Lost Fringe Episode To Air Monday January 11

As you already know by now, FOX has scheduled an episode of sophomore series Fringe for a special airing on Monday, January 11, after a new House. What I didn't know was that this would be the "lost" episode of the series originally filmed for the first season. It creates an interesting dilemma, as one of the principal characters in the episode is no longer part of the series.

Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) was killed and replaced by a shapeshifter, who in turn died. The main plot of the episode, titled "Unearthed" will deal with a teenager who begins to speak Russian, and knows classified Russian information, after her mother pulls her off life support. It's pretty safe to say it will be a "monster-of-the-week" episode, but I wonder if the creators will bother perhaps to put a framing sequence around it to explain Francis' presence.

It would be easy enough for something to come up in the present that triggers a memory of this particular case with someone on the cast. I kind of hope they do, because if the episode does pick up new fans, they might be a little confused that Charlie is suddenly talked about in the past tense when they follow the show to Thursdays for the rest of its new episodes.

I also hope it's a good episode, because Fringe is a show that's just waiting to blow up. I don't think it's Thursdays at 9 PM ET time slot is doing it any favors, as it's struggling to face-off against an admittedly weakened (but not dead yet) CSI. I'm hoping this is an attempt by FOX to see if there is an audience for this show anywhere before just putting it out to pasture, or almost worse: punting it to Friday nights.