Eureka: What goes around comes Around

I haven’t loved the second half of this season of Eureka. It isn’t that it is bad in any way, it simply didn’t feel all that much like anything special was happening. In general the Episodes have simply become to predictable. The science changes but no matter what it is the odds are high that you won’t see it again and the next week there will be another scientific mystery.

As a season finally I didn’t expect them to change things all that much. At most you set up a change for next season in a finally and I am not convinced that they see the formula of this show as a problem the way that I do. But they did a couple things that I liked.

One of the major things that they were able to do was bring back on of the pieces of technology. There was no real need for the drones to make an appearance except that it was fun, and a hint that the writers recognize that at some point you might have to acknowledge the science you have shown them to have in past episodes.

The big change that I don’t know will happen next year or not is that of Zoe. She has been accepted into Harvard early and in some ways I think it might be good for her not to be on the show. She has been important to the show in some ways but once she grew out of the problem child role and became more of an adult she became less important. A reoccurring guest star role might simply be a better fit for that character now as well as shaking up a show that needs to be shaken up.

I will be watching Eureka next season but if I discover that it is simply more episodes that are the same episode with a new scientific problem I am likely to drop it to the bottom of my Tivo’s season pass manager.

Eureka: Ship Happens

With the ship coming to Eureka I was ready for aliens. I enjoy I felt like something that truly shook up the show might just be a good thing. Now that it hasn’t happened though I am just fine with that. I can understand why the writers would be reticent to inject something into the show that would necessarily take over a huge part of the series and what they did with the plot bringing back Kim, sort of is something that will be interesting to explore.

Much of the episode was about Henry dealing with the return of the woman he loves expect it isn’t really the woman he loves. It looks like her, even sounds like her, and in some ways she acts like her bu it isn’t.

With the return of an old character it helped to remind me just how much I miss Stark on the show. He filled a role that they need to fill again. A rival for Carter. Someone who isn’t actively doing anything wrong and is useful but competes more with Carter.

The other thing that I liked is that the solution for this weeks episode wasn’t something they introduced this week. Having one of the technologies that have appeared return is important because one of the logical problems I’ve had with Eureka is that they tend to create new technologies one week and then never use them again even though they would be very useful.

Overall I am very interested to see where they go with Henry and Kim, and if the show can just find a little more conflict between the cast again I will be quite happy with it.

Eureka: It’s Not Easy Being Green

Eureka was fun this week, but this episode ran into a single major problem. They have set up something major is about to happen and even though this episode was connected to that it’s hard to care that much that Fargo is green when you know something is comming towards Eureka.

I suspect that a great deal of this episode was setting up things for future episodes, the area 51 people may may a return. It also sets up Lexi not being on the show. This is good because I continue to have problems with her moral dillema since it shouldn’t even be a question.

These weeks mystery was fun, but nothing special. More of a way to keep things going while they set up everything for the ongoing plot line.

Perhaps the best part was Alison and Carter. Every time he commented on the thing eatting too much it became funnier.

This has been a fun season and I think they are going someplace interesting with the show, but with how important the ongoing storyline is I hope they don’t put it off too many more weeks.

Eureka: Insane in the P-Brain — review

In general the ideas of Eureka aren’t particularly groundbreaking, borrowed from other science fiction shows they get away with it because Eureka is a character based show with the science making the mysteries but not the plot of each show.

In this episode I suspect they got the idea from an old episode of Star Trek where Ensign Row and Geordie were out of phase. Though this time is is Carter and the new head of Section five, a woman who has been working at SETI. Wandering around unable to interact with anything they must solve the problem before Henry turns off the device and traps them there permanently.

Having Henry become almost the villain simply because of how good he is at figuring these things out was great and I think this new woman on the show who is brilliant but tends to get herself in trouble with the things she says should be fun.

I had considerably more problem with the B. Plot. In this story Lexi is struggling with whether she should tell the father of her babies if she is pregnant. The problem with this is that I don’t think there should be any debate. It doesn’t matter if he loves her or if it will tie him down or any of the other things. He deserves to know he has children, with the only possible exception if he is abusive(or Darth Vader). I simply have trouble feeling any connection to a character who struggles with this decision.

