Fringe – Episode 3: “The Ghost Network”
This episode of Fringe, at least from the science and medicine point of view, was an improvement over the first two. Sure, it was still rubbish, but the cringe factor was less.
The Plot: A man boards a bus in Washington D.C. and makes eye contact with another passenger. When she puts the backpack she was carrying down on the ground, the man dons a gas mask and opens a capsule of mysterious gas. In the resulting confusion, he grabs the backpack and escapes the bus. After he leaves, the gas on the bus becomes a solid gel, completely filling the bus, suffocating and trapping everyone inside. Called to the scene, Dr. Bishop identifies the gel as a aerosolized silicon base that polymerized with the nitrogen in the air, and is able to recreate it in the lab.
Meanwhile, a mild mannered office worker named Roy McComb has been having Pattern-related visions for the better part of the past year. Dr. Bishop suspects that Roy is psychic. He ties it all in to an old project of his, the Ghost Network, which uses wavelengths “lying outside the range those already discovered” to transmit secret information. It turns out that Roy was one of Bishop’s experimental subjects twenty years before when he was trying to use “iridium-based organometallic compounds” to create a living receiver for the Ghost Network. Somehow, in the intervening years, those metallic compounds have multiplied and collected in Roy’s visual cortex (the part of the brain that translates visual input). Thus, when someone uses the Ghost Network, it gives him visions. Bishop wants to move the metallic compounds from the visual cortex to the auditory cortex so Roy can hear what is being said on the Network rather than see it in visions. Agent Dunham uses the information obtained through Roy’s abilities to capture (or at least attempt to capture) the people responsible for the bus attack. In the scuffle, she is able to recover the strange object they were after.
1. The Jell-O Bus
Is that small an amount of silicon gas really going to fill the entire bus up with gel? No, not even if it combines with nitrogen. Sure, nitrogen makes up 75% of the air on the bus, but those molecules are spread out because it’s in gaseous form. If they did condense into solid form, the nitrogen molecules would take up dramatically less space because solids are much more condensed than gases. Even if you throw in the amount of silicon gas in that canister, there still wouldn’t be enough mass to fill the entire bus with gel.
2. Dr. Bishop, Pharmacist
Dr. Bishop takes his own homemade concoction of dextromethorphan, Klonopin, and fluoxetine.
Dextromethrophan is synthetic narcotic used as an over the counter cough suppressant (it is the “DM” in Robitussin DM), and can be hallucinogenic at high doses.
Klonopin (clonazepam) is an anti-anxiety agent and sedative. IT is a benzodiazepine, the same class as Valium.
Fluoxetine is the generic name for Prozac, an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication.
None of these are psychotics (or even anti-psychotics) as Peter suggests.
3. Ghosts or Visions
For the sake of argument, let’s say the iridium compounds in Roy’s brain did react to the Ghost Network. That still doesn’t explain why his brain would interpret the signals as exact visions or the exact words. It would more likely result in random auditory or visual hallucinations, or possibly a seizure.
4. Magnets
Wouldn’t the MRI, an extremely powerful magnet, already have shifted the metallic elements out of Roy’s visual cortex.? If Dr. Bishop’s little homemade magnetic machine can, then certainly the much stronger MRI would have.
5. Cleanliness is next to Godliness
If a mad scientist ever drills in my brain, I would hope that — unlike Dr Bishop — he (or she) would at least use sterile technique.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:55 am
I figured the bus Jell-O was something like aerogel, which is what, 97% air? Sure, instant spray-on aerogel is still BS science on TV as usual, but at least the final result is less offensively impossible, and hey, in a show called “Fringe”, that’s more than I ask.
September 25th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I’m not a chemist, but I don’t recall ever hearing of a ferromagnetic organoiridium compound.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Ah, you should no better. Future medicine will be 5th-dimensional (or at least I think that was the number of dimensions in the “reach through the patient to do surgery” cartoon you posted a bit ago). The gel pill is actually drawing mass from another dimension. They allow it, because it’s like liposuction for them. Little do they know that their universe is approaching the critical lack of mess for conversion into custard…
September 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
The show is a big disappointment. There are so many other, more plausible story lines they could be using, but instead they recycle sf cliches and write scripts full of the laziest science double-talk. A pity, since some of the actors are ok.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
The writers seem to have lost track and veered off in a different path in this episode.
They seem to have switched from the concept of precognitive visions of future events to intercepting communication about plans for future events.
He was having VISIONS of these attacks before they happened; not just foreknowledge, but actual visions of the events. If he was merely intercepting ghost network communication of the plans, he would not see detailed images of the events before they happen. You COULD argue that his brain was interpreting the plans into visual hallucinations, but the show was clearly implying that he was pre-wittnessing the actual events, which wouldn’t happen from merely intercepting ghost network communication, unless that communication included streaming video of a detailed computer simulation of the attacks.
I didn’t think any of those sounded like psychotics or antipsychotics, especially the DM.
The density for silica nanofoam aerogel is pretty close to that of air
Iridium on Earth is extremely rare, I don’t see how what the source for iridium intake required to support the compounds “multiplying” would be.
Iridium is not ferromagnetic anyway, and neither are its compounds.
