Eureka: Hated It
By stephanie - Friday, July 21st, 2006
I saw the pilot for Sci Fi’s new series, Eureka, and can I just say…ouch! That had to be one of the worst pilots I’ve ever seen.
Where to begin? Well, first off, I spent much of the first half-hour confused, because the Sci Fi website promo made me think that this was going to be set back in the World War II days for some reason. Never mind, I got over that. My bad. But that’s somewhat indicative of how entertained I was during the first hour, which was…hardly at all. In fact, Eureka was somewhat painful to watch, especially in the beginning.
In part, I felt it was the laborious and overwrought setup they were putting into play. Somehow, they needed a way to explain how and why this “fish out of water” character, the U.S. Marshall, gets stuck in Eureka. So they take him and his annoying teenage daughter (complete with nose ring) through a whole series of lame introductions while meandering through a crisis involving some sort of space-time hole that sucks up things and people and mutilates cows. (It turns out it was caused by out-of-control tachyons, the poor sci-fi writer’s excuse for real science.)
A couple things you need to know about the town of Eureka: One, everyone there is incredibly brilliant. Two, all the women are young and exceptionally hot. Three, all the men, except for the hunky U.S. Marshall, are eccentric dorks.
So here we have a convoluted plot, a painful exposition, and bad science. The only bright spots were a few glimmers of what might be humor in future episodes. The best line in the whole thing, which actually made me laugh out loud (I was surprised at myself, actually), was the Marshall saying: “Let’s not shoot the crazy end of the world machine just yet!”
I get the feeling that they are trying to set up some sort of science fiction version of Northern Exposure here. If they can successfully do that, now that the horribly confusing and boring show setup is out of the way, the show may have some potential.
And certainly, there’s enough quirky acting talent to make this work, including Matt Frewer, otherwise known as Max Headroom. Let’s hope the writing in future episodes is much improved over this clusterfrak of a pilot.