The Ghost Network
Encyclopedia
"The Ghost Network" is the third episode of the first season
of the American science fiction
drama
television series
Fringe
. The episode was written by co-executive producer David H. Goodman and supervising producer J. R. Orci, and was directed by Frederick E. O. Toye
. The episode follows the Fringe team's investigation into a bus that was filled with amber, encasing the people inside. They discover a man named Roy (Zak Orth
) who predicted it and other similar events, and Walter
realizes Roy has connections to a past experiment he did over twenty years ago, called the "Ghost Network".
The episode was important in the show's evolution, as the writers noted that Roy was the first guest character the audience could get emotionally invested in. "The Ghost Network" also included their quest to explain seemingly impossible and weird phenomenon through a real scientific explanation from Walter's past research.
It first aired on the Fox network
in the United States on September 23, 2008. An estimated 9.42 million viewers watched the episode on its first broadcast. It received mixed reviews, with many believing the show to be finally finding its legs, while others worried over the ongoing formulaic storylines featured in each episode.
) confesses to his priest
that he sees visions of bad things, including a bus where everyone is going to die. Simultaneously with this scene, a man enters a bus, unleashes a canister emitting gaseous fumes, and steals a backpack before quickly getting off. The Fringe team arrives soon after, only to find the fumes have hardened into an amber-like substance, trapping and killing those inside. Walter
(John Noble
) studies the substance and concludes it started out as a gas and then solidified, suffocating the passengers. While looking at a victim's video footage, Olivia
(Anna Torv
) discovers a backpack is missing, and traces it back to one of the victims, a Federal employee with undercover connections to a drug cartel. They interview her "handler", who comes to identify her body. The Fringe team finds out about Roy, and search through his apartment, believing he is behind the bus and other Pattern-related terror attacks. They soon realize all of his drawings are dated before the incidents took place, despite the fact that several of them were never made public. In an interrogation, Roy tells Charlie (Kirk Acevedo
) he's been receiving his visions for nine months, roughly when they began seeing Pattern-related attacks.
Meanwhile, they trace the substance to Massive Dynamic. Olivia interviews Massive Dynamic executive Nina Sharp (Blair Brown
), who tells her the substance has been seen in an attack before. Walter suspects Roy is psychic
and runs tests on him before realizing Roy has some kind of magnetic compound in his blood. This leads Walter to recall he and his old lab partner William Bell had conducted research on creating a "Ghost Network" to secretly communicate messages from one person to another in an otherwise undetectable frequency range. During this research, Roy was one of his past test subjects. Walter further theorizes that someone else has perfected his research, and that Roy is overhearing secret messages from some of the people behind the terrorist attacks. Olivia and Peter
(Joshua Jackson
) arrive at his old house to find equipment needed to tap into Roy's mind.
Using the equipment, they are able to intercept messages in Latin
detailing an upcoming exchange at South Station in an hour. They realize the handler removed a small crystalline disk from the Federal agent's hand when he identified her body, and that he is now going to exchange it for something else. Olivia intercepts the man, who is killed before she can talk to him. She chases another man involved in the exchange, who commits suicide in front of a bus after giving them a briefcase containing the disc. Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick
) secretly gives the disc to Nina for analysis, while Roy is sent home, as they believe he will no longer see visions because the Ghost Network has been compromised.
decided he wanted fellow executive producer David H. Goodman and supervising producer J. R. Orci to collaborate in writing the episode; Goodman wrote the first half, while Orci wrote the rest of the episode. The two later worked together on only one other episode, "The Equation". Frederick E. O. Toye
directed the episode, as he had worked previously with the writers on Alias
. The writers had the idea for a couple of weeks of Olivia walking into an apartment and discovering walls covered with drawings of events that "no man could possibly have known about". They wanted to take "urban myths or legends of strange events" and come up with a fringe science equivalent; this led them to creating the story of Roy, a man with seemingly "psychic" abilities, which they then expanded by offering a real scientific explanation in the form of Walter's past research. In the show's early development, the producers were also unsure about how other aspects should be developed, such as Joshua Jackson
's character Peter. For instance, in "The Ghost Network", they debated whether or not Peter would break into his childhood home before finally "stalling and just let him do it"; Orci came up with Peter's explanation to Olivia, that he used to live there so it wasn't really breaking in.
. Roy's name was inspired from Richard Dreyfuss
' character Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. The writers noted in the audio commentary
that Roy was the first guest character the audience could get emotionally invested in. They wanted the actor to shave off his head in preparation for the experimentation scene in Walter's lab, but Orth successfully "begged" them to change their minds. When casting for the part of Grant, the writers looked for a man similar in appearance to previous character John Scott (Mark Valley
), as they wanted "to play into whatever Olivia's feelings about how she was or was not betrayed by John". Peter Hermann
won the part.