Those organometallic compounds are pretty cool: not only do they let you intercept ghost network communication, but they will also intercept cell phone signals and do a digital to analog conversion on the GSM or CDMA cell phone signal.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
PS:
My DVR missed recording “The Mentalist” due to programming conflicts, but it will be re aired Friday at 7PM on CBS, and I am really looking forward to seeing that show that is firmly grounded in reality. The Bad Astronomer gave it a big thumbs up.
That show should be an interesting contrast to Fringe.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I fell asleep halfway through this episode. Mrs. Serpent watched the whole thing, and deemed it an improvement over last week. I have it recorded… but, honestly, I think I’m gonna give it a miss and drop the show.
MOTHER Serpent can’t understand how I can cheerfully accept the completely impossible science in comic books, but “nit-pick” about technical details in shows that pretend to be more realistic. She doesn’t get that different genres have different rules, and what’s Part OF The Game in one setting is Lazy Writing or Outright Cheating in another.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Are you going to do a Fringe series challenge? I don’t see why you shouldn’t unless you’re anti meaningless internet world-salad.
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that “jello bus” would ever actually mean something.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
What Karl said. If these “visions” were just a result of him overhearing conversations on the “Ghost Network”, how was he able to draw (and in some cases, build models of) with exact detail things before they happened, down to placement of bodies and where people are standing when forensic photos are taken?
Unless the “Pattern” is run with such exacting detail that things such as placement of bodies are already being planned out by the powers that be?? [eye-roll]
Like I said about last week’s ep, the only thing keeping me tuned in are the scenes when Peter and Walter are together, which crack me up (in the good, intentional way). The hope that the rest of the show will eventually get any better fades week by week. :(
September 25th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Aw, come on everyone, this show isn’t that terrible! You have to remember, it was created by a guy who MOVES AN ISLAND on another show. Compared to that ridiculous plotline, this show is genius. And…it actually has a plot, instead of whatever the hell Lost has going for it (that said: Lost is a great show for it’s crack factor and should just cut out all the frivolous characters and focus on Ben Linus).
September 25th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
The ’science’ used on the show doesn’t even seem to TRY. The meds in the doc’s self concocted Rx… why not just LIST three meds that would’ve fit the description? it was a throwaway detail that didn’t work because even as a layperson, I immediately recognized none of those were right. The incredibly growing baby eppy last week had me grabbing for my eyes on the floor before they rolled away.
But here’s the thing… dangit if they don’t have a cast that I am really enjoying seeing work together. Peter and the doc never fail to make me smile; they are already this early in the series a team that works well off each other. You can get the exasperation and the affection from both of them- great casting! The blonde (why are they always blondes?) is growing on me. I quite like Kirk Acevedo and Lance Reddick as well. oh, and the cow.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
How about the question of what frequency/wavelength Bishop is actually talking about? If it’s beyond those discovered, then either it’s higher frequency/shorter wavelength than gamma and cosmic rays, or lower frequency/longer wavelength than microwaves and radio waves. Either way, it’s difficult to figure how a receiver or set of receivers of size somewhere between neurons and an entire human body is going to pick up these signals very well…
September 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Obviously they are wavelengths that oscillate in different dimensions rather than higher or lower frequencies. :)
September 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I only just got around to watching this ep today, but the minute they said that detxromorphan, Klonopin and fluoxetine were “psychotics”, I just knew I had to rush over and see what they said about it on “Polite Dissent”. It’s like they flipped through the PDR and chose 3 random drugs – I mean at least Klonopin and fluoxetine have psychiatric uses but dextromorphan??
September 27th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
“5. Cleanliness is next to Godliness
If a mad scientist ever drills in my brain, I would hope that — unlike Dr Bishop — he (or she) would at least use sterile technique.”
I think I love you
September 28th, 2008 at 8:03 am
This show sounds difficult to watch, and I didn’t see this episode. I have to say, though, that dextromethorphan does have hallucinogenic properties (perhaps a stand-in for “psychotic” here?) in overdose. About two weeks ago I saw a teenager in the psychiatric emergency room who said that when he takes 15 Mucinex DMs recreationally he sees that repulsive green monster from the commercials, and this is fun. This illustrates three points: 1) dextromethorphan can be hallucinogenic, 2) the power of advertising to implant suggestion is tremendous, and 3) teenagers’ idea of “fun” is sometimes quite bizarre.
BPK
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Dextromethorphan isn’t a narcotic. It’s a dissociative analgesic that is used as an anti-tussive. It’s levo- isomer is the narcotic. Weirdly enough, I take 175mg of DXM everyday, and have for ten years. For me, it basically cures anti-social personality disorder, which is the compulsive desire to be a bad person and overthrow civilization. Before I took it, I was a wannabe revolutionary and a real nutcase. Now, I’m a scientist. As to how this came to be on TV, I have no idea. It’s actually kinda creepy.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:28 am
There’s an Observer on the train…
February 7th, 2010 at 3:15 am
I do find the drug cocktail (and comments on it) hilarious in light of the treatment used for my inexplicable loss of sight/balance spells 25 years ago in college. Health Services had no clue why I’d have sudden weakness and slump against the nearest wall while my vision went black for several seconds about half the time when I stood up, so they gave me a pretty big shot in the kiester . THEN they asked if someone had come in with me and could take me home. It was only 10 minutes away, but the stuff hit so fast I had to have help getting up the stairs, and when I came to again almost three days had passed. I remembered “waking up” a couple of times and watching the walls walls turn pink and breathe…
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