Thursday, November 12, 2009

Berrypost: Baseball is the Devil

Fringe's ratings last Thursday were terrible. So bad, in fact that quite a few fans have banded together on Twitter (and other places online) to campaign to "save" it. Now, considering that Fox did an amazing job backing up Joss Whedon this season (for as long as the low Dollhouse ratings would allow anyway) I have recently begun to appreciate the network. Needless to say, if Fringe gets cancelled then a lot of this goodwill flies out the window (almost all of it would actually) but I remain hopeful.

Why? Well, I was talking to my wife when she pointed out to me that a lot of people in the Comments section of EW.com were pretty peeved last Friday. As it turns out, these people did not know that a new episode of Fringe had just aired because their DVR's all said that the World Series was on Fox last Thursday night... Even though the Series actually ended the night before.

Viewers didn't tune in live due to this information and apparently a lot of people's DVR didn't record at that time because the listing said "Baseball" and not "Fringe". I had the exact same problem and the only reason that I was able to catch and watch Fringe is because I keep up with sports. For all those that don't keep up with baseball... Well, they were screwed.

Now I know that logically it makes more sense to blame the cable companies, but "baseball is the devil" has a much better ring to it. Besides, I don't like baseball, but I do like cable... And I don't want my cable company doing something nefarious like blacking out the final 5 minutes of the Lost finale on me just because they read a mean tweet of mine. I know which side my bread is buttered on.

Maybe I'm wrong... It certainly won't be the first time. But, if I'm right then the ratings for tonight's Fringe will be a good deal higher. Let's watch and see, because if I'm right and baseball really is to blame then I am SO gonna boycott baseball by not watching next season.

Not that I watched any baseball This season, but still. This time I'll be not watching... In anger.

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