Fall arrives this week, so it’s a good time to recap the summer TV season. This summer, I resumed some longstanding favorites and picked up a few newbies. I also divorced a couple of shows – I didn’t go back to Army Wives when they dispatched all the spouses back into action and I decided to skip True Blood because I was burned out after the Maryann takeover last year. I did follow it via recaps and nothing I read made me wish I’d was watching it. So long, TB. In no particular order, these were my DVR/appointment shows for summer 2010:
1. Eureka, Syfy
I’ve covered the fourth season for the blog, and it bears repeating that this was the show’s strongest season since its first. With a time travel bent influencing the action, everybody came back better and happier. The show is coming back to resume season four early next year and then we get season five. You can watch the last few episodes at syfy.com.
2. Haven, Syfy
This quirky noirish drama could have been over-the-top like Happy Town but it instead fell somewhere squarely in the middle of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure (two shows I loved back in the day), setting a fish-out-of-water tale of FBI agent Audrey Parker in a picturesque town with more than one secret. We don’t know yet whether they’re coming back. I hope so—I like this cast a lot. Syfy Rewind has the episodes posted the day after they air.
3. My Boys, TBS
Just unceremoniously dumped after the conclusion of its fourth season (after being off the air a ridiculous 13 months between seasons), this gem rebounded from the departure of Jim Gaffigan with a new dynamic that brought PJ’s sole gal pal, Stephanie, fully into the fold. The seasons were always too short, and now, the series officially was, too. I have no doubt all of these folks will land other gigs, but I’m highly annoyed at the way they, and the fans, were treated (and that NBC torpedoed Jordana Spiro and Kyle Howard’s second-position jobs on its network because a decision hadn’t been made on My Boys yet). You can catch the last few episodes online.
4. The Gates, ABC
The absolute definition of a guilty pleasure, this delightfully trashy supernatural melodrama mixes sex, intrigue, vampires, werewolves, witches, and succubi, oh my! And it’s been fabulous. I knew a lot of this cast from other work, but several are new to me. Some of the arcs were a little heavy handed and eyerolly, but I actually came to give a damn about the adoptive vampire parents who worried they’d be outed and the whole alpha female dynamic. A big thumbs up to ABC that they have actually aired all of the episodes. It wraps on Sunday with a two-hour finale. You can catch the last five episodes on Hulu. No news on a renewal yet. The other awesome thing? They shot it in a well-to-do enclave in Shreveport, Louisiana of all places. Woo hoo Louisiana revenue!
5. Movies of the week, Lifetime/LMN/Hallmark Channel
Guilty pleasure #2. Once the domain of the "big" networks to keep their lead actors employed during the hiatuses, movies of the week have become the bread and butter of basic cable. Cast with a variety of familiar faces (many of them doubly so to genre and sci-fi fans) like Julie Benz, Emma Caulfield, Leslie Hope, Natasha Henstridge, Gabrielle Anwar, Charisma Carpenter, and Dina Myer, etc., they're usually paint-by-numbers feel-good or gal/guy-in-peril stories. Mostly female-driven, the movies' recognizable leads are backed a host of (often Canadian) HITGs. I dig the MOWs because I usually can six-degrees-of half the folks in them and because the (also mostly) Canadian locations (usually Vancouver/Montreal/Calgary) are a vicarious travelogue. I’m apparently not alone—Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network debut at least two original movies a month, sometimes one a week, (usually on Saturday or Sunday evenings) and Hallmark Movie Channel usually has at least one new film a month. Once aired, they then get added to the networks’ already robust MOW libraries, where they run year-round, and their DVD library (yes, people pay for them). You can also see the Lifetime flicks online.
6. Covert Affairs, USA
Y’all know how I feel about Chris Gorham. The real surprise in this spy yarn from USA is that Piper Perabo can do light and funny and kickass and serious all at the same time. I haven't seen more than ten minutes of Coyote Ugly, so I only knew her from farce work (Slap Her…She’s French), romcoms (Imagine Me and You/Because I Said So) and a heartbreaking coming of age film (Lost & Delirious). She’s also done her share of accents, so I was pleased to see her rock her mother tongue. The only downside—a ridiculously overlong hiatus until season two, slated for next summer. USA seemed to have gotten with it, shortening the hiatuses of their other shows, so I don’t get the slow drag to a second season for their newest hit, especially when the first season ended the only way it could have (I think). Catch up with the season via the full episodes at USA's website.
