Two-Hour Fringe Finale Will Air January 18, 2013

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

We all knew that Fringe was coming to an end at the conclusion of the current season, the fifth in the show’s short life. But now we know when and how Fox’s sci-fi police procedural will finish its run. On Friday, January 18, 2013, Fringe will air a two-hour episode that will serve as the season finale, the series finale, and the 100th episode.

On one hand, that’s exciting news. A hundred and twenty minutes of Fringe sounds like one hell of a way to spend a Friday night. And getting to 100 episodes is a feat for any show, especially one that has teetered continually on the brink of cancellation almost from the beginning, like Fringe.

But, of course, the fact that this is the end, that we won’t see any further adventures from Walter (John Noble), Olivia (Anna Torv), Peter (Joshua Jackson), and the rest of the Fringe team, that will be a bitter pill for fans to swallow.

Co-creator J.J. Abrams had this to say about the show:

It has been an absolute honor to have been a part of the weird and wonderful world of Fringe. I will always owe the cast and crew for pouring their hearts and souls into every dimension of this series. Creating the show with Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman was a joy, but watching it evolve over the years into such an imaginative, insane and heartbreaking ride is nothing less than a thrill. I am grateful to our blessed fans, and to Kevin Reilly and Peter Rice and everyone at the glorious Fox network for allowing Fringe to reach its bittersweet conclusion.

While it will be sad to see Fringe go, it is a minor miracle that it lasted this long. Ratings have never been great, and after last season, many people expected the show to get the axe. When the announcement came down that Fox was giving them the chance to have a final season, and the opportunity to wrap things up on their own terms, it was welcome news. Fringe took the chance and ran with it, leaping forward in time and diving head first into their most ambitious season to date.

Showrunner J.H. Wyman echoes the sentiments of a number of fans, saying, “Fringe has truly imagined the impossibilities over its five seasons and will go down in the books as one of FOX’s most riveting and creatively brilliant series.”

Fringe will be missed, but we can’t be too sad right now, not with nine new episodes still to come. We’ll save the tears for January 19th.