The same problems that plagued the first two episodes of Fringe are still here. Yet despite that, The Ghost Network is the most enjoyable episode so far. Are things turning around? Or is this the last gasp before cancellation?

1. Please give me the power to accept things I cannot change, especially if J.J. Abrams is involved

You know what? I have to move on. I could rail and rail about how it seems every mystery the Fringesters come up against has to have a personal tie to Dr. Bishop or Agent Dunham. (I'm sure Peter's turn is upcoming). This seems to the creed on which the show's Bible is based, and I'm not ready to go and nail it up against any church doors.  I think it limits the storytelling open to the writers, but hey? What do I know? I'm just an internet critic who has to save up to buy a Starbucks coffee. Obviously I know nothing about storytelling, or my pilot about time traveling chipmunks (each with a dark rodent history) would have been picked up by ABC. And then I could buy Cafe Americanos, like, twice a day and stuff.

2. So what happens this week?

Latin speaking bad guys encase an entire busload of early morning commuters in silicon. Agent Dunham feels she's not getting the full story. A man sees visions in his head and makes charcoal drawings, and it's all Dr. Bishop's fault. More revelations about Peter's character are revealed. And someone who we thought was dead may indeed be only resting.

3. Why is it called the Ghost Network

Turns out twenty years ago Dr. Bishop and his buddy Dr. Bell (the mad genius behind Massive Dynamics) were working on a communication system that would be impossible to intercept: a form of telepathy used specifically for really important government messages. This system was called the Ghost Network, which is actually a pretty cool name. Maybe the guys who came up with that could give a few lessons to the brainiacs who thought calling a pattern of events 'The Pattern'.

4. OMG Gross out moments!

• The chipped out bodies from the Bus Of Silicon, making one wonder how much fun that job was.
• A clear glass disc being cut out of a corpse's hand.
• Dr. Bishop drilling into someone's head. Seeing Peter handle a screwdriver on the aforementioned skull was also shiver-worthy, because really, screwdrivers and skulls should never mix.
  

5. Those goofy location titles

Nothing really cool this week. I thought the HARVARD UNIVERSITY title was a little higher off the ledge than last week, so perhaps whatever issues led it to consider jumping last week have been resolved.

6. This week's fun with Fringe science

• The entire concept of the Ghost Network. According to Dr. Bishop, if you fire an iridium-based organomettalic compound into someone's brain, they should be able to be able to tap into the Ghost Network.  So, metal in your head makes you pick up signals? So that's why I get satellite radio on my back fillings?
• The people on the bus were killed by a compound that crystallizes when it hits the nitrogen in the air. 
• Dr. Bishop uses a magnetic neurostimulator to move the metal around in someone's head, more or less to get better reception.
  

7. So what's with Peter this week?

Last week we discovered there may be something fishy with Peter's birth. I still say he's a clone of Steve Austin, because you know Abrams would love to tie this show into The Six Million Dollar Man, so that he can reveal that Dr. Bishop is really Oscar Goldman. This week we learn that:

• Peter is a badass, taking out some guy in a restaurant taking pictures of him, and that Peter may be part of some (gasp!) dark organization. What, on this show?
• Peter can play piano quite well, as evidenced in his rendition of Someone To Watch Over Me.
• Peter can break into homes with practiced ease.
  

8. So what's with Olivia this week?

Doesn't like to be left in the dark. Doesn't smile enough. Knew she wanted to be a cop since she was nine. Peter remarks at that age, he wanted to be a brontosaurus.

9. Big reveals this week

Much was made of Broyles giving Nina the glass disc taken from the bus victim's hand, but since we already know the two of them are in some form of cahoots, why the big scary music when he hands it over? So, a reveal of sorts, if you slept through the last two episodes.

The big reveal, though, was that John Scott, thought firmly pushing up daisies from the end of Episode One, is actually laying in an oxygen tent in Massive Dynamics, with white coated scientists apparently downloading his brain. Either that or getting his cheat codes to Pokemon Diamond. Because Massive Dynamics can't have the answer to everything.

10. So what made this episode better than the last two?

Simple. The writing.

There were some great lines in this episode. My favourite was Peter pointing out that the psych profiles of cops and criminals are essentially the same. He then turns to Olivia and asks, "Ever consider a life of crime?"

"No dental," she replies.

With the sheer preposterousness of the show's plot, there is a need for humor to keep Fringe from becoming a bland Suit and Tie Sci-Fi show. The Ghost Network hit the balance perfectly, with the expected Dr. Bishop lines to Olivia dealing with lost freshmen mistaking their lab for Poly Sci 101.
  
This -- and the actors delivering the lines perfectly -- injected a deeper degree of fun to the show than we've seen so far.

11. So, should I continue watching this or dig out my DVDs of the Facts of Life?
  
Hang around. The show may be finding its feet, and if it can avoid the cancellation trap all shows face when the average attention span of a viewer is 12 seconds unless cleavage appears, Fringe may begin to realize its potential.