I was quite happy to hear Fringe would be back this week and intrigued, to say the least, that the second episode, airing on Monday, Jan. 11, is an unaired one from Season 1. Thursday’s episode is called “Unearthed.”

(Note: Some blogs, including some linked to below, have said Fringe isn’t back until Jan. 11, Monday, but the Fox site itself says it’s this Thursday. I’m going with Fox.)

And to make things even more confusing, Charlie (who was killed twice kind of – once for real and once as his doppelganger) plays a major role in the episode.

Fringebloggers had the full text of the press release about Monday’s episode, and it seems that the powers that be don’t really want us to know at this point if this is an alternate universe Charlie or a flashback of some sort:

After a teenage girl is pronounced brain dead, her mother takes her off life support, but when doctors operate quickly to remove her organs, the deceased girl shockingly awakens screaming an alphanumeric code. Equally as perplexing as her resurrection is that she is now somehow able to speak Russian and possesses classified information only a high-ranking soldier would know. While the girl’s mind-bending condition intensifies, Walter dusts off some old lab videos and hypothesizes the unthinkable, sending Olivia and Peter to investigate the bewildering case in an original “Unearthed” episode of FRINGE and here’s another mystery: is it an unaired episode from Season One or is it from an alternate universe? airing Monday, Jan. 11 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (FRINGE-121) (TV-14 L, V)

We think we know it is an unaired Season One episode, as that’s what Cinemablend and others seemed to have been told.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they were told correct information. That, or after letting the cat out of the bag, the powers that be decided to make it part of the alternate universe storyline. Either way … color me intrigued.

I am kind of ticked, however, that Fox is only putting Fringe back on the air for a few weeks, before yanking it off for midseason replacement Past Life, according to The Futon Critic. It doesn’t come back until April. This is especially wrong, because after moving Fringe to a pretty big night for genre TV (and thus more competition), it’s depriving the show of getting the boost a slot after American Idol could bring it. It doesn’t come back on the air until April 1.

WTF, Fox?

Now, Past Life might be OK, and maybe they’re banking on it being in Fringe’s slot to give it a boost. It’s about a bunch of detectives who investigate whether what’s happening to you now could be related to who you were in a past life.

Here’s a trailer:

Might it be OK? Sure. And Fox reduced the order for the show from 13 to just 7 episodes, so that probably means it’s pretty good.

Oh, fun reading: io9 has a great post about JJ Abram’s obsession with Alice in Wonderland, and contains a link to Hidden Elements, an I Spy-like puzzle you can do (as many times as you want) to “unlock” some very cool wallpapers. I did it enough times that I was able to find all the items and download all eight wallpapers.

Here, they are, click on the thumbnails to download a 1024 × 768 size – if you want larger, you’ll have to go to the site and solve it yourself:

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As it is with every year, a whole bunch of science fiction-y shows were canceled at the end of the season, but I have to give it to the networks for trying a bunch of new ones next year.

It was so hard to keep track of the comings and goings during the upfronts, but SciFi Wire thankfully charted it all in a very understandable fashion.

The clear winner, IMHO, is Fox.

Sure, Fox canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, better known as TSCC because it’s a lot freakin’ shorter. But it did keep Dollhouse around for at least another 13 episodes. (Side note: This comic is probably a bit too close to reality for comfort when it comes to how the decision was made.) I’m thinking that Fox didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of the Whedonverse again, whereas TSCC ended at a spot that could full well be the series’ end. (Not that I wouldn’t have loved to see where it would have picked up in the fall.)

Fox also kept Fringe, which is one of my favorite shows. So the net gets brownie points for that. It’s also picked up Human Target and Past Life, each for 13 episodes and for midseason.

Human Target is based on a D.C. comic book and focuses on a guy who goes undercover, basically, as his clients whose lives have been threatened. It was written by Jonathan Steinberg, who was the co-creator of the late Jericho.

I’m not sure I completely understand the premise of Past Life, and the description on Zap2It didn’t help much, but from what I can tell, it’s about a bunch of investigators who solve crimes by dredging up their clients’ long-lost memories. Whether that means memories of dead clients or memories of past lives for solving cold cases or just stuff people have forgotten, I’m not quite clear on. I’m guessing it’s one of the first two, otherwise the whole “science fiction” aspect of it is lost on me.

NBC is second in the science fiction Olympics, though it canceled more sci-fi-ish shows from this season than it has old and new ones put together. Off the schedule: Knight Rider, My Own Worst Enemy, Kings (I still haven’t forgiven them for that decision) and Medium (which CBS decided to pick up).

But it decided to renew Chuck (midseason) and Heroes (really? Talk about a show past its prime, despite it having been around for only 3 seasons) and has three new shows, though two of them are summer series: Day One, The Listener and Merlin.

Day One sounds the most promising to me, what with its post-apocalyptic Melrose Place-ian-ish-ness. Of course, that means it stands an excellent chance of not succeeding.

The Listener is about a paramedic who can read minds, it seems. And Merlin – well, if you can’t guess what it’s about, you need to go back and read King Arthur.

ABC lost more than it’s gained, but it has one of the best sci-fi shows ever: Lost. This is the show’s last season, though, so hopefully one of the new shows will pick up the mantle. Canceled were Cupid, Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies and Life on Mars (which is the only one of the four I cared about; I tried to like Pushing Daisies, but it was just too precious for me).

But it has V, a remake of one of my favorite miniseries ever. I’m sorry the guy originally responsible for it isn’t involved, and I’d sure like to see Michael Ironside in it, but what is he now, 65, 70? I have great hopes for it, especially if they redo the hybrid alien baby and don’t use a really lame puppet.

ABC also is trying out Eastwick and Flash Forward.

Now, Eastwick is based on the John Updike novel The Witches of Eastwick, which was quite memorably adapted into a movie starring Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Jack Nicholson. I tried reading the book at one point but it was a bit too dated and I just couldn’t hack my way through it. I’m willing to give the show a shot, though.

Flash Forward has a lot of promise, though, with a premise in which the entire world blacks out and glimpses 2 minutes and 17 seconds of an undetermined time in each person’s own future. It’s based on a book, whose author is even writing one of the episodes. It’s being written as if it will be five seasons of 22 episodes apiece and could become a worthy successor to Lost, if it catches on.

CBS gave up on two shows: Eleventh Hour and The Ex-List, but kept Ghost Whisperer and snagged NBC’s cast-off Medium. That’s all.

The CW kept Smallville and Supernatural. Though this season is likely to be the final season of SPN, that’s great news they decided to keep it on. But it killed Valentine and Reaper, the latter of which I mourn deeply. I still have three or four episodes on my DVR, so I still have more Reaper to see.

It’s airing the new show Vampire Diaries, though, which I’d imagine might be a good pair with SPN. It’s based on a pre-Twilight series of books, The CW would like you to know, thankyouverymuch. It’s about a girl who can’t decide between two vampire brothers – one good, one evil, of course. They’re battling for her and the souls of all the people in her small town.

So that’s it. Of course, there will be some shows on SyFy, USA, FX, AMC and a whole other slew of acronyms, but these are the big five, so to speak.

Which shows are you looking forward to, and which ones will you miss the most?

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