7. Warehouse 13, Syfy
An amalgam of funny, sweet, sci-fi, and rat-a-tat-tat line delivery between its Tracey and Hepburn leads made Warehouse 13 a surprising hit for Syfy, and in a lovely bit of karma, a long overdue one for series stars Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, and especially Saul Rubinek. McClintock was sort of in Clooney territory with a large collection of unsuccessful pilots and one-season wonders. Until now. What could have been an X-Files rip with male and female federal agents has evolved into a much more familial ensemble venture. The show gives as much weight to its two leads as it does Artie, Claudia (a very smart addition in season two), and a parade of rotating guest stars. They’re finishing season two Tuesday night (after an all-day season two marathon) and will be back for a third season in the spring.
And that’s a wrap on summer. Come see us at TV Goodness, where we’re reviewing the new and returning fall shows, and where I’ll be reviewing Haven until its season concludes in early October. Thanks so much for reading!
Showing posts with label Heather M. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heather M. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Syfy renews Eureka
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Eureka: Momstrosity by Heather M
One of my most favorite movies ever is Strictly Ballroom, and the scene at the end with everyone twirling to “Love is in the Air,” still makes me smile 17 years later. While only Andy burst into song (badly) in this week's episode, “Momstrosity,” it was a balm and an ode to love, in a way, as Carter finally manned up and admitted he loves Allison (just not to Allison) and Henry, in realizing he was falling in love with Grace, decided to tell her what happened and broke her heart in doing so. In the middle of all of that, we had tossed off one-liners in a cheeky nod to James Cameron that actually worked in the service of the story and were corny and fun.
The episode begins at the ¾ mark with Fargo behind the wheel of his Subaru (hey, Subaru logo, how’s it going?) driving like a bat out of hell through the woods as Carter, Kevin, and Charles holler about “Did we lose her?” only to find out pretty quickly “her” is Tiny, the Titan Rover, and that’d be a “no.”
Credits.
The episode begins with the familiar “12 hours earlier” placard, beginning that morning at S.A.R.A.H. as Jo showers and we see her through the shower door in emerging close-up. The door opens and she turns around to find a mini-bot named Emo lovingly admiring her frame. She is not amused. Once robed, she carries him into the kitchen and hands him to Carter, who introduces Emo as Kevin’s school project, Eureka’s answer to carrying around a bag of flour or an egg for a week.
Sheriff Andy drops in and S.A.R.A.H. is very pleased to see him. She tells him his readings are a bit wonky and offers to run a diagnostic, so he plugs into her mainframe (dirty!) and is overtaken with a goofy lovestruck grin just as Jo passes through and shakes her head.
At GD, Jack is delicately explaining to Allison about Kevin’s virtual peep on Jo via Emo, and she protests that because she’s a doctor, Kevin should be fine just asking her what he wants to know. Jack clues her in that mom outweighs doctor, and says he can talk to Kevin on their camping trip. She hedgingly agrees. Fargo nerds by and announces their departure time and makes overtures of delegating authority in his absence, which Allison greets with “uh huh, yeah, I had this job,” before realizing Emo has departed. We follow Emo on a little wander around the halls of GD (and hee that the wee robot gets no attention from anybody who passes him).
Carter comes across Henry, who begs off camping so he can stay and work with Grace on her memory project. They banter about Carter’s lack of traction with Allison and he says he has a long term plan. Elsewhere at GD, Emo has found Tiny. Back in Grace’s lab, as Henry sits in a chair wearing a diagnostic helmet contraption, she says she’s going to do some emotional tests. She starts with elation and is overjoyed to find that Henry associates joy with her. She bounds into his lap and in an act of supreme stupidity/mercy/love, he tells her what happened to the five plus Charles and that he wasn’t married to her before he jumped. She thinks he’s joking and he assures her he’s not. She’s struck and bails off his lap and leaves just as the device short circuits on Henry. I was afraid that would mean toasted or amnesiac Henry but it didn’t, thankfully. This is the first sign something’s twitchy with the GD equipment. Side bar – Grace could have seen for herself he was telling the truth if she had just tested his memories on confusion or fear. Just saying.
