"Episode 1.05"

"You're doing fine Walter."
This week we get a softer, more tolerant Peter who is coming to terms with helping Walter cope with his life. "Power Hungry" takes another stock SciFi theme and puts the Fringe spin on it, when frumpy Joe Schmoe has self-esteem problems that get acted out via involuntary electrical impulses that wreck havoc with his surroundings...just the kind of guy that normal single women try to avoid in life. :-) I like the actor who plays Joe, he played a cute and gentle college guy in "Mona Lisa Smile", and he's good here as Electro Joe. His travails are not as gory as the victims in previous eps, but he does get the electrodes in the head which seems to be a favorite for this show! He is, of course, another experimental victim gone haywire, but via an odd avenue.

I really like Olivia's partner, I hope that he isn't on the wrong side of the law, I'll be disappointed. Everyone needs a well-grounded friend like that. He gives her a sincere pep-talk about dealing with Scott's betrayal and death, but Scott comes around again later to try to explain things to her on his own. I'm not sure how I feel about all that yet, to me that's more way out there than the kooky science, but we'll see how it plays out. Walter says that Scott's brainwaves are in her head since they were connected up (with electrodes in the head!), but I suspect something weirder. Maybe now that they're connected, and his brain is being kept animated for downloading, something's going on there in the ether between their heads. This may make Olivia an honorary member of The Pattern, in the way that Scully became physically entrenched in the alien/consortium plans in the X-Files.

We also see the Observer briefly again, this time quickly darting out of the elevator that Joe gets into before he unwittingly slams it to the ground full of people and himself. Joe walks away unharmed of course, something about the EMF holding him hovered in the center of the elevator car. Walter does a weird thing with Olivia's necklace to explain it, which seemed kind of hard to believe also, just because it wasn't floating when she was wearing it so why did it float after Walter started playing with it? I'm open to suggestions.

Walter plays with some enviable science equipment of course (this retired former lab-rat would SO love to be working with Walter, I've worked with nutty scientists, I could handle it!)

I have no idea if pigeons have metallic particles in their beaks! Hopefully someone doing recaps will discuss this point.

I was glad that this week's victim didn't get killed for a change. Joe gets captured and sent off to who-knows-where (probably MD eventually to get more brain electrodes!). And this week we again get a little mini-story at the end of the episode which seems to be the M.O. of Fringe and I like it (it's like getting 1 1/4 episodes). Olivia gets some messages from Scott again, which lead her to some Pattern info. I won't spoil it completely.