Eureka's back! And I am happy!

Season 4 part 1 of Eureka was a disappointment. I wanted to like it, but after a strong time-travel opening, they muffed it. The plots were not particularly scientific and the characters mostly lost their minds and became, I don't know, cardboard sitcom people. With annoying robots, love triangles, and ridiculous conspiracies to do... something. The first couple episodes of season 4 part two were not significantly better. "Liftoff" was kind of funny because Zane and Fargo accidentally went into space (whoops), and "Reprise" was when Holly accidentally made everyone act on their music-playlist-inspired impulses. The only real plot element there was when Archnemesis Beverley injected bio-spies into Allison's brain. At that point, Hulu held all remaining episodes until they'd completely finished airing on SyFy, so Jonathan and I kind of forgot about them and almost decided not to watch the rest because they weren't any fun anymore. Also, we randomly watched "Clash of the Titans" out of order and it didn't do it any good. Then we missed Glimpse because it came down before we got to it.

But now the rest of them are up, and to my surprise, they're good again! They have an overarching plot arc; each episode has a plot; the characters are themselves and do fun things with funny lines; and the writers even seem to have watched previous episodes and know the characters' history. Astonishing, I know.

So in the last  few days, we've watched "Up in the Air" (Jack investigates a bank robbery... as in, the bank is missing), "Omega Girls" (Zoe and Jo have to stop squabbling over Zane long enough to rescue the town from Beverley, again), "Of Mites and Men" (somehow haven't watched this one yet), "Clash of the Titans" (Vizzini tries to tell Jack and Allison to break up, and meanwhile Jo is in crazy wedding planner mode), "This One Time at Space Camp" (Vizzini gets zapped with Jack's memories and decides Jack and Allison can stay together after all) and "One Small Step" (in which Deputy Andy accidentally goes to Titan). That also leaves "One Giant Leap" for tomorrow night.

Plot has happened. Relationships actually progress. It's so nice to have Eureka back.

Only in Los Alamos

This sign is one of the reasons I love Los Alamos. We stopped at a (closed) trailhead off State Road 4 to take pictures. Unexploded ordnance in area- if you find anything like these [see picture], do not touch.

And as long as we're talking about Los Alamos... EUREKA HAS RETURNED! It's been a year. Since we were traveling and whatnot, I didn't get to watch the newest episode until last night, but it was pretty entertaining.

I will say, seasons 4 and now 4.5 aren't really equal to the first three seasons, but I was able to squelch my urge for greatness and be happy with it.

These next two paragraph are one big spoiler, so watch out. For those of you who haven't been keeping up, Carter and the gang are still in that alternate timeline, for reasons I can't remember. This week in "Liftoff", Fargo and Zane managed to accidentally launch themselves into outer space in an antique equipped with an untested speed-of-light drive and no sublight engines. Sheesh. Fargo kept his head and did not crash into the International Space Station by means of some clever leaking of oxygen. But he didn't get away scot-free, either. "Now that I've scraped the ISS, they'll never let me be an astronaut." The DC funding committee also hauled him up for questioning afterward. Oops. Alternate Zane is really kind of worthless. He not only stole a major component to their earthside landing gear, which Henry had to patch back together, but spent the first half of his unintended space trip throwing up. However, he pulled himself together and helped get them down fine. Of course.

We also learn that Allison wanted to go to space camp as a girl. Jo solved the power outage by acquiring horses for everyone to ride and then hooking up the landing gear to Deputy Andy. Carter had a clever moment by calling Fargo's cell phone in outer space via a rotary phone and NASA satellite. Meanwhile, SARAH the house jilted Deputy Andy at the... threshold?, but they had a DTR and decided to be friends anyway. Carter and Allison need to get married like yesterday. Henry and Grace are getting to be a pretty good team. And Zane has just about figured out that he used to love Jo, though he's wondering whether it was an erased memory rather than in an alternate timeline. He may turn into a decent human yet. Jo was trying to pump Fargo about what he and Zane talked about up there in space (meaning, did they talk about Jo?) when Fargo got arrested, so I think next week Jo may have to actually talk to Zane. That would be progress indeed.

