Eureka 1x01 - Pilot review

The Sci Fi Channel’s new original series Eureka finally made its debut on July 18th. Over the past few months, Sci Fi’s promotional tagline for Eureka read, “Small town. Big secrets.” Being a science-fiction fan, one is liable to be sucked into stories of uncovering secrets and conspiracies, and Eureka has its fair share of things to reveal.

Set in the small Pacific Northwest town of Eureka, the quirkiness of the show is apparent as the pilot opens into the suburban home of Walter (Rob LaBelle) and Susan Perkins (Jennifer Clement). Walter is down in his underground laboratory working. His wife lies in bed calling her husband’s name through an intercom gadget. After receiving silence from her first two patient pages, Susan Perkins screams, “Walter!” To which Walter finally responds and turns on the machine he is working on. When sparks start flying from a machine, it is never a good sign.

We finally meet U.S. Marshal Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) driving his nose-ringed and heavily eye-lined teen, Zoe (Jordan Hinson), back to Los Angeles. The aviophobic marshal proves that driving is far more dangerous than flying as he swerves off the road to avoid hitting a dog.

As the father and daughter reveal the rift between them through sniping yet clever dialogue, they trek towards the seemingly normal small town for help. In Eureka, “normalcy” is overrated, and that is quite apparent when the pair encounters a young boy to ask for directions. Noticing the physics book in the boy’s possession, Zoe makes a sarcastic comment calling the boy “Einstein,” to which the child replies matter-of-factly, “I’m more of an Oppenheimer.”

Eventually, Jack’s wandering of the town brings him to a statue of Archimedes. “Archimedes. Greek Mathematician. Discovered Hydrostatics. Eureka, get it?” And we “get it.” Eureka! We have found a town of geniuses, literally.

Eureka is not your conventional sci-fi show where spaceship and alien encounters are found in each episode. It focuses more on the “science” portion of science-fiction, such as parallel universes, temporal space-time continuum, cloning, and technology that is above and beyond the human imagination. Although the science is pseudo-science, it is still definitely one of those “what if” shows.

Since the town is a top-secret government haven for geniuses after World War II, Eureka is not short on technobabble. Fortunately, the script is strong and the technobabble does not burden the plot and dialogue much. In fact, the best lines belong to Jack, the token “regular guy.” Jack’s reaction to Eureka is pretty much exactly how a fish plucked from the ocean and stuck into a high tech tank of genius fish would react: very confused. Despite being from LA and supposedly immune to oddities, Eureka manages to bewilder and intrigue Jack and viewers by its quirks and eccentricities. We are left wanting to see what other top secret gadgets and conspiracies Eureka has to offer.

Eureka is far from a perfect show. In spite of its fresh perspective of the “small town next door” being more heavily guarded than Area 51, it has its clichés and cheesiness. It doesn’t matter what paralleled universe you are in, the military will always try to take control of scientists and their toys in attempts to shutdown their projects. And training to be a samurai is always the first preferred virtual reality simulation second to first person shooter games.

After Sheriff William Cobb (Maury Chaykin) is injured, and Jack manages to show that his “simple” mind is quite useful, he is asked to become Eureka’s new sheriff. Hopefully, Eureka will stay on air long enough to reveal its advertised “big secrets” and conspiracies.