Thanks to a recent Twitter conversation, I found myself thinking last week of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, one of the last shows to occupy FOX's "Friday Night Sci-Fi Death Timeslot" (or whatever they're calling it).
It was an OK show, sort of like a mini action movie every week, but that's about it. Dollhouse, another show that lived and died in the FNSFDT, didn't find its voice until it was too late.
And Firefly -- the poster-child for brilliant-but-cancelled series, FOX, sci-fi or otherwise -- ended its run long before I was really aware of it.
(I saw it for the first time about three years ago, lamenting the fact that it only got 13 episodes with every one I watched. And now that I think about it, I didn't watch Sarah Connor until after it had ended as well. And while we're at it, I should note that The X-Files was once a Friday show, but that was in a different age.)
But Fringe...well, I've been with it from the beginning -- 52 episodes, more than Dollhouse and Firefly combined -- and I'm much more invested than I ever was in any of the other shows I mentioned here.
It's been on an amazingly strong narrative streak since the middle of its second season. The days when it was an uneven sci-fi procedural anchored by John Noble's performance are far behind it. I want to see this story through to the end, not because of any great, unresolved mysteries -- Fringe, unlike its cousin-show Lost, doesn't have many of those -- but because we've come to care so much about these characters.
"The Firefly" -- a clever in-joke title that belies a much more weighty plot point -- continued that streak.
It was helped along by a rather touching performance by Christopher Lloyd, miles away from Doc Brown. It deepened our understanding of Peter and Olivia's relationship, and of Walter and Peter's. And any episode that gives the Observers any sort of significant screen-time is hard not to like.
All in all, a fine way to christen Fringe's new time slot; here's hoping it has better luck than some of its forebears.
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