Fringe was billed to return from its short haitus on January 14 at its regular timeslot, Thursday-9PM-FOX. I had the fourteenth circled on a calendar in my brain (along with the other dates when shows are expected to return). However, after double-checking my DVR for the return of other shows I stumbled upon what was labled a “new” Fringe episode titled “Unearthed” to air on a Monday, the 11th. Things are about to get a tad stranger…
For those of you who watched this episode on Monday night and were left scratching your heads in confusion don’t fret because I had the same initial reaction. The real Agent Charlie Francis was inexplicably back from the dead? And what of the solid white floating names within establishing shots (they display the location of hospitals, offices, and other places) that did not reflect off buildings and react to their surroundings? Even the over-arching storyline did not match up with where we left off in “Grey Matters” before the break. If you start to connect the dots it is easy to see that “Unearthed” is in fact a lost episode from season one. Why FOX decided to randomly unearth this episode and play it on an out-of-the-blue Monday night is beyond me. FOX is only asking for trouble by (1) leaving fans in the dark with a lost episode from a previous season and (2) airing what happened to be a lackluster episode for those tuning into their first glimpse at Fringe. Some say this was done so FOX could test the show in a different, less competitive timeslot. No matter what the reason, Fringe fans and other fellow TV viewers should have been given proper notice that this was a “lost” episode.