Yes, Eureka, there is a real meaning of Christmas

I finally read Thrones, Dominations, the unfinished Sayers book the Jill Paton Walsh took in hand and completed a few years ago. It wasn't as good as a pure Sayers, but it was better than some of the mysteries I've been reading lately. She didn't so much ruin our beloved characters as flatten them out: everybody's characterization got less nuanced and more sledgehammer-like. The Duke of Denver and Lady Helen came off worst of all, although Peter became so sensitive as to be slightly henpecked (Peter!! Henpecked by Harriet??). She tried really hard to keep Sayers' contemporary attitudes and worldview, but a modern apparently just can't. Not on marriage: not on class. A pity. Also, the solution to the mystery was kind of perverted, so I wouldn't recommend it for young readers.

The long-awaited Eureka Christmas episode came out this week! Spoilers! It was called "O Little Town," and I think they'd been watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, because Taggart, in a life-long pursuit of Santa, has developed a shrinker-ray for presents that shrinks Eureka! Oh noes! So Jack and Taggart figure out how to take Dr. Drummer's (guest star) magic energy snowball thing and throw it at the EMP shield and reverse the shrinkage.

There were some genuinely funny moments, but I don't think the writers of this episode ever watched Eureka. Taggart's thing is hunting with big guns, right? And Jack is a huge baseball fan, right? So when the time comes for them to go up in the sleigh (I am not making this up), throw the snowball at the shield, and shoot it, what do the writers do but assign Jack to the gun and Taggart to the pitching. Huh? But then, the writing on Eureka this whole season has been lazy. They did get a bunch of new writers on, I know. The dialogue isn't that funny, the plots aren't particularly scientific, and the characters randomly do things totally out of character. Too bad. Also, I really wish they'd hurry up and get Jo and Zane sorted out, or at least advance their story somehow. That's the most interesting subplot at this point, now that the parallel world is more or less at an equilibrium. Sigh.

It's also a pity that Eureka is such a metaphysically empty world. It really is. They do a whole Christmas episode, leaving out even the vaguest hint of Christianity (of course), and this is what we wind up with:
- Christmas isn't about being with your blood family, but being with those you're with (and hopefully love) - Jack's, Jo's, and the nameless snowed-in kids' subplots.
- Everybody makes their own Christmas magic. Allison's subplot was she tries so hard to make things wonderful for her kids, because her parents were straight-up scientists and she never got a present from Santa.
- Growing up doesn't mean you have to stop believing in magic and eating candy canes (at least, so Dr. Drummer/Santa tells Jo).
- Science doesn't work on Santa. You can't capture him and study him, but he'll be back next year - Taggart's subplot.
-Fruitcake has like a million calories, especially when it's shrunk so a whole fruitcake is in one bite.

Seriously? That's the best meaning of Christmas you've got? They know science isn't enough, and there's a better myth, if you like. Imagine a world where a happy God invented people and parsley and astrophysics because He wanted to, and because having them was better and awesomer than not. Then imagine people messed it up. Then, imagine God Himself was born as a human person, to live here for thirty years, be murdered, but be so intensely full of life that He swallowed up death. And, if you want to, you can join this God, and He will swap your death for His life, and your depressingness for His happiness. Incidentally, this means you can investigate this world - i.e. do science - all you like and only learn more about this God because it tells you what He's like. Science has meaning; life has meaning; language even has meaning. Altogether a more satisfactory state of affairs.

Eureka ignores God, and in their metaphysical flailings they've lost science too. We get to wish for Santa and eat candy canes? Seriously? I really miss the scientific plots. Come to the light side. We have cookies! And a philosophical foundation for them!

Vizzini goes to Eureka

The Eureka blog just leaked that Vizzini will show up next season -- all right, the actor Wallace Shawn will, to be precise. He will play a relationship auditor there to inspect Jack and Allison. Oh my...

The real question: will Jack dare go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line?

Eureka - 4.9 "I'll be seeing you"

We finally got to watch the Eureka mid-season finale this weekend! (There was a one-week delay before airing it, and an 8-day delay before putting it on Hulu.) It was very exciting. Much to everyone's shock, Allison died. She actually died. Poor Jack!

But happily, this was a tale of wuv, twoo wuv, and they're in an alternate timeline anyway, so Allison was only mostly dead. (Yes!)

