Hi out there in SF Obscure land! This week, let’s talk a bit about a fun comedy-drama show with humor and science and goofy nerd stuff that was Eureka.
Eureka is based around a community of scientific geniuses who work for Global Dynamics- a secretive advanced research facility. Most of the residents of the town have a genius of some type-the owner of the cafe is a culinary genius; the police deputy is a security specialist. The show generally begins with Jack Carter, the town sheriff being called in to investigate a crime involving one of the scientists or their inventions. Jack Carter is not one of the scientific geniuses, so generally the concepts have to be explained a clever way to info dump) and he uses his street smarts to solve it. Occasionally, there are longer episode arcs involving government cover-ups, corporate rivalry etc.
The real strength of Eureka is it’s characters. Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), the sheriff; his daughter Zoe (Jordan Hinson), later reveled to have a genius IQ; Dr. Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) mother to an autistic son, who is the later head of Global Dynamics and later Jack Carter’s love interest; Henry Deacon (Joe Morton), a brilliant scientist; Dr. Nathan Stark (Ed Quinn) former head of Global Dynamics and kind of evil; Jo Lupo (Erica Cerra), the deputy and firearms enthusiast, and Dr. Douglas Fargo (Neil Grayston), scientist, outsider, nerd, annoying foible character.
Through five seasons the cast grows considerably. Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day make guest appearances for several episodes. A reset timeline adds Dr. Grace Monroe (Tembi Locke) as Henry Deacon’s wife. And there is an android sheriff. And there is an alternate universe timeline; and a space exploration subplot, and …. a lot of stuff.
It may seem a jumble, but because Eureka sticks to being a comedy-drama it works. It makes a show about science and intellect a good hour of entertaining TV. I always enjoyed Eureka.
So readers, any fans of Eureka out there? Don’t you wish you can live in a town like that?
Smart Girls love SciFi 
I loved it, too. Still miss it.
I miss it too. Thanks for coming by.
I always loved it and I miss it and hell yes I’d love to live in a town like that
I’d love to live there and eat at Cafe Diem.
Guess what is queued up next for a marathon rewatch? 😀 Yep! You guessed it. EUREKA! Loved the show the first time around and felt it was just time. You are right – this show a little of everything presented in a fun loving, tongue-in-cheek way. It was fab! I need to go watch now. 😀
It’s rewatch fun 🙂
It was losing me at the end of the series but I really liked that is was humorous instead of yet another uber serious SF program. The market seems to be flooded with those.
It was really nice to have SF with humor. Refreshing. thanks for stopping by,
If you see no other episode, try Season 4’s Christmas episode, “Do You See What I See?” which is an incredible mixture of different animation types and Christmas cartoon call backs. And I miss this show, too. SyFy’s current crop of shows is way too dark with a few exceptions.
I need to watch that one again. 🙂 Thanks for reminding us about it. And thanks for stopping by.
I LOVELOVELOVE Eureka! I recommend it to anyone with kids past a certain age. I love it because it’s smart, funny, and most importantly, because IT loves science. There are a lot of shows that go straight to the “science is bad/trouble/outtacontrol/our eventual downfall” or that science is the source of discord and that curiosity leads to destruction. Eureka has some of those things, but underneath it all, the premise of the show and the world they’ve built around it is that Science can do Great Things (even when it causes kabooms), and that Curiosity is Worth The Risk. That message alone is worth more than (dare I say it) a hundred X-Files episodes. The problem-solving was one big key that my own kids really glommed onto. They saw an average guy using his own experiences to solve problems that baffled brilliant scientists, and they saw at the same time how the brilliant scientists needed the context of the everyman to make the impact of their discoveries matter. The writers, in interviews, always maintained that their “B” storylines had to match their “A” storylines on a personal level, which made the show tight.
It was also kind of refreshing to think, even though you know it’s 100% fiction, that it might be nice for the government to spend some of its (our) money on a town where inventions and scientific research is done for their own sake, rather than to going straight to inventing things to blow up the world. I was sorry when it took a darker turn, but I’m glad it got to run out and end well. I would love to see some “Return to Eureka” specials.
Also, if you haven’t seen their web/promo stuff like “Live Smart, Eureka” PSAs and their “Infomercials” hunt ’em down on Youtube or SyFy’s archives. They’re hysterical.
More time to waste on Youtube! Will hunt them down. Also I loved the positive spin on science too.