Imagine Lor of the Rings is Tolkien had done factasy as “anything I want to do” with NO internal consistency….yikes.

However, if you have ever played the flash-game ‘pandemic 2′, there was a shout out (madagascar wasn’t infected).

The CDC would move (perhaps after a good tasering) those people to an isolation wing of a hospital and try their damnedest to keep them alive. Why couldn’t they try any of the many antivirals that exist on it? Walter practically criticized the episode, saying that a germ that lethal from long ago must have been defeated by our own adaptation. And a 75k year old bug wouldn’t have any resistance to any current drugs.

Its sad, because I was really excited to have the Toba eruption and the near extinction of human kind 75,000 years ago mentioned. Its the sort of natural history that is impressive to imagine, and its sad that it was used in such a bs episode.

Btw, I think the tubes they were using for samples looked a lot like the ones I use to grow bacterial cultures in. IE, the ones that have loose caps to give the bacteria enough air.

Personally I believe that that universe would go merrily along if people swabbed their own mouths. However, I can agree that it might be annoying to someone who has a background where that is important. But maybe in this other dimension that is how things are done.

On the other hand, in a universe (even supposing that it is an alternate dimension) that is otherwise portrayed as having normal physical laws (and yes, they are considered laws, not hypotheses) we are shown a centrifuge that is run unbalanced and which after running for less than the time that it takes Walter to complete one short sentence (yes, there is no break in time here) fails to separate any part of the blood (not surprising), but we are now told that this virus cannot be isolated (again not surprising). What is surprising is that the one tube that was put into the centrifuge emerges unbroken (not really surprising since they didn’t run the centrifuge). So in this dimension, we are making the assumption that not only can a centrifuge run unbalanced, but that by running the centrifuge for an extremely short amount of time, we should be able to separate the virus within the tube of blood. If Fox accurately portrayed the universe to match this small episode that they depicted, then we would have a truly amazing and probably entertaining science fiction show with astonishing differences between the physical laws that operate there and here. Unfortunately they don’t.

I mean seriously, the architecture would be different. People and animals would move differently. Cars, planes and helicopters would not operate the same way as in our dimension. In other words, Fox is depicting in one little scene breaking a huge physical law. I know it probably doesn’t bother you, but were you living there, it would certainly affect you. And this is so preventable. Fringe science need not be lousy science — especially when done by the previous head of the Harvard Biochemistry Department.

We also are supposing that in this universe people can catch infectious diseases and yet our main protagonists don’t have to take any precautions and they always emerge unscathed? I am not limiting this to this episode only now. I’m sorry but this is a matter of consistency and these are stupid mistakes on the part of Fox.

If Walter and Astrid don’t ever need protection, than there is obviously nothing to be afraid of and people in this dimension cannot have a virus, because obviously no one has to take precautions against getting infected. So something else must be causing these people to spew blood and run around and die and they shouldn’t need to be quarantined. Maybe it’s a strange sound that can only be heard in the building and they are trying to get out before they die. . .

By the way, I also love CSI and they do manage to portray lab work in such a way that it is somewhat believable, although the time for normal lab work is much greater than the way they depict it. There are also many medical shows that portray lab work, so I think that audiences are more sophisticated than Fox seems to think. In addition, many of the medical shows constantly have their protagonists wearing masks or completely covered up in surgery. Imagine if your favorite medical drama decided to have the doctors doing surgery without proper costumes. Yes, TV does have to take liberties because they are telling a story, but they could try harder to get the BASIC science medicine right.

Unfortunately I agree with Scott on this one. The doomsday clock needed to be moved forward — especially when combined with last week’s fiasco which was incredibly boring as well as poorly done.

As this isn’t a science show, but rather a science fiction show, I’m fine with them taking liberties with what can actually happen. In a show where people travel through dimensions, we are concerned about eye protection? FOX did not pay to have their actors hidden in full body suits and masks.

Also, I think we have to give them slack regarding how long things take. Of course Walter could not realistically make some kind of drug in a matter of hours. But having to say “2 weeks later…” over and over in an episode would be terrible. Having him put a sample in a PCR machine and waiting for it to run would awfully slow TV as well.

Regarding the “intelligent” virus, I think it was just poorly worded. Perhaps it would have been better for them to call it a highly aggressive and volatile virus that mutates quickly – once it has been stuck in a host for a long time it mutates rapidly to affect the host. If it simply compels the host to seek open space and other people, I could certainly buy that (perhaps a virus that infects a part of the brain that causes a type of claustrophobia). So it’s the evolution of the virus which Walter calls “intelligence” (or is it a nod to the idea of “intelligent design”?)

It’s interesting to critique the science but we have to remember the premise of the show as well as the liberties producers have to make to make the show play well on television. Maybe the whole thing is a 6th sense type plot where Walter and everyone else is from another dimension where things work this way and Peter is the only one from “our” dimension. So if things are even remotely plausible I’ll give it a pass. What actually bothers me more is things like letting the people swab themselves.

Firehoses don’t do it here. The CDC would have probably quarantined the entire building AND been looking for people off the plane. If they let anyone out, the people would have been stripped and cleaned with disinfectant in an isolation area under supervision.

For the virus: the first viral suspects would have been the hemorrhagic viruses and these can be infectious before becoming symptomatic. They are spread by bodily fluids, so maybe Fringe was trying to relate their virus to the hemorrhagic viruses that exist now on earth. However, there are other things that cause nosebleed. . . Still, why not simply make this virus a mutant of one that exists on earth now (or maybe they are thinking of Marburg which was contracted by people exploring caves?). Why is it when we get a new virus that it has to have come from outer space or the depths of the earth (how Jules Verne of them)? So far only the outer limits has addressed that one well.

As a person in an infectious disease program, I have found Fringe to be waaaay inadequate previously when dealing with infectious disease. For instance, take the autopsies. When I did veterinary necropsies, we wore masks and heavy duty gloves, as well as special coats even during cases where we knew that we weren’t dealing with infectious disease. My mentor in vet school often told the story about one of his professors that opened up a cow and found tuberculoid lesions, wasn’t wearing a mask and later lost a lung. So I never fiddled around with a necropsy. At most places, we wore coveralls, gloves and respirators (and we weren’t dealing with biosafety level 4 in most cases). As human diseases are much more transmissable to humans, and as the Fringe division is dealing with weird diseases that affect humans, Walter should be taking more precautions. And Astrid should not be helping him (she never wears protective equipment). Also, Walter should be dead or very very ill. Also having the bodies transported publicly without safety precautions — Please! Ebola is transmitted mostly at funerals and hospitals where the infected are not isolated and are exposed.

Sorry. I know I went on, but this has been torturing me for a while. I am surprised that no human pathologists have said anything previously. However, I suspect that pathologists and medical examiners find this and other shows to be poor examples of what they do. . .

Scott, I watch this on computer and as I need it for my work I didn’t dare burn it out.

Despite this, I do really like Fringe. Everybody needs a fairytale and besides I do like to hear what really weird lines Walter is going to have to say.

This idea of an ancient, sentient virus is stolen from the pilot of the terrible 1996 series Burning Zone.