Eureka will be one of my science fiction fixes in the absence of Battlestar Galactica. I just downloaded a few episodes from iTunes, and a second season is due in July, so I have plenty of time to catch up. I just watched the pilot, so here’s my take on it.
The hot leading man is what lured me in. A lot of TV shows have hot men, but it’s often not enough to keep me hooked. However, Colin Ferguson is someone I can watch all day. He’s ruggedly handsome and he’s got a nice body (there’s a scene where we get treated to a view), and his suit fits him like a glove (I hate to use a cliché, but this one is very appropriate). He’s definitely charming in his role as Jack Carter, a U.S. Marshall who eventually gets a “promotion” to the sheriff’s office in Eureka.
For the straight male viewer, female eye candy comes in the forms of Allison Blake, an agent of the Department of Defense, and Beverly Barlowe, a sensuous and sympathetic town psychiatrist who is more than she appears to be. Agent Blake is a strong, professional woman who doesn’t want Jack to get any wrong ideas and reacts strongly to his jokes, hinting at some romantic tension and chemistry to come.
As far as pilots goes, the storyline is typical fare, though the events are not. Jack and his daughter Zoe come into Eureka by accident and wind up staying in the town in the end. Their relationship is anything but perfect. Jack meets the stereotypical county sheriff, a middle-aged paunchy man who turns out to be more than just a sheriff. Here and there, he encounters super-intelligent children, one being Agent Blake’s son. This kid gets to have a Wesley Crusher moment and helps save the day. Setting up the entire storyline (and making the Wesley Crusher moment possible) is the genius whose experiments in a temporal device go awry. Even though the main dilemma occurring from the machine is resolved in the end, there are still plenty of loose ends for the show to follow up on.
Is this show set in Eureka, California? Perhaps, as Eureka is on the way to Los Angeles, where Jack and Zoe are headed for a custody hearing. It’s vaguely hinted that Eureka is in the Pacific Northwest. This Eureka is a town created as a haven for the geniuses responsible for all the interesting technology from the Cold War and on. No one is who they initially appear to be, such as the sheriff and the mechanic who fixes Jack’s car. And for Jack to work there in the end, his security clearance is upped and he is given a “promotion.”
Overall, I loved the pilot and I’ll keep downloading episodes. It’s a quirky show, and even if some things appear to be borrowed from Star Trek or the X-Files, it works. And, I don’t have to wait long for Season 2.
Catch Eureka‘s pilot on iTunes.
