Am still catching up on my dose of sci-fi (denied and deprived of for the last 3 years+) and was delighted to find a light hearted sci-fi family comedy which revolves around a town of geniuses and their non-genius sheriff, the town is called EUReKA!
Now, when I say light hearted sci-fi comedy I don't mean the 3rd Rock From the Sun slap stick type, rather a mixture of Gilmore Girls' funny (but instead of mother and daughter, it's father and daughter), a love triangle, daily apocolyptic scenarios involving killer drones or science experiment gone wrong, a couple of cuties, a goofball amongst geniuses and a huge dose of ignorable techno-bable which makes this show such fun to watch.
I say ignorable techno-bable because you don't need to understand the sciences to understand the show. What works is the chemistry, the people, the wit and the charm. Yes, the show has loads of charm. The kind of goofball charmed feeling you get from watching a silly guy struggling to ask someone out on a date, fumbles, stumbles and tumbles yet succeeds, and while forgetting you were eavesdropping you cheer out loudly for the guy...opps...
Anyway, it starts like this, US Marshall Jack Carter, and his daughter, young deliquent Zoey, crash their car nearby EUReKA. This town was built based on Einsteins' vision to have geniuses living and working together to facilitate progress and are attached to the USA Department of Defense(DOD) under the watch of the company, Global Dynamics(GD), which means they make both beneficial and destructive breakthroughs there. While there, they end up being sucked into a Section Five science experiment gone wrong (Section Five is GD's most covert and confidential experiments), Jack being a streetsmart cop then shows the shows' bunch of booksmart scientists perspectives that prove to be insightful, gaining the aknowledgement of the town sheriff, the town's DOD liasion, Allison Blake and his future buddy, the town's Jack-Of-All-Trades but primarily a mechanic, Henry Deacon (who has multiple roles in the town thanks to his multi disciplined scientific prowess).
From left: Nathan Stark (Ed Quinn), Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), Zoey Carter (Jordan Hinson) and Henry Deacon (Joe Morton)Jack thought he was over and done with EUReKA after Henry fixed his car (adding a flying function), and was pleased to be back in his old life, only to be assigned to EUReKA as
sheriff when the current sheriff at the time was no longer fit for duty due to injuries sustained in the incident that happened when he was there. Unhappily, Jack took the job, which was considered a promotion since he would be guarding a highly covert operation and get a raise.
His daughter later joined him to live there, which gives him plenty of things to worry about adding on to the constant pressure of having to deal with possible end-of-the-world scenarios practically on a daily basis. To help him, he has a trigger-happy deputy named Jo Lupo who would not hesitate to fire at anything that moves, inititally she did not get along with Jack due to her resentment of not getting the promotion that he took on despite her considerable experience with EUReKA. Talk about a stressful job, but what is worse is that he lives in his artificially intelligent house named S.A.R.A.H (Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat) which has no qualms about shutting him out of the house if he doesn't call her to tell her that he's not coming home for dinner. Ah...typical family drama...but just not so typical. But that is not the end of it, as he has to battle Nathan Stark, CEO of GD and Allison's ex-husband, for jurisdiction on almost all cases on whether it is a GD matter or a matter of the law, usually, after much butting of heads, they work together, but not without many fights throughout, which is where Allison comes in to keep things in balance.
Deputy Jo Lupo (Erica Cerra)The story as you can see, centers around Jack and the relationships with everyone in the town. Initially, Jack was quite an outcast and it's no help that his daughter is also a certified genius, for most part he couldn't understand most of what is being said but you can see that he becomes more attached to the town and accepts its population of geniuses as geniuses and not crazy as he initially imagined, in turn the people come to terms and accept him for the average guy that he truly is.
The dynamics between Jack and Nathan are just stellar, working very well as both enemies and allies, and their competition to be on Allison's good side complicates what could be a beautiful friendship, nonetheless, it is just endearing to watch.
The chemistry between Allison and Jack is quite a feat as they share some of the most charming moments together (refer above for goofball charmed feeling example), but their denial of feelings, mostly on Allison's part, can be quite torturous to watch. The emergence of Dr. Tess Fontana further complicates things for them when the very cool whacked out scientist ends up as Jack's season 3 love interest, which is also very fun to watch, because while she is the smart one, she is also eccentric while he is more sensible despite being average.
Jack with Dr. Tess Fontana (Jaime Ray Newman)
Jo and Jack also grow as partners, developing a father-daughter like relationship with her, and she in turn becomes sisterly with Zoey. Zoey also appears to have become less rebellious and more accepting of her father as it is only in EUReKA that she has had any sort of real relatioship with him.
Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy the show as it is very relateable, because if you are anything like Jack, you just have to do as he does, which is nod your head in understanding when someone techno-bables about Quantum Physics or the Space time continuum until someone, usually Henry, who becomes Jack's number one consultant in all
things science, explains everything in simpler terms, and then nod your head again, but this time in real understanding. But even in these terms, the usually dumbstruck Jack improves, sometimes (but rarely) being able to give out a proper usable scientific solution which leaves everyone else dumbfounded in his bout of brief and sudden brilliance, because most of the time the kind of things that spews out of his mouth are like "So the recipe had salt, which means it's salty, which means it needs salty things".
This particularly reminds me of Stargate and the original SG-1 team, because Jack O'Neill being a military man hardly understood anything science, and then he'd nod and say "Uh huh" continously until his team translates what they meant. Also, a sidenote, O'Neill's love sort of interest in SG-1 was Samantha Carter....Do you see where I am going with this?
SG-1: JACK O'Neill....Samantha CARTER
EUReKA: JACK CARTERI think someone in EUReKA must really like SG-1.
Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson-I miss him so much) and Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping, she's lead on Sanctuary)Anyway, randomness aside, the strength is in a strong cast and a strong witty script. Sugar, spice and everything nice aside, the chemical X in this show was the underlying build up to the events of the "Artifact" which none of the GD scientist are completely sure of what it is, only that it holds great power to unlocking the secrets of the universe, through their efforts of trying to know the unknown, the "Artifact" continously spell disaster for the people in the town as it is an unstable element and also because an organisation known as the Consortium, with the aid of their spy, Dr Beverly Barlowe, eyes the artifact as well.
Story development:
The writers manage to pull off putting out good episodic stories and yet mantain a relatively gripping underlying long term plot, which effectively fleshed out characters whilst slowly integrating them into their roles of bigger events to come. However, my only peeve would be that it appears to have run out of steam by the 3rd season, when they effectively downplayed the "Artifact's" role in the show, I believe that what they need to do now is reintroduce it into the show for an even bigger event. I hope the writers have a strategy ready. All in all, I would say I find the development of the story throughout three seasons are fairly consistent.
Visual Affects:
This show is not a visually heavy sci-fi show as compared to SG-1 or Sanctuary or Babylon 5, but the effects made have been very nicely done and believable. Kudos to Colin Ferguson for his effective interaction with the visual effects, for he is the one mostly caught up acting in or with it, he does quite effectively making you think that whatever shown is pretty real.
Score:
The music for it is more on the cutesy side. While I have no particularly memorable favorite, I'd it's be very appropriate for the show.
Overall Rating:
8/10 for being so endearing
Ps. Jonathon Young makes an appearance in Season three as Dr Ethan Edison (Ah, first an Edison and then a Tesla)... Squeeeeeel!
Even as a silver-haired fox, he's hot