It went something like this. Jack and Allison regrettably woke up in the same bed. (Why don't people get married at this house? Is SARAH the bad influence, or Jack? What do Zoe and Allison's kids think about all this nonsense?) They were deliriously happy and got a 911 call from Fargo at the lab, so they walk in at the same time, very much together. Jo and Fargo take one look at them, and after some teasing, get to the point. The EMP thingy is still missing, the one Beverly got Trevor to steal for its power core, and the General is not happy, but also Henry has found a spot where all background radiation is being damped.

Jo and Jack go through Trevor's archives, and Henry and Allison go check out the anomaly.

Meanwhile, in the secret cloaked warehouse hiding the stolen EMP thingy, Beverly shows Trevor her newly-completed bridge device with which she proposes to send him back to the forties. Why he believes her motives I can't imagine, since she just finished lying through her teeth and he knows it, but he does. Maybe she wants revenge for her or her father's respective imprisonments? Obviously, she's up to no good. But she makes a power surge just as Allison and Henry arrive, so they get in the car to flee-- but too slowly-- and the blast knocks it over, killing Allison inside.

Jack had been unsuccessfully trying to get them on the phone, so he came along just in time to help drag her from the vehicle. He gets mad and drives the Jeep into the cloaked warehouse and tackles Trevor, just in time for them both to go back to the forties. Jack explains to Trevor what's going on. And, it turns out they opened a new wormhole, so they follow their past-selves around and basically watch episode 4.1 again from various perspectives, while avoiding the military authorities searching for (either one) of them! So awkward.

But actually, they figure this could be just as well, so they keep trying to mess things up to change the future so Allison doesn't die. But the time-stream keeps correcting itself. Just as Trevor gets their time-machine doodads put together to take them back (apparently he's done it enough that the science is no longer even worth wasting screentime or drama on), Jack has the brilliant idea of leaving himself a message in the archives so that he'll be able to stop Allison in future.

We watch an alternate future, in which he gets the message from himself, and leaps in his Jeep! He rushes to the cloaked warehouse, and tells Allison and Henry to run! And he crashes through the invisible warehouse door! And Beverly and Trevor both stop and stare at him, very understandably.

Just about then, Jack and Trevor shimmer and their second-time-forties selves appear in place of their future (current?) selves. Trevor's come-back doodads worked just like they were supposed to. Meanwhile, Beverly, with her keen sense of self-preservation, snuck out the back door while the going was good.

Jo arrives with the military, and they secure the missing device and all of Beverly's goodies. This means Trevor and Zane are cleared. Jack explains to Allison and Henry that Trevor made his mistakes right, and we suspect that they're now friends. (Trevor is a much better sport about losing Allison than Jack was.) The only downside is that General Mansfield is demanding a full investigation. Uh-oh.

Deputy Andy and Jo go to release Zane. At this point, he's kind of less interested in his arrest for treason than why Jo -- who in this timeline always despised him -- broke up with him and had his grandmother's ring. Zane, being actually very intelligent, can tell that something is going on with her, Fargo, Jack, and the gang.

Jo doesn't want to talk about it. Jo insists they never meant anything to each other. Jo is a very unconvincing liar. Zane dramatically kisses her and says, "That didn't feel like a first kiss!"

But before Jo can gather her wits, Zoe cheerfully pops into the sheriff's office to take Zane out to celebrate his release. Zane lets Jo go, but he's not done with this mystery. Oh, no.

Meanwhile, Jack gives Trevor an alternate identity so he can go make a new life for himself, if he wants. (But what will the General say when he disappears?) Trevor thanks Jack, and adds that he's going to do some traveling courtesy of some smart investments on this most recent trip back to the forties. Just before the credits roll, we see Beverly driving away, telling someone on the phone that things didn't work out as planned. Dramatic music!

So that was the mid-season finale. I was pleasantly surprised they didn't leave us with a major cliffhanger. We can expect a special Christmas episode and the rest of the season sometime next spring, and it looks like the Christmas episode is going to be a musical or something. This should be interesting.

