Fox announces end of TV show . . .

The future of Fringe has been in doubt for a while now. So much so that two endings have been filmed for the finale of season 4 – one which ends the series for good and a “cliffhanger” for a fifth season.

Now Fox has officially confirmed that a (shorter) fifth season of 13 episodes will wrap up the series for good – all of which is good news for fans who have been expecting the worst.

Season 4 will end on Friday, May 11 and season 5 will premiere September 2012.

According to actor Joshua Jackson who plays Peter Bishop in the show the battle between the Fringe team and the so-called “Observers” in the year 2036 will be the focus of what the upcoming final season is about.

“If you watch that, you’ll have an understanding of where they want to take the series,” he said.

Some fans have griped that Fox is prematurely cancelling another great sci-fi show, but the truth is that Fringe will clock in at the 100 episode mark at the end of the day. It is a better deal that something like Firefly ever got. At least the writers will figure out away to hopefully satisfactorily end the series unlike shows like the V remake, FlashForward and others which simply hung in midair when they were cancelled.

Alas the departure of Fringe also means the end of what is probably the most intelligent and creative science fiction show on television right now. It may have started off as an X-Files clone as some critics had it, but with its involved alternate earth plot lines it soon became much more than that.