Commercial.
We pick up at GD where Grace is checking out her gear. Jo notices the frostiness between Henry and her but is called onto her next case…the Martian Rover, Tiny (who isn’t), is being packed up for NASA and has acquired a stowaway (Emo). At Allison’s, Fargo and Carter load their cars as Andy inquires about courting rituals instead of the police duty hand off, so Carter says if anything comes up to call Jo. Allison comes out with Emo and hands him to Kevin. Charles saunters up (not smoking!) and invites himself. Carter says no, Charles says he can go out with Allison instead, so Carter relents and puts him off to ride with Fargo. Good times!
Once in the woods, Fargo dispenses with the stake-in-the-ground-and-pull method of tent pitching and instead flings a box into the woods and presto, you have B.U.F.F.Y (biomechanical unfolding fully automated yurt), a swanky AI-loaded tent complete with mini-bar and flat screen. Kevin sits down to play videos and Charles tuts that this isn’t camping. Carter confiscates everybody’s gadgets (Fargo unloads so many he could have just handed over his vest) and they commence with “real camping experiences.” Kevin snits about giving up his gameboy and Carter tries to have “the talk,” but both Charles and Kevin shut him down, with Kevin asking when he turned into his “mom.”
At the lab, Allison’s experiment on Larry goes awry when it tries to commence with a brain dissection while she’s insisting, “Stop, no!” and Larry pretty much wets himself. She gets him out of the device and that’s strike two for AI glitches of the day. Next, Zane is checking diagnostics and finding out that it’s one of eight SNAFUs in the queue as Jo’s called away to Café Diem, where Vince and AI Vince 2.0 are arguing because kale is being delivered to tables requesting cholesterol specials. Andy is sticky sweet with Jo and starts to serenade her. When she shuts him down, he asks if that’s what heartbreak feels like and she twigs that all the AI has gone crazy.
Henry and Grace have a sad chat in his garage about whether he loves her and Henry realizes how grief stricken she is about losing her Henry and being lied to. He says he wanted a chance to know her and she says she just wants her Henry back. He apologizes again. She sobs about losing her husband.
At Camp Testosterone, Charles and Carter start measuring each other as a mate for Allison and Kevin stomps off in a huff, so they go look for him. In the interim, Fargo tries to leave his hut and she shuts him down and then cocoons him. Back at GD, Zane runs a list of all the AI models affected by feelings overwhelming their programming, and hey, look, there’s Tiny. Out on the highway, in the back of a truck, Tiny wakes up.
S.A.R.A.H. calls Jo and asks moony Qs about Andy and Jo realizes S.A.R.A.H. was the culprit because Andy knows he went wonky at 8:27 am, so they trek off to discuss with her how to hit undo. Zane laughs about her download roofie while Jo huffs that ”hello, it’s gone rogue,” and then he gets to work.
At the empty truck, Allison mounts the troops, including sharpshooter Jo, to bring Tiny in, especially because she’s out in the woods in fairly close proximity to the boys weekend, and she has a laser that can slice and dice a planet, which the boys find out for themselves pretty quickly.
In the woods, Carter and Charles snit and search as it grow dark. At a stopping point in the hunt for Kevin, Charles tips his hat about being lonely in the present day and just as quickly lets the moment go. Kevin emerges from the woods and confronts Carter about hiding his feelings for his mom when he thought they were friends. Carter can't answer him when Kevin asks if he loves her. The trio reaches Fargo and Carter cuts him loose from B.U.F.F.Y and acts as the diversion to sweet-talk Tiny while the guys high tail it to the car. They’re gunning it out of the woods, when Kevin yells about Carter, so Fargo impressively swings back around, dodges Tiny, and throws the door open for Carter with a very serious “Come with me if you want to live.” Hee. Carter calls Allison from the car and they catch up on everyone’s MO. Then we’re back at the starting scene.
They lead Tiny back to the arsenal at the end of the highway and bail out. Tiny descends upon Kevin, pinning him to the ground. Allison screams, “Get away from him, you bitch” (hee #2) and is greeted with Tiny repeating it about Emo, who’s nestled in Kevin’s backpack, and who we realize was why she broke out. Carter and Charles wrestle Tiny’s laser away from Kevin while Allison sets Emo down in front Tiny. Tiny unpins Kevin to scoop Emo up, and order is restored. Kevin runs to Allison and Carter concedes that they were lucky Charles was there to help.