, while the ambered scene on the bus was originally scripted to take place on a subway
; one of the writers felt the bus "let you see more of the city". Early in the show's creation the writers were trying to figure out what Fringe could be, and ultimately chose "big crazy event[s]" at the start of each episode that would catapult its plot and drive its characters. They felt the bus scene essentially achieved this. When creating the scene on the bus when the gas canister is released, the crew sat on a bus that was really driving through the streets of New York City
; director Frederick Toye called the shooting "Student film style, run and gun". To shoot the three scenes of the bus in the tunnel, the crew looked at a variety of locations before choosing a tunnel near the United Nations
headquarters on the east side of Manhattan
. As it was a busy area, they had to shoot at night and then attempt to make it appear to be daytime, as the scenes were set during the day. They had a limited schedule to shoot all three scenes, and despite never having seen the tunnel before, the production crews had 8-9 hours to quickly set up the massive set and leave enough time to shoot the scenes before dawn approached. To simulate being encased in amber, the actors had to pretend they were frozen.
The episode marked the first time composer Michael Giacchino
worked with assistant Chad Seiter on a Fringe episode. Seiter would continue to score the rest of the season's first half. Joshua Jackson's character briefly plays the piano in a scene near the end of the episode, and it is really Jackson playing. The writers noted in the audio commentary that Jackson can actually play the piano, and that when he receives musical scenes, he learns the piece(s) beforehand to be able to play it for the scene.
, as he thought "['The Ghost Network'] struggled with the aspects that it really needed to prove itself in". Lachonis also had problems with the villains' logic, such as needing to kill a bus full of people to get at one person, rather than confront her alone later, though he understood they "just needed something weird to headline the show". IGN
's Travis Fickett rated it 7.5/10, writing that he thought it was a solid episode because the "characters are coming together nicely, the story is better than last week's – but already it seems the show is hitting a formula". Fickett expressed worriment that Fringe would eventually become too formulaic, much like the first season of Smallville
, and concluded his review by calling Fringe "a solid show, but [not] exceptional yet".
Critics did however praise John Noble's consistent performance as Walter Bishop, with Jon Lachonis calling it "still fantastically done". Writing for Mania.com, Stephen Lackey thought that though the episode wasn't perfect, Fringe had finally seemed to hit its stride, as its "mix of humor and darker storytelling... is starting to come together nicely". Lackey concluded his review by expressing his "excitement" at watching Fringe get better and better, and thought the show could become the best new series of the year if it continued to improve with each episode.
Fringe (Season 1)
The first season of the American science fiction television series Fringe commenced airing on September 9, 2008, and concluded on May 12, 2009. The season contained 21 episodes, although only 20 of them aired as part of the first season...
of the American science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Fringe
Fringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
. The episode was written by co-executive producer David H. Goodman and supervising producer J. R. Orci, and was directed by Frederick E. O. Toye
Fred Toye
Frederick E.O. Toye is an American television director and producer. He has directed several episodes of the ABC series, Alias, as well as for the FOX science fiction series Fringe...
. The episode follows the Fringe team's investigation into a bus that was filled with amber, encasing the people inside. They discover a man named Roy (Zak Orth
Zak Orth
Zak Orth is an American comedic actor known for his roles in Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Melinda and Melinda, In and Out, and Music and Lyrics...
) who predicted it and other similar events, and Walter
Walter Bishop (Fringe)
Walter Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parallel universe, who is referred to in the show as Walternate.-Arc:...
realizes Roy has connections to a past experiment he did over twenty years ago, called the "Ghost Network".
The episode was important in the show's evolution, as the writers noted that Roy was the first guest character the audience could get emotionally invested in. "The Ghost Network" also included their quest to explain seemingly impossible and weird phenomenon through a real scientific explanation from Walter's past research.
It first aired on the Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
in the United States on September 23, 2008. An estimated 9.42 million viewers watched the episode on its first broadcast. It received mixed reviews, with many believing the show to be finally finding its legs, while others worried over the ongoing formulaic storylines featured in each episode.
Plot
A man named Roy McComb (Zak OrthZak Orth
Zak Orth is an American comedic actor known for his roles in Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Melinda and Melinda, In and Out, and Music and Lyrics...
