Fringe – Episode 5: “Power Hungry”
A step backwards for Fringe this week with bad science and a cliched storyline familiar to anyone who reads comics (plot #124: character has electrical powers and unwittingly fries nearby electrical equipment).
The Plot: Joseph Meegar has been the unwitting victim of an experiment by an evil scientist that has turned him into an electrical generator. It’s not a power he can control — electronic equipment breaks when he his near, especially when he is upset. When he accidentally causes an elevator accident that kills 8 people, then mangles his boss, and then kills his mother, he decides to go on the run. Unfortunately, the evil scientist has caught up with him and kidnaps him. Luckily, Dr. Bishop is on the case and trains some carrier pigeons to track Joseph’s unique electromagnetic signature so that Olivia and the rest of the team can rescue him and arrest the evil scientist.
Electrical power and electricity are not areas I know a tremendous deal about, but even I could tell the science was fishy.
1. I Have the Power
That’s a rather selective power Joseph has. It fries the clock on his bed stand, but not the digital thermometer next to it? It fries his scanner and electronic pad at work, yet his Walkman continues to work?
Is Joe generating DC or AC? It would affect how his power would kill people and affect his mother’s pacemaker.
2. Tape It
I’m a child of the ’80s, and the original Walkman generation, and I can confidently tell you that a magnetic field does not permanently alter a cassette tape. The neat thing is you can record over things.
On to more biology and physics concerns:
3. What is the Source?
What is the biological source of his electricity? Generating enough electricity to levitate (let alone start parked cars and trucks) takes an incredibly amount of juice that needs to come from somewhere. And unless the efficiency is near perfect, he’s going to be generating a lot of heat as well.
4. A Weighty Problem
How can sensors determine the weight of the people aboard an elevator when it’’s in free fall?
Joe may have been “electrodynamically levitating”, but if so, he was just levitiating in relation to the frame of the elevator, not the outside world (or he would have hit his head against the ceiling). So even if he were levitating, he still would have borne the brunt of the crash.
5. Stop Motion
I liked the way the Astrid and the GPS said the birds had stopped, yet they were clearly still flying.
Are those poor birds going to be flying in circles for the rest of their life, or did Dr. Bishop reset their beaks?
I’ll grant you that Tesla coils look impressive, but I wouldn’t think they’re particularly good at imparting magnetic charges.
6. Matters of the Heart
Assuming the heart hadn’t already started to break down and decompose (with that “thermoelectric trauma” — a term that doesn’t show up in any medical literature search), how would a “residual electrical charge” cause it to beat normally when removed from the body? The heart’s electrical system doesn’t work like that; it requires specifically directed electrical stimulation, not an unexplained uniform “charge.”
October 16th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I stopped listening when Dr. Bishop started spouting that every human being had a specific “electrical signature”…completely meaningless.
Did Walter Bishop participate in every bullshit experiment during the 70’s and 80’s? No wonder I’m paying so much in taxes.
October 16th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I was pretty much agoggle at the nonsense, but what really got me was a) Releasing the pigeons all in one place, rather than separated so at least you could triangulate and have an idea where you were headed and b) They look up and say something like “We see them!”. They see pigeons. In a city.
Unless there was a bit I missed, it also rather looked as if the Custom House Tower from Boston got relocated to Worcester; at least my husband thinks it was the Custom House Tower. I can’t claim to be interested enough to run the tape back and look.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I’m all for suspension of disbelief and whatnot, but I think it’s rather…convenient…that this guy was listening to cassette tapes. Because, you know, people have done that in the last 15 years.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Mike
Maybe he was hit by a car and this is all taking place in 1973.
October 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Add his camera phone to the electronics mysteriously not fried, even as a computer near him crashed.
On point 4, presumably the log from the weight sensor was read from before the elevator started falling. Also the levitation was given as a reason for him not being electrocuted, which was what killed everyone else in the elevator. The actual landing didn’t cause any noticeable damage to anybody.
October 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Oh god, I am now so worried about the pidgeons!! Are they still circling over him??? :O
October 16th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
One more glaring engineering concern. Namely, you can’t usefully push on a rope. In a traction elevator (which is what they showed), a motor (not inside the car) moves a cable which is attached on one end to the car and on the other end to a counterweight. If the car falls too fast, brakes engage the shaft (and it’s said in the episode they did) to stop it . If you continue driving the motor at that point, you don’t force the elevator down, you just pile up cable on top of it.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:40 am
The biological source is the same one Electro uses.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Also, as a former long-time Worcester, MA resident, I can say that that was not Worcester. I would’ve hoped that they’d at least try with the swooping skyline shots, but no.
(Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; Worcester is not a photogenic city. I imagine they only used it because it’s A City In Massachusetts. On the other hand, I can believe that Worcester could be home to an evil mad scientist who turns people into electrical generators.)
October 18th, 2008 at 8:46 am
They could have shown Union Station, which is photogenic, or the cathedral, or any of the large number of other fairly decent-looking churches in Worcester or, heck, the front of City Hall with the staircases. Or Elm Park and the humpback bridge. Honestly, if they couldn’t find any angle at which to film Worcester attractively, they weren’t looking; there’s so many things that would have nailed it down as being Worcester, and they just didn’t bother.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Yeah I’m from nearby Lincoln and that does NOT look like Worcester
Also, how would the electromagnetic pulse record itself onto a cassette sequentially? And how does sticking these pigeons in a box with magnets ‘rewrite’ their brains?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I think when Bishop said that the typewas ‘permanently altered’ he mean that it wouldn’t wear off, that the type would stay the same forever (well for a long time) unless someone recorded over it. The idea being that a type is different from say a steel needle which can be magnetised but it will wear off.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Uh…I am listening to a cassette tape right now. Many people I know record from CD to cassette and use the cassette until it wears out –cheaper than constantly replacing Cs (especially when they are no longer obtainable). People also listen to vinyl, andeveryone who kept their old record collection is now laughing at those scrambling to pick up records now that turntables are being manufactured again. Even good digital leaves out too much if you’re used to the spectrum in acoustical recordings.
I think the point of the pigeons was to follow a visible source, although it does seem odd considering they were watching GPS signal via computer. At any rate, if I were in a city and saw a flock of pigeons flying purposefully instead of just milling about or taking off and coming back down as they usually do, I’d notice and wonder what was going on. Possibly typical urbanites wouldn’t even notice the difference?
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