Back at S.A.R.A.H., Zane has reprogrammed everybody except Andy and realizes he doesn’t want to, so he leaves him and S.A.R.A.H. to sort out their new romance. Henry comes to Grace’s and gives her his wedding band and agrees he’s not her Henry, “yet.” She’s packed him a care pack and takes the ring with a sad smile that maybe she could love this Henry, too. So many emotions.
The next morning at S.A.R.A.H., she’s remarking on the lovely morning when Andy emerges, getting dressed. (Let that spin around a bit.) Carter and Jo agree they don’t wanna know. At Café Diem, Carter admits to Kevin that he does love Allison. Kevin says he can pursue her as long as he doesn’t hurt her. Carter puffs out a bit and essentially tells Charles (who’s reading USA Today and not NYT or WSJ (??)), “Game on,” and Charles bemusedly remarks, “Good luck with that.”
So, COME ON already with Allison and Carter. If we find out at the summer cliffhanger (BOOO) that in this reality, Nathan never died, you and I will be fighting, SHOW. Four seasons/five years is enough now, y’all. Let’s put them together, see how things go, and let them torpedo it themselves. Kay? I will say, though, that Allison has compartmentalized the kiss now that she's so focused on Kevin being normal. I'd like some glimpse that she still wants Jack.
I liked that Jo figured out the McGuffin this week, instead of Jack, and that she’s settling into the security role. This week she didn’t moon as much over Zane, which I also liked. No sense in pining over him when he doesn’t remember everything. Much like Henry and Grace, if she still wants a relationship with this Zane, pursue that, but don’t shoehorn this Zane into who he was before. Interesting that there was a small glimpse into Charles’s emotional state because he’s been fairly calm, cool, and collected about being dropped into 2010 alone. As long as THAT’S not the way they try to throw him with Allison, pursue it. I'm not totally on board with Henry telling Grace the truth, although the ethics do get sticky if they had resumed/started a sexual relationship, so I guess he pre-emptively chose the high road. I hope they do work out a way for them to be together. I certainly feel for Grace's lost past. I'd like to know how long they were married. I've missed it if the show said.
Only three eps left until hiatus (again, BOOOO). Colin Ferguson Tweeted last week that they would know something about whether there will be an S5 pretty soon and today teased that something is "afoot." Pull the trigger, already. Sister network USA has no problem renewing its established shows.
The episode begins at the ¾ mark with Fargo behind the wheel of his Subaru (hey, Subaru logo, how’s it going?) driving like a bat out of hell through the woods as Carter, Kevin, and Charles holler about “Did we lose her?” only to find out pretty quickly “her” is Tiny, the Titan Rover, and that’d be a “no.”
Credits.
The episode begins with the familiar “12 hours earlier” placard, beginning that morning at S.A.R.A.H. as Jo showers and we see her through the shower door in emerging close-up. The door opens and she turns around to find a mini-bot named Emo lovingly admiring her frame. She is not amused. Once robed, she carries him into the kitchen and hands him to Carter, who introduces Emo as Kevin’s school project, Eureka’s answer to carrying around a bag of flour or an egg for a week.
Sheriff Andy drops in and S.A.R.A.H. is very pleased to see him. She tells him his readings are a bit wonky and offers to run a diagnostic, so he plugs into her mainframe (dirty!) and is overtaken with a goofy lovestruck grin just as Jo passes through and shakes her head.
At GD, Jack is delicately explaining to Allison about Kevin’s virtual peep on Jo via Emo, and she protests that because she’s a doctor, Kevin should be fine just asking her what he wants to know. Jack clues her in that mom outweighs doctor, and says he can talk to Kevin on their camping trip. She hedgingly agrees. Fargo nerds by and announces their departure time and makes overtures of delegating authority in his absence, which Allison greets with “uh huh, yeah, I had this job,” before realizing Emo has departed. We follow Emo on a little wander around the halls of GD (and hee that the wee robot gets no attention from anybody who passes him).