) confesses to his priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
that he sees visions of bad things, including a bus where everyone is going to die. Simultaneously with this scene, a man enters a bus, unleashes a canister emitting gaseous fumes, and steals a backpack before quickly getting off. The Fringe team arrives soon after, only to find the fumes have hardened into an amber-like substance, trapping and killing those inside. Walter
Walter Bishop (Fringe)
Walter Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parallel universe, who is referred to in the show as Walternate.-Arc:...
(John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
) studies the substance and concludes it started out as a gas and then solidified, suffocating the passengers. While looking at a victim's video footage, Olivia
Olivia Dunham
FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series Fringe . Olivia first appeared in the pilot episode on September 9, 2008. She is portrayed by actress Anna Torv....
(Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
) discovers a backpack is missing, and traces it back to one of the victims, a Federal employee with undercover connections to a drug cartel. They interview her "handler", who comes to identify her body. The Fringe team finds out about Roy, and search through his apartment, believing he is behind the bus and other Pattern-related terror attacks. They soon realize all of his drawings are dated before the incidents took place, despite the fact that several of them were never made public. In an interrogation, Roy tells Charlie (Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo is an American actor. He is primarily known for his portrayals of Miguel Alvarez in the HBO series Oz, Joe Toye in Band of Brothers and FBI Agent Charlie Francis in the science-fiction series Fringe....
) he's been receiving his visions for nine months, roughly when they began seeing Pattern-related attacks.
Meanwhile, they trace the substance to Massive Dynamic. Olivia interviews Massive Dynamic executive Nina Sharp (Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...
), who tells her the substance has been seen in an attack before. Walter suspects Roy is psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
and runs tests on him before realizing Roy has some kind of magnetic compound in his blood. This leads Walter to recall he and his old lab partner William Bell had conducted research on creating a "Ghost Network" to secretly communicate messages from one person to another in an otherwise undetectable frequency range. During this research, Roy was one of his past test subjects. Walter further theorizes that someone else has perfected his research, and that Roy is overhearing secret messages from some of the people behind the terrorist attacks. Olivia and Peter
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...
(Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...
) arrive at his old house to find equipment needed to tap into Roy's mind.
Using the equipment, they are able to intercept messages in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
detailing an upcoming exchange at South Station in an hour. They realize the handler removed a small crystalline disk from the Federal agent's hand when he identified her body, and that he is now going to exchange it for something else. Olivia intercepts the man, who is killed before she can talk to him. She chases another man involved in the exchange, who commits suicide in front of a bus after giving them a briefcase containing the disc. Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe...
) secretly gives the disc to Nina for analysis, while Roy is sent home, as they believe he will no longer see visions because the Ghost Network has been compromised.
Writing
Executive producer Jeff PinknerJeff Pinkner
Jeff Pinkner is an American television writer and producer. He graduated from Pikesville High School in Baltimore Maryland in 1983. He is known for his work on Alias where he served as executive producer. In 2006 and 2007, he worked as an executive producer and writer for the mystery series Lost...
decided he wanted fellow executive producer David H. Goodman and supervising producer J. R. Orci to collaborate in writing the episode; Goodman wrote the first half, while Orci wrote the rest of the episode. The two later worked together on only one other episode, "The Equation". Frederick E. O. Toye
Fred Toye
Frederick E.O. Toye is an American television director and producer. He has directed several episodes of the ABC series, Alias, as well as for the FOX science fiction series Fringe...
directed the episode, as he had worked previously with the writers on Alias
Alias (TV series)
Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...
. The writers had the idea for a couple of weeks of Olivia walking into an apartment and discovering walls covered with drawings of events that "no man could possibly have known about". They wanted to take "urban myths or legends of strange events" and come up with a fringe science equivalent; this led them to creating the story of Roy, a man with seemingly "psychic" abilities, which they then expanded by offering a real scientific explanation in the form of Walter's past research. In the show's early development, the producers were also unsure about how other aspects should be developed, such as Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...
's character Peter. For instance, in "The Ghost Network", they debated whether or not Peter would break into his childhood home before finally "stalling and just let him do it"; Orci came up with Peter's explanation to Olivia, that he used to live there so it wasn't really breaking in.
Casting
The character Roy McComb was played by actor Zak OrthZak Orth
Zak Orth is an American comedic actor known for his roles in Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Melinda and Melinda, In and Out, and Music and Lyrics...
. Roy's name was inspired from Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
' character Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
. The writers noted in the audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
that Roy was the first guest character the audience could get emotionally invested in. They wanted the actor to shave off his head in preparation for the experimentation scene in Walter's lab, but Orth successfully "begged" them to change their minds. When casting for the part of Grant, the writers looked for a man similar in appearance to previous character John Scott (Mark Valley
Mark Valley
Mark Thomas Valley is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Brad Chase on the TV drama Boston Legal and Christopher Chance in Fox's action/drama Human Target.-Personal life:...