In related news, Henry made an appearance on White Collar recently. :-) He was some kind of high-up federal marshal, and his character there was almost as awesome as in Eureka, though quite different. His name wasn't Henry, though. Go figure. He got to collude with Peter and Neal in bringing down a dirty marshal and vindicating a wrongfully accused FBI agent. That episode had some really sweet cars, too. I hope his White Collar role is a recurring one, because he was pretty fun there.

Eureka: "Stoned" and "The Ex-Files"

I'm happy to report that the last two Eureka episodes have been good again! And there was much rejoicing. Sadly, next week's will be the mid-season finale, to be picked up again with a single Christmas episode and then the rest of the season sometime later. Sigh.

Despite the title, "Stoned" had no drug references whatsoever (at least that I caught). When Jo tries to rebuild her house (that someone blew up with his cheating rocket, LARRY), the local archaeologist teaching at the high school finds an ancient human bone and puts the construction on hold. Regrettably, several people associated with the dig turn into stone too, slowly and from the outside in. Whoops.

Even though the archaeologist was one of Zoe's favorite teachers, she cleverly and scientifically figures out that he was trying to pull a hoax with an aging potion he used in class. Zoe gets turned to stone too - and Jack finds the potion - and Allison reverse engineers it for a cure - and the local spa owner pitches in with a micro-mist to get it through the victims' petrified pores so it'll work. And they live happily ever after.

Well, kind of. Jack and Allison finally have their Define the Relationship kiss, so they're happy. Zoe and Zane really are sweet on each other, so Jo is not a bit happy. And, in a bizarre cliffhanger, Trevor has a clandestine meeting with... Beverly?? Beverly, for those of you who may not recall, was the horrifically sexy therapist from Season One, who was thankfully hauled off for treason. She made a regrettable brief return a couple seasons later in which she took Allison's son hostage and then escaped via a teleporter thingy, never to be seen again. So, naturally, when they brought Trevor back with them, it didn't occur to anyone to warn him she was Trouble.

"The Ex-Files" was quite a ride. Nathan turns up in Jack's office, re-materialized from the space-time warp and sarcastic as ever. Then Tess turns up at Alison's and chews her out for dating Jack. (Hello? Tess dumped Jack, so what's Tess' problem?) Zane shows up at Cafe Diem and is nice to Jo - nice like pre-parallel Zane. He says he's going to break up with Zoe and everything. Fargo's fifth grade-nemesis, a smart-aleck girl, turns up still as a fifth-grader and gives Fargo an earful whenever he lets General Mansfield boss him around. (In Fargo's defense, Mansfield is technically his boss.)

Just to finish out the weirdness, Beverly reveals herself as the daughter of one of Trevor's friends from the forties, which friend mysteriously turns up as well, and they convince Trevor they are part of a large web of scientists out to protect the world from evil superweapons, like the EMP generator being tested that very day at Eureka. And Only Trevor Can Save Civilization. Here's the computer code. You'll know when to use it.

They soon discover that Nathan, Tess, nice Zane, and the smart-aleck girl are hallucinations that nobody else can see. It really does cause some hilarious scenes. Meanwhile, the General is there to oversee the EMP weapon, which doesn't work right because Beverly is aiming an oscillator at it. While Fargo and Zane fiddle around with it, trying to keep it from going off, Trevor sneaks up to the computer and enters Beverly's code. It causes a minor explosion, which makes the General order the EMP transported away from Eureka, much against everyone's recommendations.

But Beverly and her dudes had actually been manipulating Trevor (surprise, surprise) and captured the EMP machine for themselves. He came back to her, all hurt, and she showed him what they really wanted: the EMP's power supply, with which they have fixed the time machine and will send him back to the forties! Ta-da!

Meanwhile, the rest of them have been exorcising their hallucinated friends. Jack gets rid of Nathan by telling Allison he's loved her for years. Allison gets rid of Tess by admitting to Jack that she's terrified of another relationship (seeing as the last one went rather badly, Nathan dematerializing on their wedding day and all). Fargo gets rid of his nemesis by out-politicking the General. And Jo...

Jo gives Zane back his engagement ring, that she's been wearing around her neck all this time, and says she's over him and he can date Zoe if he likes.

But it turns out she's telling this to parallel Zane, not hallucination Zane. Parallel Zane says, "Why do you have my grandmother's ring?"

