In January, Fox is moving “Fringe” to Friday nights.
To many fans, the news hasn’t been greeted with enthusiasm. In fact, many fans think that it could be the beginning of the end for the show.
But that isn’t the case for executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman. They tell Blastr the move could be a good one for the show.
“We are excited,” says Wyman. “We think it’s open territory that can be conquered. We really do believe our fans are loyal. I believe they’re going to follow. It’s a chance for us to get away from that statement that Friday night is not an opportune night. [We believe] we can actually deliver like The X-Files did. … I think we both agree it’s a good opportunity.”
“When Fox informed us of the move, what was most important to us is we understand that our audience is watching the show, not like a standalone audience watches the show, but their actually watching it as an investment over time,” said Pinkner. “We wanted to be able to tell our audience that the story, the ongoing, the long arcing story that we have planned for our characters, is going to get told. It’s funny, there are more Fringe fans in the building at Fox then any show we’ve ever worked on before. I think they and we all feel that if we can build a fan base on and carve out some territory on Friday night, we can be there for years.”
They go on to add that the experience of being on the highly competitive Thursday evenings may help the show because it makes Fox more willing to look at DVR numbers.
Wyman says the show’s DVR ratings “are so high and the improvement is so great that we realize that our fans, they’re watching the show. They’re just telling us, ‘We didn’t want to watch it on Thursdays. We’ll tell you when we want to watch it through the DVR.’ Thursday night is traditionally a romantic comedy night, with the ‘Bones’ and ‘Grays’ … We were assured we were going to be safe and not be taken off the air in that context, and [Fox] lived up to it,” he said.
He went on to add that it’s ironic that fans are upset about the show moving off Thursday evenings. Last year when Fox moved the show to Thursdays, fans were unhappy and wanted it moved from the competitive time slot.
So it’s one of those things from the fans point of view being careful what you wish for,” said Pinkner. But “Fox and Warner Brothers are very happy with this move. We can only follow their lead.”
“The landscape is changing so much on network television, who knows what Friday nights are going to be?” said Wyman. “We’re going in there with 100 percent confidence.”
God Help Us All!!!! This is never a good sign when you are moved around unless you re being used as the anchor show. I hope they stick with it.
I want this to work. All I can say is that no matter where and when they move it, I’ll be watching. It is by far my favorite show, not named The Walking Dead. The genre has come a long way and it’s amazing that sci-fi is finally getting the treatment it deserves and that we’re finally getting the programs that we deserve.
How can it be a good move, when the night is already inundated with other genre offerings? CW has Smallville and Supernatural and Toon has Clone Wars. Not to mention, anything on SyFy. I love the show, but I can only DVR so much and Supernatural is my favorite show right now. They already put it opposite Supernatural once and it moved, now they are doing it again. Thank you for killing another good scifi show, Fox!!
“Not to mention, anything on SyFy.”
The “anything” that you’re referring to is actually wrestling. At the moment, “Sanctuary” is the only series on Fridays, but that would be after “Fringe” (at 10/9 Central).
Isn’t this the same spot which killed Dollhouse & the Sarah Connor Chronicles? Of course I’ll watch it no matter where it goes, but then again I watched the other shows, too. Alot of good that did.
“Isn’t this the same spot which killed Dollhouse & the Sarah Connor Chronicles?”
Maybe, but those shows aren’t nearly as good as “Fringe” (even the second season of “Dollhouse”, which was a huge improvement over season one). Maybe quality of entertainment will win out.