Prospects for fifth season of Fringe improve as Fox scrambles for content
Fringe (Citytv, Fox, 9 p.m.) returns with its first new episode in a month, and the first of what parent network Fox says will be eight straight new episodes.
The story picks up where the Feb. 24 episode, portentously titled The End of All Things, ended, with Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) weighing his options after the revelation that the Observers, silent sentinels who can see through time and space, are as human as he is.
By now, Fringe’s serialized story has become so dense and obtuse – even more so than Lost, or even Alias – that it has dropped any pretence of ever being a mainstream audience hit.
Fringe’s fans remain as loyal as ever, though. And on a traditionally slow TV night, a small but loyal audience might be enough to earn Fringe renewal for a fifth season. Fridays aren’t called a “graveyard” for nothing, where network TV shows are concerned: A midsize, modest success on other nights can be perceived as a hit on Fridays.
The Fox network unveils its official fall lineup on May 14. Fringe’s prospects suddenly look better than they did just two weeks ago, when it still looked as if expensive, firstyear sci-fi saga Terra Nova might return.
Fox cancelled Terra Nova, however. And with similarly supernatural-themed Alcatraz thought to be in trouble, and House retiring at the end of the season, sci-fi-friendly Fox is suddenly looking to fill gaps in its schedule. Fringe, with its small but devoted legion of followers, just might be the right show at the right time, on the right night.
In a recent conference call with reporters, and again this past week at the Wondercon 2012 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., Fringe show-runners J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner put Fringe’s chances of a fifth season at 70/30.
Marketplace’s (CBC, 8 p.m.) Erica Johnson looks at how well certain hospitals in Canada maintain a sterile environment, and discovers some of them have a hard time keeping clean, let alone sterile. Marketplace has been on a real tear this season: Earlier this month, it topped a million viewers for the sixth time this season. Not bad for the Friday graveyard.
Truth be told, real pirates didn’t look much like Johnny Depp. That’s just one of the fascinating facts to be gleaned from the History TV special, The Real Pirates of the Caribbean (History Television, 10 p.m.), which proves that, as weird and neurotic as movie fiction can be, fact can sometimes be even weirder and more neurotic.
That nice, mild-mannered chef, Gordon Ramsay, is back at it in Kitchen Nightmares (Global, Fox, 8 p.m.). This time, he’s trying to bring classic Italian cuisine back to Philly, which is a little like trying to add quiche to the menu at a burger joint, but what the heck: It makes for a good hour’s worth of entertainment TV. Just remember to cover your ears once he starts to lay it on with the cussin’.