How powerful is JJ Abrams?

Fringe just got renewed for season four.

That’s actually simplifying things tremendously. JJ Abrams didn’t snap his fingers and make it happen but there’s no doubt his heavy shadow was a factor. Fringe is a well-liked show saddled with a horrible Friday night time slot, but its ratings have decreased as the show has gone on and it’s a very expensive show to make. The typical decision to axe it would be a foregone conclusion. But it’s a very good show (albeit a dense and twisty commitment) and it represents boldness and creativity in a network landscape more akin to the stuff of nightmares with cookie cutter choices up and down the dial. Fringe deserves to live, but so do many other shows.

Yesterday’s cancellation of FX’s Lights Out being a good example of such.

But the bottom like is that Fringe is boutique stuff. And it’s from the JJ Abrams factory. Fox is wise not to upturn that apple cart. The man is a king of media.

A quick note to JJ Abrams haters: Do you realize that in a world where guys like Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Jim Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, and their ilk are considered fanboy legends JJ Abrams is affiliated with more geeky content than all of them and that it actually gets made? And is consistently good? I think people have no idea how good this man and his projects are for the business and for our own well-being.