), as they wanted "to play into whatever Olivia's feelings about how she was or was not betrayed by John". Peter Hermann
Peter Hermann
Peter Hermann is a German-American actor and writer. He is married to actress Mariska Hargitay, with whom he has three children.-Career:Hermann had brief stints on a variety of television shows that include the soap opera, Guiding Light , the ABC Family show, Beautiful People and the Lifetime...
won the part.
Filming
Orci came up with the idea to start the episode in a church's confessionalConfessional
A confessional is a small, enclosed booth used for the Sacrament of Penance, often called confession, or Reconciliation. It is the usual venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, but similar structures are also used in Anglican churches of an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and also in the...
, while the ambered scene on the bus was originally scripted to take place on a subway
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...
; one of the writers felt the bus "let you see more of the city". Early in the show's creation the writers were trying to figure out what Fringe could be, and ultimately chose "big crazy event[s]" at the start of each episode that would catapult its plot and drive its characters. They felt the bus scene essentially achieved this. When creating the scene on the bus when the gas canister is released, the crew sat on a bus that was really driving through the streets of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
; director Frederick Toye called the shooting "Student film style, run and gun". To shoot the three scenes of the bus in the tunnel, the crew looked at a variety of locations before choosing a tunnel near the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
headquarters on the east side of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. As it was a busy area, they had to shoot at night and then attempt to make it appear to be daytime, as the scenes were set during the day. They had a limited schedule to shoot all three scenes, and despite never having seen the tunnel before, the production crews had 8-9 hours to quickly set up the massive set and leave enough time to shoot the scenes before dawn approached. To simulate being encased in amber, the actors had to pretend they were frozen.
The episode marked the first time composer Michael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino is an American composer who has composed scores for movies, television series and video games. Some of his most notable works include the scores to television series such as Lost, Alias and Fringe, games such as the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series, and films such as...
worked with assistant Chad Seiter on a Fringe episode. Seiter would continue to score the rest of the season's first half. Joshua Jackson's character briefly plays the piano in a scene near the end of the episode, and it is really Jackson playing. The writers noted in the audio commentary that Jackson can actually play the piano, and that when he receives musical scenes, he learns the piece(s) beforehand to be able to play it for the scene.
Ratings
"The Ghost Network" first aired in the United States on September 23, 2008. The episode's broadcast was watched by an estimated 9.42 million viewers in the US.Reviews
The episode received mixed reviews. A.V. Club's Noel Murray graded the episode with a B, explaining that while he thought it was "much more fun" than the previous week's episode and enjoyed Peter's expanded presence, he was growing slightly wearied by the "hint-dropping" of Peter's past. Murray thought the climax was "so exciting" that he was willing "to forgive the fact that this is the third week in a row that Walter's big idea has involved some kind of communication with the unconscious". Jon Lachonis from UGO Networks compared it negatively to the pilotPilot (Fringe)
The pilot episode of the television series Fringe premiered on the Fox network on September 9, 2008. The pilot was written by series creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, and directed by Alex Graves. The episode introduces the character Olivia Dunham, portrayed by Anna Torv, an FBI...
, as he thought "['The Ghost Network'] struggled with the aspects that it really needed to prove itself in". Lachonis also had problems with the villains' logic, such as needing to kill a bus full of people to get at one person, rather than confront her alone later, though he understood they "just needed something weird to headline the show". IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Travis Fickett rated it 7.5/10, writing that he thought it was a solid episode because the "characters are coming together nicely, the story is better than last week's – but already it seems the show is hitting a formula". Fickett expressed worriment that Fringe would eventually become too formulaic, much like the first season of Smallville
Smallville
Smallville is the hometown of Superman in comic books published by DC Comics. While growing up in Smallville, the young Clark Kent attended Smallville High with best friends Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross...
, and concluded his review by calling Fringe "a solid show, but [not] exceptional yet".
Critics did however praise John Noble's consistent performance as Walter Bishop, with Jon Lachonis calling it "still fantastically done". Writing for Mania.com, Stephen Lackey thought that though the episode wasn't perfect, Fringe had finally seemed to hit its stride, as its "mix of humor and darker storytelling... is starting to come together nicely". Lackey concluded his review by expressing his "excitement" at watching Fringe get better and better, and thought the show could become the best new series of the year if it continued to improve with each episode.
External links
- "The Ghost Network" at FoxFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...