And just then they come in to arrest Zane for messing up the EMP device (thanks for setting up a fall guy for Trevor, Beverly).

Whew.

What I want to know is, why does everyone in this episode act like the EMP is the next horrible atomic bomb? It's actually much more humane than conventional weapons, because it doesn't kill people or even destroy buildings. It knocks out electronics. Yes, this will mess up a high-tech society and cause disruption in communications, mess up the food supply, that sort of thing. But it's not like an EMP actually fries people or razes entire continents to dust. It is possible to live a happy life without your cell phone. Just saying...

Eureka: "Momstrosity"

It kind of was a monstrosity, too.

The world did not almost get blown up. We had no seriously sweet science, though there was quite the chase scene. The dialogue wasn't crisp and witty. The episode started with a little robot spying on Jo in the shower, and really didn't improve notably from there. The episode, to sum up, was not awesome.

Actually, I take it back. The opening scene was the chase scene through the woods at night with a giant plasma-gun-wielding robot named Tiny, from episode 4.2, after them, in which Fargo got to toss off another Terminator quote. The first scene after the credits was the Jo-in-the-shower flashback.

Anyhow. Basically, Jack, Grant, Fargo, and Kevin go camping and the evil robot comes after them. Jack and Grant get into a childish slanging match over Alison, which Kevin rightly walks out on in disgust, and they have to go find him. The best thing about this dismal scene is that Jack finally decided he'd compete with Grant and make a shot at Alison for reals.

Everything that came out of Zane's mouth was either dirty or bad advice.

Alison didn't do anythizng dumb this week, but then she didn't do much of anything.

The house SARAH infects all the AI's in town with emotion code (I think? It was pretty unclear), and Deputy Andy fell in love with SARAH after a brief but embarrassing crush on Jo ("Has anyone ever told you your pH is perfectly balanced?"). Andy finished off the episode by spending the night with SARAH. We don't know. We don't ask. Zane was supposed to cure all the computers emotionally, but conveniently left Andy alone, so no doubt we'll have more computer-skank.

Meanwhile, Henry told Grace that he was from the parallel world, which she took badly. Henry moved out.

They never did explain what the tiny robot was doing around Jo. They blamed Kevin, because it was his school project, but apparently it wasn't Kevin's fault.

Yeah... I hope this is just a mid-season slump and they get their act together. Nobody is happy. Drama is fine, if it's dramatic drama, but not a round of misery. I want my old awesome Eureka back.

Arrgh!

Ack! This trailer - it - it distinctly looks like Zane is taking Zoe out on a date. No, no, no! All wrong! In any case, too many Z's for one couple, but mostly just NO.

On the plus side, Nathan is coming back. :-D More complications for Jack, but we missed him. While Henry and Alison were fiddling around with the exotic particle issue, Jonathan and I talked about how much they needed Nathan there... it's exactly his thing.

Eureka updates

We have been keeping up with Eureka. There have only been two episodes since I posted last, because there's now a one-week delay before they put them up on Hulu. (Sigh.) As always I'm including spoilers in with my commentary, so be ye warned.

Brief synopsis: In "The Story of O2," it's space week in Eureka complete with a rocket race to the moon, and some oxygen stuff gets loose (ahem, Alison) and we sincerely hope Eureka doesn't get blown up. In a subplot, Jack goes to Harvard to see Zoe. She's still herself and just fine, but a care package accidentally turns Zoe's science project invisible, so Jack and Zoe chase this invisible cat all over the Harvard dorm. Awkward. Also, back in Eureka, Larry blows up Jo's house.

In "Quitting Time," Alison makes herself obnoxious by insisting Grant quit smoking now. Meanwhile, a wormhole is opening up between Eureka-that-was and Eureka-that-is, and stuff keeps materializing from then to now. It turns out that Grant has exotic faster-than-light particles in his body that are not only tearing him apart, but have a magnetic-like attraction to 1940's stuff, and if they don't cleanse him of them, the two times will implode into each other. They figure out how to reprogram his anti-nicotine nanobots into anti-exotic-particle-bots, and the wormhole is cured. Meanwhile, Fargo and the VIP from Warehouse 13 get a bizarre romantic (?) thing going. Apparently being stuck together lying on double-tap land mines creates quite the emotional bond, but I'm thinking some of it was just unnecessary.

