringe Fridays does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Update: Last night’s Fringe drew a 1.9/6 in the coveted adults 18-49 demo making it the highest rated program of the night! And everyone was worried that the move to Friday nights was going to be a bad thing. Get this: Fringe was up 12% from its last original airing on Thursday December 9, attracting 4.83 million viewers. Simply put, the show attracted more viewers than it did when it aired on Thursday. Death slot, be gone! With the season premiere of Kitchen Nightmares as a lead-in, both shows helped FOX win the night and give the network its highest-rated Friday since May 2008. If Fringe can keep this up for the next few weeks, we can surely expect to hear news of renewal soon. But here’s the thing: Fringe was up against back-to-back repeats of CBS’ CSI: NY; the competition is bound to get more intense when CBS and The CW (Supernatural) air new episodes next week. (Oh, and this was neat: Christopher Lloyd’s stellar performance added his name to Twitter’s list of Trending Topics during and after the east coast airing of “The Firefly.”)
Update 2: Things just keep getting better for Fringe! According to Nielsen, the show gained an additional 42 percent in ratings thanks to DVR playback. This information was gathered three days after the live airing of the Friday episode. As reported above, “The Firefly” drew a 1.9 rating in the adults 18-49 demo; if you add the DVR spike in viewership that rating shoots up to a 2.7! (Compare this number to CBS’ Blue Bloods which drew a 2.4 rating on the same night.) This is fantastic news for Fringe fans; if the show can keep this up (and perhaps perform better) it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
[Via TVLine; IGN; Deadline; EW]