Overall, the thing that most excited me about this show was the ongoing storyline that is in the background. If don’t right this could be a fascinating new chapter in Eureka.

Eureka is back- Welcome back Carter

After several months of their being almost no new science fiction on TV having Eureka back is a pleasure and this episode did exactly what you want from any episode of Eureka, it explored the characters, had a few small surprises, examined some interesting science and introduced the first hints of the seasons arc.

The story begins with Carter applying for a job at homeland security. He doesn’t really want it but he has been fired so his choices are limited. This helps to remind us that he really is a serious character.

Within a few minutes they introduce the next new character for this episode, Andy, the new sheriff and a prototype robot. You expect almost from the first for this to be the antagonist or at best to not work, but he is actually quite good at his job.

The actual problem in this episode was gravity wells.  This isn’t as visually interesting as many of the other things but it worked perfectly in this episode in which Carter is unable to truly investigate because he doesn’t have clearance.

I am split about Carter being so quickly reinstated as sheriff. There was never any doubt that it would happen but I had kind of hoped they might find something to do with him not being sheriff for a few episodes, but I suspect they wanted to move forward with their other plot quickly, though I hope they have more to do with the Department of Defense disliking Carter.

What I like most about Eureka is that it is able to capture the feeling of the science fiction stories that I love. The short stories written by masters of the genre that always seemed to be based around some small town where a scientist had discovered some fascinating new invention, while the invention of the town of Eureka allows it to be almost plausible.

Summer Science Fiction on TV

There hasn’t been any science fiction on TV except reruns since the season ended but in July there are a few shows, mostly on the sci-fi channel to look forward too. Most of them are short seasons but they might just tide us over until fall.

Eureka – This is the show i’m most excited to see.  The show is a lot of fun and they still manage to tell good science fiction stories even if some of them are old star trek episodes with different actors and it’s only 8 more days.

Warehouse 13 – I heard this show explained as the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Arc at one point. This is about the place where the government stores all of the odd and bizarre things that it gets. I can only hope that this show will actually be good since I don’t know a lot more about it. Still, it comes out 3 days earlier than Eureka and I will be watching it.

Being Human – I  have no idea if this is any good, but in general i’ve liked the British imports and so I am going to give it a try. As I understand this is a show about a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire living in a house together.  The premise seems funny, but I’m not sure it can hold up for more than an episode or two before it gets old. We’ll see.

Futuristic science fiction a thing of the past

I was thinking about the science fiction that is currently on TV last night, and I have been unable to come up with one show that is set in the future. There is some good stuff on, but it seems that it is all set in modern day. Fringe, Lost, Chuck, Eureka, and the new Star gate for example. Dr. Who is of course occasionally set in the future, but it’s also set in the past, and the present and it’s hardly on the air this year.

So why is this? I like these shows and I’m not complaining about any of them, but why? One simple explanation is that TV networks are all basically copying themselves. If there was a futuristic science fiction show on that worked they would copy it. This alone helps you understand why the science fiction genre has so much trouble on TV since the heart of science fiction is uniqueness but I don’t think that’s all of it.

I suspect a second reason is the same reason that Star Trek always time travels to our time period or close to it. The sets are already built. It is cheaper to have a show that is set in our modern world because it already exists.

Third, they aren’t science fiction, most of these are police dramas with science fiction elements. Fringe, Chuck and Eureka are all examples of this and while some have more science fiction than others they are still following the police drama trend.

I don’t suspect that there is a lot that can be done about this. There has to be someone in Hollywood who is making the pitches for epic science fiction and they are being turned down. Perhaps the new Star Trek movie will trigger some ideas at least though I suspect that they will simply dismiss that.

Here is my pitch for a futuristic science fiction drama. Set in 2112 humans have continued to develop technology, but the most major breakthrough in human history has just occurred. A brilliant scientist has discovered a way to bypass the speed of light.

In a rush to begin to explore NASA retrofits one of its shuttles with the technology. This shuttle is roughly 3 times the size of the modern shuttle with far better air recycling and artificial gravity(just because of the cost). This means that there is only room for 7 crew members comfortably. The scientist who developed the technology is the first, the rest are made up of the best on earth.

With every member of the crew important and the ship with little in the way of defenses they begin to explore.