Alison is really starting to bother me. It's like, she arrived in this parallel universe and left her common sense in the other one. To elucidate. Alison's main change in the parallel universe was that her son Kevin no longer has autism. He's a regular, smart teenager. As far as we can figure, Alison is freaking out about how to relate to him, and so she does really bizarre and un-Alison-like things. In "O2," she tries to cheat for Kevin in the rocket race by putting contraband stuff in his rocket's fuel. The old Alison would never cheat.

In the most recent episode, Alison went all bossy-pants and made Dr. Trevor/aka Charlie Grant quit smoking. She could have been cute, but mostly she was just overbearing. He's fresh from the nineteen forties, for goodness' sake. It was culturally accepted then. Give the man a break. Besides, he looks so incredibly Humphrey Bogart cool with that hat and the cigarette.* Yes, he ought to quit, but once he said he was going to, it was just unkind to threaten to sic Martha on him and snatch his last one out of his hand. Then she gives him that nanobot blood-scrubbing patch on his neck, which is nifty, only she conveniently forgets to mention that it will give him a nasty shock if he tries to light up another one. It's just all very... bossy-pants of her.

Other interesting developments: since Larry also cheated by leaving the self-destruct out of his rocket, he blew up Jo's house, so Jack offered her his spare room as an alternative to the town jail. It would be highly inappropriate, but they're so definitely not interested in one another, it mostly came across as sweet. But seeing as Jack was totally sleeping with Tess (may she stay long in Australia), I feel like having Jo as a roommate is pretty mild. Hopefully it won't take too long to get her place rebuilt. In the meantime, she hogs his couch and watches reality TV and is good for him.

Jack needs to get married. Seriously. At this point I'm starting not to care to whom. He obviously wants someone - his sister Lexi, a live-in girlfriend, even Jo for a roommate. It's so frustrating - Jack liked Alison, Alison picked Nathan, and Nathan died, and then Tess arrived and left. Jack finally picked Alison, and they come back and Tess is an issue again. So he gets rid of Tess, and now there's not only Grant the rival, but Alison starts being a brat. Jack can take back his ex-wife Abby for all I care, though she'll have to negotiate a truce with SARAH (the house).

Enough of that. Zane is coming along nicely. One of the random forties things that materialized was... a bullet in Jo's chest. Oops! But Alison was able to operate and get the bullet out with no particular problems, and Zane was good enough to come sit by Jo's bedside and bring her a magazine. Also he called her "Jo-Jo," which he did back when he liked her (even though he did it to annoy her). So that's encouraging.

Henry is still not sure about being married. Jack was able to reassure Grace that Henry doesn't have another girlfriend, but naturally it's hard on her having her husband be so non-husbandly. I guess a surprise marriage would take a while to work up to. He asked her to dance at the end of the episode - progress.

Most remarkable of all: Fargo has a thing going with Claudia from Warehouse 13! She's the "crossover" character from the Warehouse 13 show, which I haven't seen. Whereas his old girlfriend Julia was nerdy in most of the ways Fargo was, Claudia has a major punk streak. She shows up with purple dye in her hair and big black-and-white sneakers, and doesn't encourage Fargo in his dorkiness at all. She may make a civilized human out of him. She's quite... uninhibited. I think I like her, but I'm not sure yet. She's certainly a fun character.



*No, gentle reader, I do not recommend you emulate this. But he does look cool - it's a plain fact. Alison knew it, and probably that's partly why she fell for him.

Eureka - season 4, episode 3

In Eureka 4.2 last week, mostly we watched the characters grapple with their new situation. Deputy Andy (the robot sheriff from a previous season) figured out that they'd been in the forties, but his memory got wiped, so it was still a secret. The five travelers decided to keep it that way.

They posted Eureka 4.3 today. Spoilers ahead! Fargo got to celebrate his (parallel) ascension to lab directorship by dealing with an enraged zombie infestation, but unfortunately, he got zombified too. So did Jo, but she held it together quite well, considering. She not only didn't kill Zane several times, but her last action before losing her mind completely was to handcuff herself to a pillar so she wouldn't accidentally kill anyone else. I love Eureka. She did pull a gun on Jack, but no harm, no foul, I guess? Jack did, incidentally, save the world again, with Tess and Allison's help.