Carter comes across Henry, who begs off camping so he can stay and work with Grace on her memory project. They banter about Carter’s lack of traction with Allison and he says he has a long term plan. Elsewhere at GD, Emo has found Tiny. Back in Grace’s lab, as Henry sits in a chair wearing a diagnostic helmet contraption, she says she’s going to do some emotional tests. She starts with elation and is overjoyed to find that Henry associates joy with her. She bounds into his lap and in an act of supreme stupidity/mercy/love, he tells her what happened to the five plus Charles and that he wasn’t married to her before he jumped. She thinks he’s joking and he assures her he’s not. She’s struck and bails off his lap and leaves just as the device short circuits on Henry. I was afraid that would mean toasted or amnesiac Henry but it didn’t, thankfully. This is the first sign something’s twitchy with the GD equipment. Side bar – Grace could have seen for herself he was telling the truth if she had just tested his memories on confusion or fear. Just saying.
Commercial.
We pick up at GD where Grace is checking out her gear. Jo notices the frostiness between Henry and her but is called onto her next case…the Martian Rover, Tiny (who isn’t), is being packed up for NASA and has acquired a stowaway (Emo). At Allison’s, Fargo and Carter load their cars as Andy inquires about courting rituals instead of the police duty hand off, so Carter says if anything comes up to call Jo. Allison comes out with Emo and hands him to Kevin. Charles saunters up (not smoking!) and invites himself. Carter says no, Charles says he can go out with Allison instead, so Carter relents and puts him off to ride with Fargo. Good times!
Once in the woods, Fargo dispenses with the stake-in-the-ground-and-pull method of tent pitching and instead flings a box into the woods and presto, you have B.U.F.F.Y (biomechanical unfolding fully automated yurt), a swanky AI-loaded tent complete with mini-bar and flat screen. Kevin sits down to play videos and Charles tuts that this isn’t camping. Carter confiscates everybody’s gadgets (Fargo unloads so many he could have just handed over his vest) and they commence with “real camping experiences.” Kevin snits about giving up his gameboy and Carter tries to have “the talk,” but both Charles and Kevin shut him down, with Kevin asking when he turned into his “mom.”
At the lab, Allison’s experiment on Larry goes awry when it tries to commence with a brain dissection while she’s insisting, “Stop, no!” and Larry pretty much wets himself. She gets him out of the device and that’s strike two for AI glitches of the day. Next, Zane is checking diagnostics and finding out that it’s one of eight SNAFUs in the queue as Jo’s called away to Café Diem, where Vince and AI Vince 2.0 are arguing because kale is being delivered to tables requesting cholesterol specials. Andy is sticky sweet with Jo and starts to serenade her. When she shuts him down, he asks if that’s what heartbreak feels like and she twigs that all the AI has gone crazy.
Henry and Grace have a sad chat in his garage about whether he loves her and Henry realizes how grief stricken she is about losing her Henry and being lied to. He says he wanted a chance to know her and she says she just wants her Henry back. He apologizes again. She sobs about losing her husband.
At Camp Testosterone, Charles and Carter start measuring each other as a mate for Allison and Kevin stomps off in a huff, so they go look for him. In the interim, Fargo tries to leave his hut and she shuts him down and then cocoons him. Back at GD, Zane runs a list of all the AI models affected by feelings overwhelming their programming, and hey, look, there’s Tiny. Out on the highway, in the back of a truck, Tiny wakes up.
S.A.R.A.H. calls Jo and asks moony Qs about Andy and Jo realizes S.A.R.A.H. was the culprit because Andy knows he went wonky at 8:27 am, so they trek off to discuss with her how to hit undo. Zane laughs about her download roofie while Jo huffs that ”hello, it’s gone rogue,” and then he gets to work.
At the empty truck, Allison mounts the troops, including sharpshooter Jo, to bring Tiny in, especially because she’s out in the woods in fairly close proximity to the boys weekend, and she has a laser that can slice and dice a planet, which the boys find out for themselves pretty quickly.
