I think either Castle or The Unusuals will be a big hit and Cupid will be cancelled.

Im excited about Harper’s Island its not a produceral yay

By the way, you guys should have a poll where we can all vote for our favorite show. Not like I can’t tell what shows are the favorites here by the comments, but an actual poll would be pretty nifty, me thinks.

I’ll touch on this more later (when the Tuesday ratings come in), but TM is no longer lead-in dependent. It’s turning into a bigger hit than NCIS.

I think FOX was looking for Fringe to have the same effect out of House.

Bill, Fringe is particularly lead-in dependent, though. Its heavily promoted pilot debuted to only 9 million while the second episode (which was after House’s premiere) got 13 million. That’s a pretty noticeable bump. Of course, it’s settled back down to 8 million-ish, but you can’t expect the whole 8 million to come from the 9 million who watched the pilot. Plus, Fringe’s demo success is largely based on House – without it, it’d probably be in the mid or low 2’s by now.

Well, it did have the second most expensive pilot ever. If ‘Fringe’ had better retention out of ‘House’, then I probably would think that it is a more than a timeslot hit. It seems to me that if it was cut off from ‘House’, it would suffer a bit of a decline and may fall into non-hit territory. If it had higher numbers in the first place, then it might fall without ‘House’, but it would have started higher to begin with. Yeah?

I think that everyone had really high expectations for ‘Fringe’, but for some reason, FOX debuted it before the fall season and it only got 9 million Live + SD viewers for its pilot. Its nice 6 demo was overshadowed by its lack of viewers. ‘Lost’ premiered to twice as many on the #4 network at the time (also without a lead-in). Even J.J. Abrams’ other (cancelled) shows like ‘What About Brian’ started up with 13 million. And by the end of November sweeps, ‘Fringe’ was down at the high 7 millions Live + SD and getting beaten in the demo by CBS’s crime procedurals, ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and ‘Charlie Brown’ specials. What if it did not have the ‘House’ lead-in then? High 5 millions and a low 2 demo? Not unlikely and what kind of a hit is that? And it is expensive.

Not everything is lead-in dependent. Take ‘Lost’, for example. It aired the first part of its most recent season as a self-starter and returned as a lead-out of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, yet it produced very similar numbers on both sides of its midseason hiatus. Or how about ‘House’? It is doing fine as a self-starter and it certainly did not used to rely on its ‘Bones’ lead-in.

The ‘American Idol’ lead-in will surely boost ‘Fringe’’s viewership and will likely get it past its lead-in dependence for next fall. But for now, I think that ‘Fringe’ is a timeslot hit.

Although I really like Fringe, but I am not yet confident as to how long it will stick around. I’m not yet confident it can stay at its current level, regardless of lead-in. They could go all “Heroes” on us, and then watching would just be too confusing to bother!

What would have happened if the NBC Universal produced House was not passed on by the NBC network, but instead picked up by it?

Fringe (4.699m) > Bones (4.200m) for 18-49 demo

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/23/fans-of-terminator-life-knight-rider-gary-unmarried-should-look-on-the-bright-side/9940

Argue amongst yourselves about discounting the lead in.

Wrong. That’s Bones. With no lead-in.

Fringe is definitely the kind of show that could drop in viewers at a breakneck pace. It doesn’t take too long to lose interest in riduculous plot twists that serve only to prolong a story that should have ended already (*cough*PRISON BREAK*cough*). Just my opinion there.

“Fringe” is a freshman hit by FOX standards, along those same lines. By the numbers, it’s holding the critical youth demos and, as Julia said, the critical-to-advertisers C3 rating. Plenty of magazine and online buzz about little Pacey all grown up; about the show in general; and even a couple blurbs about the excelled supporting role of Astird (the name of the actor escapes me).

Excluding repeat episodes, how many times did “The Mentalist” beat “Fringe” in the 18-49 demos? Maybe once that I recall. I’ll back-check that to be sure. As to whether “Fringe” can last as long as PB, I’d like to hope so but it’s a hazy picture at best. “Fringe” could fly off the rails, story-wise, with just one too-contrived plot twist. Anna Torv could let those pained and blank facial expressions get the better of her, to the point that not even John Noble and Joshua Jackson can make the show worthwhile. I’d expect get a better idea of where the show is headed by season’s end.

Fringe isn’t the biggest flop if you only look at the numbers (and the current state of network TV) but I don’t think it’ll be around as long as Prison Break has.