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Fox’s cult sci-fi drama Fringe bowed out last night with decent by Fringe standards numbers for its series finale. The two-hour closer (1.0/3 in adults 18-49, 3.1 million viewers) was up 25% from last week in 18-49, matching its last season finale in the demo. In total viewers, the final episode was up 3% from last week for a season high and Fringe‘s most watched episode in nearly a year.
The only other broadcast network to offer all-originals last night was CBS, which won Friday in 18-49 (1.7/5) and total viewers (10.5 million). Undercover Boss (1.9/6, 9.45 million) at 8 PM was up a tenth from last week in 18-49, matching its top demo rating of the season and hitting a season high in total viewers. With ABC’s Shark Tank in repeats, Undercover Boss was the top program of the night in 18-49. CSI: NY (1.6/5, 10.6 million) matched its 18-49 season high from last week. Blue Bloods (1.5/5, 11.5 million) was down a tenth in 18-49 while posting its largest audience of the season.
ABC’s comedies took a down turn. Last Man Standing (1.3/5) was off 13% from last week, Malibu Country (1.1/4) dropped 21%. Even in repeats, Shark Tank (1.5/4) was solid, ranking as ABC’s top program of the night in the demo and No.3 overall, tying an original of Blue Bloods. 20/20 (1.2/4) had a week-to-week drop to match its name — 20%.
NBC’s two-hour Dateline (1.2/4) was down 14% from last week. On The CW, Nikita (0.4/1) matched the 18-49 rating for its last original a month ago.
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New Abrams/Wyman FOX cop show must be like Abrams/Nolan POI – with procedural structure and less arcs. POI is best scripted and acted drama on broadcast TV. If they can move some of the writers and Greg Plageman to help Wyman the same way they do with Nolan will be perfect. Only change can be younger cast and hot female lead for better 18-34 demo – its FOX, not CBS.
I wonder if Fringe’s ratings have anything to do with starting at 8 PM for the 2 hours finale, which I didn’t even find out about until yesterday afternoon. Anyway, what a great finale.
At least the niche show Fringe ended with it’s head up.
Low ratings whatever. They sent Fringe to Friday nights to die, and die it did. I thought it was an excellently executed show with wonderful performances and top notch writing. I loved every episode of it and can only hope something even remotely as good will take its place.
Will definitely miss Fringe. I’m happy it went out on an upswing in numbers.
I prefer to look at the glass as half full. Fringes move to Friday night allowed it to live to 100 episodes and tell the story the producers wanted to tell, uncompromised. No way it would have survived this long on Monday or Thursday nights.
They didn’t send Fringe to Friday to die, they sent it there for safekeeping. The ratings were never strong, but Friday is a no-hope night for ratings anyway, might as well use it for a niche show with a loyal cult following. Ratings may not improve but at least they’re stable.
They’re not picking on Fringe. Grimm and Chuck have also been benficiaries of the so-called Friday Night Death Slot. Sci fi fans should jump for joy if their show is sent to Friday rather than being left to die in a competitive timeslot.
Thanks to Fox for allowing Fringe to continue to a finale. I would love to see Peter and Olivia do another show together.
I’ll say this for Fox, it does tend to allow their struggling shows, which now days seems like everything, to have an ending. They did the same for Dollhouse, Terminator and The Good Guys. A lot of networks wouldn’t bother.
I guess everyone forgot that the show was on Mondays and got 10 million plus viewers. Fix then moved it to Thursday night death slot for no reason and it died a slow death.
And after watching the last two seasons it was creatively dead and made very little sense.
@Midori4, Actually Fringe was on Tuesday nights before being moved to Thursdays & then to Fridays. I agree about the ratings though. People can decide for themselves why the ratings went in the toilet eventually,but,the fact is Fringe got much higher ratings on Tuesdays. I suppose one could theoretically argue a network would start moving a program such as Fringe around the lineup because certain parts of America found aspects of it to be offensive/disgusting,or,whatever.Maybe moving it from Tuesday nights was a way for Fox to save face. Think of it this way-Fox kills two birds with one stone by airing Fringe Friday nights. Less of a chance of more Americans sampling Fringe on a Friday night & finding it offensive/whatever & ,yet, Fringe fans are kept happy because Fox airs the show at all-albeit a Friday. I do agree that many people tend to conveniently forget that Fringe got BETTER ratings on Tuesday nights. It’s possible Fox didn’t send Fringe to Friday nights to die,but,you gotta admit one thing: They certainly did not send Fringe to Friday nights to flourish and prosper.
As it became less “monster of the week” it make became an incredible show. It’s ratings also went down probably for the same reason.
I guess procedurals are made for a reason.
The two leads on Fringe were awful. I could never get by the terrible Australian woman trying to sound American, and the wooden guy from Dawson’s Creek.
If you think Anna Torv was awful, you must not have watched the alternate universe episodes.
We watched Fringe for a few eps when it started. But it exceeded our cringe/nausea tolerance, and I found the female lead cold and unappealing. The series seemed to appeal to that small segment of viewers who like labyrinthine sci-fi plotting. I didn’t care about any of that.
I Will miss this show the actors were awesome and the stories had great ideas that would always challenge your mind. Actually, it doesn’t surprize me that the ratings did not do that we’ll. we are surrounded by morons in this country that would rather watch a stupid reality show that is based on nothing but dumb everyday crap. But hey, I guess this new type reality shows make people feel more t ease of how stupid they are in real life. So this is why intelligent shows that have great performances and creativity just don’t work. So, I guess we are just going to be the lucky ones that enjoyed a few good shows before it all turned to stupid crap like the shark tank!
Thanks. Loved the show hate the idiots that control the media!