Fringe Viewership Surges With Final Season Announcement

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Though it may not have anything to do with Fringe’s numbers this past Friday, one cannot help but notice the small surge in viewership occurred right after the struggling Fox series was picked up for a final season, which will air in the fall. It’s a happy coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless. It’s near impossible to predict how the ratings will fluctuate from week to week, which they seem to do at random unless there’s a major holiday or sporting event going on. Still, it’s nice to think a bunch of people decided to tune into Fringe to see why this show was getting such a heavily advertised renewal (there’s already an official trailer for Season 5 despite Season 4 still airing).

3.14 million viewers watched Fringe’s latest episode, “World’s Apart,” which was up from the previous week’s 3.03 million. Fringe has been up and down like this all season, with a high of 3.48 million and a dreadful low of 2.84. According to Deadline, the episode increased by a tenth in adults 18-49, bringing it to a 1.1 rating. Believe it or not, Fringe was one of the only two shows that saw an increase in ratings this past Friday, with the other being NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are. Everyone else may have been down, but they still did better than Fringe. Under Cover Boss was down 11%, but at least it brought in 6 million viewers.

It’s never been a rating’s juggernaut, but Fringe has really been failing when it comes to bringing in an audience. Part of that is to blame on the content of the series, which follows a team of FBI agents investigating pseudo-scientific crimes and events. Throw in an alternate universe and hairless, time traveling future humans and you have a series that will quickly alienate viewers. As weird and complicated as the show is, it’s still one of the best sci-fi series on television right now, if not ever.