I finished watching the last episode last week, and only recently learned that Eureka's first season is only 12 episodes (including the 2-hour premiere) long in the first place. The show has been renewed for a 13-episode second season.
A look at the characters:
-Jack Carter: Lovable, low-IQ former US Marshall who at first stumbles on Eureka and ends up reassigned as the town's new sheriff.
-Zoe Carter: Jack's daughter who moves to Eureka with him. Rebellious teenager in a town of supergenius teenagers.
-Allison Blake: Eureka's Department of Defense rep and source of UST for Jack. Divorced mom with an autistic son.
-Beverly Barlowe: The town's Companion. And psychiatrist. And Shadowy Operative From a Supra-Government Cabal (tm).
-Henry Deacon: The local mechanic / super genius - friendly mad scientist, though the mechanic part fades quickly. Heart of the town.
-Jo Lupo: Jack's gung-ho female deputy. That's really about all that's to her.
-Nathan Stark: Dude-in-charge of Global Dynamics, the civilian defense contractor that basically everyone else in the town works for. Ex-hubbie of Allison.
-Fargo: Stark's junior genius. Among wierd stuff, came up with the automated house Jack lives in.
-Jim Taggart: Unconvincing Australian crackpot hunter guy. What DOES he do, anyway?
With the exception of Taggart (and to a lesser extent, Lupo and Zoe) it's a solid, but again lightweight cast. Fargo, who was a secondary recurring character, has stolen most of his plotlines. Taggart is basically useless comic relief that isn't played well at all. Carter's fun enough as the fish-outta-water (a concept which evolves quickly into the "I'll never get what you guys are up to, so let's just keep going with it"). Allison (previously seen as Teal'c's wife Dray'auc) is effective too in the show's primary relationship.
Section 5? Meh. All this time, and we barely figure out what the artifact is, other than that it's left over from the previous universe, pre-big bang. Ah well.
So what are your thoughts? Mine haven't changed that much since the month-on check in. It's lightweight, relatively harmless SF stuff, hitting on old cliches with a modern enough, famil0friendly twist. No apocalyptic destruction, no bleak dark future. It's not high-brow stuff, and not meant to be; in that niche, it works fairly well. It's X-files lite, with less horror, more fun factor. I'm not into bleak SF, so I'll be watching this and the Stargates before Galactica, given the choice.
I'll tune in for the second season, and likely pic up the DVDs should they have some decent extras. You?
Mark
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Well, my wife and I like it. From what I've read posted before it seems to be a "couples sci-fi" type of show. It's not quite a Lost In Space farce, but seems to have just the right balance to keep you enterested, make you laugh, and throw in some technobabble. I just hope it doesn't turn into some conspiracy crap like "Jericho" has headed.
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
"Couples sci-fi"; I like that. Eureka quickly became our favorite show of the week. We found the characters likeable and the plotlines serviceable (unfortunately this is more than you can say about most shows on TV). As expected a lot of the plotlines seemed to be rehashes of other sci-fi shows (with three seasons of TOS, seven of TNG, seven of DS9, seven of Voyager, and four of Enterprise, is it even possible to have a sci-fi plotline nowadays that Star Trek didn't do at some point?).
However, even with the rehashes Eureka would often do something that would make it worth watching. For example, Eureka did a nanite episode that seemed a lot like Chrichton's Prey, complete with human replicating nanite masses. The episode justified its existence by subconciously linking the nanites to Stark and then, in order to bring the nanite "Starks" into a controlled environment, forcing him to watch the sheriff dance with and put the moves on his soon-to-be ex-wife. Stark's deadpan "I look pissed" as the nanite duplicates smashed into the room was definitely the highlight.