Craig Blankenhorn/FOXGood news: Joshua Jackson is staying in your living room!
The Fox network just confirmed to me that they ordered nine more episodes of Fringe, the freaky-deaky sci-fi series that stars the very attractive people to the left and comes from the keyboards of expert TV makers J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner.
The ratings for the series have been solid (especially in the notoriously fickle but notoriously important 18-49 demographic), which bears out Fox's decision to pair it with ratings powerhouse House.
Fringe is also an experiment itself...
Beyond featuring all sorts of experimental lab weirdness in the storylines, J.J.'s latest creation is the first testing ground for Fox's "remote-free TV" strategy. The theory: More expensive commercials for the advertisers, but fewer of them, make more of an impact and annoy viewers less so they refrain from that darn DVR fast-forward button that causes so much trouble.
I'm digging it so far—Peter Bishop's (Josh Jackson) self-aware speech in the last ep had me laughing like a hyena—but how are you guys feeling? Is this pickup a good thing?