Fringe pulled in its highest ratings since the season premiere, according to early Nielsen estimates.
The supernatural Fox procedural pulled in 6.9 million viewers and climbed in the adults 18-to-49-demo. Its lead-in, Bones (9.9 million viewers) was also way up compared to the last several weeks.
Conversely, FlashForward's final episode before a just-announced long hiatus slipped 8 percent in the demo to a new series low and pulled in 7.3 million viewers. ABC rebounded, however, with a two-hour Private Practice, which averaged 9.5 million viewers and helped ABC tie with CBS to win the night.
CBS was led by...
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"Did you eat?"
"Yeah"
"Well, that's unfortunate."
Fringe has never shied away from the viscera and gore that the sci-fi genre so often demands, but "Snakehead" was an especially stomach-churning addition to the series. The team investigates a case involving large parasitic worms that are growing inside groups of Chinese nationals, and while this was a great freak-of-the-week, it was Walter's search for independence that gave the episode its beating heart.
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After a few weeks of less-than-stellar self-contained episodes, Fringe turned its attention to one of the most interesting aspects of its mythology: The Observer. Or as it turns out, the Observers. When a rogue Observer kidnaps a young woman, the Fringe team and the other Observers try to figure out why and Walter worries that they've come to collect a debt.
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The Office
9/8c NBC
Ryan Howard refuses to be a heavy hitter (as opposed to the other Ryan Howard, the Phillies' home-run king). Once a corporate young gun who rose to the top echelon of Dunder Mifflin, Ryan's fall from grace landed him right back to low-rung status in Scranton. Now he's bitter, lazy, biding time, and refusing to do work. This, of course, grabs the attention of cocaptain Jim, who clashes with the ace slacker. But in the main event, bigwig David Wallace (Andy Buckley) summons a jubilant Michael to attend a shareholders meeting in New York City. Tagging along on the trip: Andy, Dwight and Oscar.
Read on for previews of Terror in Mumbai, Fringe, Project Runway and Private Practice.
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The latest episode of Fringe opened on a pair of men being chased to a rooftop. They appear to have kidnapped a teen boy in their backseat. Once cornered, one of the men seems to the force one police officer to leap to his death and another to kill her partners and then herself using mind control. This being Fringe, of course, none of this is exactly what it seems. And though this particular freak-of-the-week had a cool power and there were a couple of interesting twists, this episode was largely paint-by-numbers.
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