Fringe TV show fans can feel good about their TV show as Fox has ordered a full season of the hit Sci Fi show staring Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson. Fox order nine more episodes due to Fringe gaining popularity each week with well over 10 million viewers!
The next episode of Fringe will show this Tuesday on 14 Oct. You can also order episodes on iTunes!
The producers of Fringe claim they did not leak the pilot on the internet, this is true. What we do know is DC Comics will be getting Fringe out before it airs on Fox this Sept. 9th. DC’s version will come in six monthly installments and will work in sync with the shows first season.
Athena Wickham, co-story consultant for the Fringe comic book and television executive for Abrams’ production company (Bad Robot), said that “There are definitely hidden elements that will feed into the Fringe series that you can only find in the comic. It will give them a greater appreciation of what’s to come and help them uncover some of the integrated plot points.” Wickham also said that reading the comic is not necessary for viewers to understand what’s going on in the show.
Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Robert Orci (series creators; also are writing the upcoming Star Trek flick) are co-developing the story-line for the comic as well as its artwork. Staff writers include Zack Whedon, Julia Cho, and Mike Johnson (Batman/Superman), with contributions from Fringes’ staff writers Alex Katsnelson, Danielle Dispaltro, and Michael Pitts. Comic artist Tom Mandrake and Simon Coleby (1st issue) will be producing the art for the back story.
Wickham claims that “the issues will be consist of two parts. Part A will tell the back-story of two of our key characters: Walter Bishop and William Bell. Part B will consist of stand-alone stories. Readers will be introduced to a range of characters, from those at the epicenter to the pilot to others who might not live to make a series appearance.”
The first issue will be available on August 27th, which is about a week away. New issues will come out monthly and promises that it will “thrill, terrify and explore the blurring line between fiction and reality.”
There are reports that the Screen Actors Guild and a rival actor’s union may call a strike after 30 June. While the strike is unlikely, this would be disastrous for TV coming right after the writer’s strike just a few months ago. Here is the potential effect for Fringe:
Even shows that started production early will have only a handful of segs in the can before the June 30 deadline. Fox faces a big decision in the next few weeks on whether to forge ahead with plans for a marketing blitz on frosh drama “Fringe,” which has a Sept. 9 preem date for its two-hour pilot. A production start on that show is apparently skedded for early next month.
Due to a potential strike, we may see Fringe get limited advertising next month instead of a major promotion for July. This would be terrible killing any momentum Fringe has going at the moment.
Other major shows have been effected also:
As a result, skeins like NBC’s “Heroes” and ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” were able to start shooting in early May. Several procedural dramas barely took a break before firing things back up in May, including “CSI,” “Without a Trace” and “Cold Case.” Other shows that never really shut down or didn’t power down cameras for long include “House,” “ER,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Chuck” and “Law & Order.” CBS comedy tentpole “Two and a Half Men,” resumed production on Monday, as did the net’s “The Big Bang Theory.”
Then there’s the case of “24,” which skipped a season because of the writers strike, allowing it to bank several episodes for this year. Because “24″ won’t return until January, the show could conceivably weather an actors strike without any effect onscreen.
The 2-hour pilot episode of Fringe has been leaked to BitTorrent, a popular site for downloading video and software, in most cases illegal downloads. Since Fox spent $10 million making the episode and the Fringe episode doesn’t air for 3 more months (beginning of September), this can’t be great news for Fox executives.
There is speculation that the episode was leaked by Fox on purpose to create some buzz on the internet. If that is true then they got it. I would lean against that idea as tens of thousands of people will watch the Fringe pilot episode costing them a lot of eye balls on premier night.
Under Fox’s “Remote Free TV” Plan, the are cutting commercials nearly in half and charging a 35-40% premium for their ad spots. Fringe and Dollhouse are the first two Fox shows trying the Remote Free TV ad plan. Fox has already sold most of the ad time for the Episode 1 and is expected to sell all of their ad inventory this week. Less commercials and more Fringe is a good thing!
Fox has confirmed that Fringe Espisode 1 will deput on 9 Sep, 2008 and 8 PM. This is a change from the 26 Aug date Fringe was originally scheduled for. Looks like we will have to wait an extra two weeks for the Fringe series to start!
I have not seen the reasoning behind this change. The episode will stil lbe 2 hours long and the Tuesday at 9 PM time time slot is still premium.
