Fringe

Status: Ended
Aired: 2008-13 (5 Seasons Totaling 100 Episodes)
Network: FOX
Starring: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Jasika Nicole, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Kirk Acevedo, Seth Gabel

Description: The FBI teams up with a formerly-institutionalized scientist – who was performing experiments on the fringe of real science – and his son to investigate weird crimes that are seemingly part of a larger pattern, and may be connected with a global company called Massive Dynamic. IMDb.com

Why Did It End? Fringe gives us a rare success story for a sci fi series that faced ratings challenges. This series debuted in its first year to decent if not spectacular ratings, but it saw its numbers rise during the second half of its first season when FOX rescheduled it in the American Idol lead-out slot. But they moved it to the tough Thursday 9 PM EST timeslot in its second year opposite ratings juggernauts CSI on CBS and Grey’s Anatomy on ABC. As expected, its numbers plummeted, but FOX still saw fit to give it a renewal. Its numbers slipped further in its third season and the network moved it to Fridays which looked like the show’s death knell. But it was actually their way of propping it up as they figured its small but loyal audience would follow it and give the show sufficient enough ratings to help the network plug up and hour on that low viewership night. The strategy worked and the show survived into a fourth and fifth season and was allowed to wrap up its storylines and go out on its own terms. And this from the network that callously cancelled Firefly in 2002 and Almost Human in 2014.