We got further confirmation that Henry's parallel wife is awesome. Grace pulled a really great prank on Henry and Dr. Grant and made all their tools disappear as they touched them. They were convinced they'd ruined time-space somehow and were sending pliers and screwdrivers back to the forties. It's hard to do, but every single scene she's in confirms that she's just right for him. I love it. Dr. Grant even teased him about developing a crush on his wife. Henry's in good shape if they never make it back.

I was so proud of Jack! He ended the episode by breaking up with Tess. I hadn't expected the writers would let him deal with that for several more episodes. He did it really well, and told her that they shouldn't move in together (so true, for so many reasons), that he knew that job in Australia would be perfect for her, and that she'd be really happy there. He may have even managed it so as not to have a mortal enemy for the next few episodes, but I wouldn't bank on it.

Mystery cleared up

When we watched the Eureka 4-1, it started with "previously in Eureka" that Jack and Tess broke up. I figured I'd just missed that episode, because there were one or two I hadn't seen, but we just watched them (re-watched, in one case), and sure enough, it hadn't happened. Season 3 ended with Tess giving Jack a ticket to Australia to come visit her.

However, someone linked writer Jamie Paglia's twitter post about it. The break-up was in a deleted scene and will be on the DVD. There we are. In any case, it wasn't much of a break-up, since they were back together by the end of 4.1.

And... it's been confirmed that James Callis, playing Dr. Trevor Grant, is in (at least) ten episodes. Paglia goes on to say that the parallel story arc will be twenty episodes long - quite a season. Yes!

Eureka - Founder's Day

Eureka season 4 is here! The first episode is up on Hulu, and what an opening it was. They've set up a situation with plenty of plot for the whole season, and I really hope they string it out for a few episodes, because it's a fun one. And we have an awesome new character. He's on the new title banner even, which gives me hope that he's here to stay. He's got a great hat.

Okay, go watch the episode now if you object to spoilers, and then come back and read the rest of this post. ;-) First of all: Tess. I didn't like Tess when she first turned up. She wasn't right for Jack. I still think she isn't right for Jack. He needed to get together with Alison, which could have been okay after Nathan heroically melted or de-timed or whatever it was (and I was just getting reconciled to him), and then everybody would have been happy. Well, Jack and Alison and I would have been happy. Only that didn't happen. I was finally getting reconciled to this Tess character when they got rid of her and I was rooting for Alison again. And NOW THEY BROUGHT TESS BACK. Aargh!

Second: Fargo. Who in their right mind would have put him in charge? This can only end in disaster - very humorous disaster, probably involving a swing dance since he didn't get to go to that other one. Incidentally, I want to see Pierre Fargo, Fargo's grandfather who was resurrected from cryogenic sleep in whatever episode that was. He would be perfect in season 4. I predict he hangs out with the new guy, though if I'm remembering the chronology, he didn't go to Eureka until the fifties, so that might not have worked. But now that we're in that parallel universe, all bets on chronology are off. Who knows what's going to have changed. Maybe Fargo got put in charge in the parallel world because Pierre Fargo rose to importance after Dr. Trevor Grant was out of the way.

We thought the time travel itself was quite well handled. Eureka is still so Eureka, even sixty years ago. You've got the scientists, and the overbearing military types, and very similar jail cells, and Jo can still mop the floor with mere military men, no matter their credentials. The contemps were just as smart and well characterized as the moderns, which was nice. The time-travel science was a little hazy, but at this point, we don't really care. Eureka has earned its scientific stripes, so to speak, and we're willing it to run with it.

They've set up several bittersweet plots in the parallel universe. Jack will, of course, just be confused about the Tess/Alison thing, but he needed to make up his mind anyway. Henry will likely be anxious to go back to the original universe, though it depends on Grace. Unless, oh no, what if parallel Kim isn't dead?? And poor Jo, about Zane! Parallel Zane is so not an improvement. Who knows what Fargo will do. He might decide he prefers the bronze Archimedes, or get drunk on power, or something. Alison might decide she likes the parallel universe better because of her son, whose name I can't remember. And Trevor... what if he decides to stick around for Alison?