By Brandon Nolta
I wish I lived in Eureka, the top-secret town in the SCI FI Channel’s show of the same name; it has nice weather, surprisingly attractive people for a town full of geeks and nerds (a society of which I am a card-carrying member, so I feel qualified to judge), plus all the top-secret projects and bleeding-edge technology you could want. Throw in a fat government pension, and it’s like heaven moved to just outside Vancouver.
Oh, occasionally there’s the rare troublesome event like the space-time continuum unraveling, or unearthly artifacts toasting people, or jealous scientists running amok with memory neutralizers and other funky tech, but try finding a place to live without the occasional safety issue. Earthquakes vs. holes in time? Come on, you be the judge.
The second season of the quirky seriocomedy premiered Tuesday night, with one of the classics in the Weird Event Hall of Fame: spontaneous combustion. During a solar eclipse, a therapist with Global Dynamics bursts into flames. Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) and local garage owner/aeronautical engineer Henry (Joe Morton) begin looking into the event, but both are somewhat hampered by their memories of the events they experienced before going back in time to prevent the universe from imploding in the first season finale. Yeah, it’s that kind of show.
But, in case that wasn’t enough fun for you, everyone’s favorite bureaucratic bastard, Dr. Stark (Ed Quinn), gets booted from GD in favor of his ex-wife Allison (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), Carter’s love in the future and his crush in the present; there’s also a conspiracy afoot concerning the Artifact, the mysterious extraterrestrial thing that caused all this ruckus in the first place. Did I mention the revelation of how deep and far Henry’s anger over losing his beloved girlfriend (Tamlyn Tomita) runs, especially when it comes to Carter? Yeah, it's that kind of show.
Even for a channel specializing in intelligent dramas that mix and match thematic and tonal trends (FARSCAPE, anyone? THE INVISIBLE MAN?), EUREKA is a juggling act that is consistently good, thanks to the casting. Ferguson, Morton and Richardson-Whitfield are veteran character actors who invest their characters with shadings and quirks that go beyond what’s presented. The ostensible villains of the show — the snakily charming Quinn and Debrah Farentino as a therapist
with enough secret agendas to populate her own X-FILES spinoff — are suitably devious and sly, and the supporting cast is colorful and endearing, particularly Erica Cerra as Deputy Lupo and the welcome return of sci-fi TV icon Matt Frewer (aka Max Headroom) as Taggart, the local veterinarian and cryptozoologist.
Even if the dialogue and writing aren’t always up to par, it’s still better than most of what’s out there in network TV land, and the actors make up for a multitude of sins. If the premiere is any indicator, the show’s creators are preparing to head in some darker directions this go-round, which should make for interesting storylines, although it doesn’t necessarily bode well for the comedic factors.
If the end of the world being narrowly averted by a couple of cops overseeing a town full of geeks isn’t funny enough for you, you shouldn’t be watching this show, anyway. There’s probably an 18-hour adaptation of “The Pickwick Papers” on somewhere you’d like better. For fans of witty, geeky comedy with dramatic leanings, or quirky drama that’s often funny, or if you’re just a sucker for weird shows filmed in Canada, EUREKA covers a lot of bases. It’ll brighten up your Tuesday nights faster that you can say “high-energy meson collector” (practice saying that a lot; it comes up a couple times in this episode).