In the woods, Carter and Charles snit and search as it grow dark. At a stopping point in the hunt for Kevin, Charles tips his hat about being lonely in the present day and just as quickly lets the moment go. Kevin emerges from the woods and confronts Carter about hiding his feelings for his mom when he thought they were friends. Carter can't answer him when Kevin asks if he loves her. The trio reaches Fargo and Carter cuts him loose from B.U.F.F.Y and acts as the diversion to sweet-talk Tiny while the guys high tail it to the car. They’re gunning it out of the woods, when Kevin yells about Carter, so Fargo impressively swings back around, dodges Tiny, and throws the door open for Carter with a very serious “Come with me if you want to live.” Hee. Carter calls Allison from the car and they catch up on everyone’s MO. Then we’re back at the starting scene.
They lead Tiny back to the arsenal at the end of the highway and bail out. Tiny descends upon Kevin, pinning him to the ground. Allison screams, “Get away from him, you bitch” (hee #2) and is greeted with Tiny repeating it about Emo, who’s nestled in Kevin’s backpack, and who we realize was why she broke out. Carter and Charles wrestle Tiny’s laser away from Kevin while Allison sets Emo down in front Tiny. Tiny unpins Kevin to scoop Emo up, and order is restored. Kevin runs to Allison and Carter concedes that they were lucky Charles was there to help.
Back at S.A.R.A.H., Zane has reprogrammed everybody except Andy and realizes he doesn’t want to, so he leaves him and S.A.R.A.H. to sort out their new romance. Henry comes to Grace’s and gives her his wedding band and agrees he’s not her Henry, “yet.” She’s packed him a care pack and takes the ring with a sad smile that maybe she could love this Henry, too. So many emotions.
The next morning at S.A.R.A.H., she’s remarking on the lovely morning when Andy emerges, getting dressed. (Let that spin around a bit.) Carter and Jo agree they don’t wanna know. At Café Diem, Carter admits to Kevin that he does love Allison. Kevin says he can pursue her as long as he doesn’t hurt her. Carter puffs out a bit and essentially tells Charles (who’s reading USA Today and not NYT or WSJ (??)), “Game on,” and Charles bemusedly remarks, “Good luck with that.”
So, COME ON already with Allison and Carter. If we find out at the summer cliffhanger (BOOO) that in this reality, Nathan never died, you and I will be fighting, SHOW. Four seasons/five years is enough now, y’all. Let’s put them together, see how things go, and let them torpedo it themselves. Kay? I will say, though, that Allison has compartmentalized the kiss now that she's so focused on Kevin being normal. I'd like some glimpse that she still wants Jack.
I liked that Jo figured out the McGuffin this week, instead of Jack, and that she’s settling into the security role. This week she didn’t moon as much over Zane, which I also liked. No sense in pining over him when he doesn’t remember everything. Much like Henry and Grace, if she still wants a relationship with this Zane, pursue that, but don’t shoehorn this Zane into who he was before. Interesting that there was a small glimpse into Charles’s emotional state because he’s been fairly calm, cool, and collected about being dropped into 2010 alone. As long as THAT’S not the way they try to throw him with Allison, pursue it. I'm not totally on board with Henry telling Grace the truth, although the ethics do get sticky if they had resumed/started a sexual relationship, so I guess he pre-emptively chose the high road. I hope they do work out a way for them to be together. I certainly feel for Grace's lost past. I'd like to know how long they were married. I've missed it if the show said.
Only three eps left until hiatus (again, BOOOO). Colin Ferguson Tweeted last week that they would know something about whether there will be an S5 pretty soon and today teased that something is "afoot." Pull the trigger, already. Sister network USA has no problem renewing its established shows.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Eureka: Crossing Over by Heather M
Previously on Eureka, the 1947 flashback and return to 2010 nets:
• Healthy Kevin
• No Zane for Jo
• Fargo as the head of GD
• Carter reunited with Tess then re-broken up
• Henry has a smokin’ hot wife, Grace
• Dr. Charles “Old Spice” Grant jumped back with them
The episode opens at the top of the morning, with Carter running into Allison at Café Diem. He gripes a bit about Jo’s reality TV watching. She’s on a coffee errand to load Charles up with caffeine while he tries to kick cigarettes and she guinea pigs GD’s new nicotine therapy on him. Carter asks if that will involve immense pain and suffering and teases her about Charles being such a flirt and she tells him Charles said she has nice gams. To prove the point, she sashays off in a skirt that’s a scoche short for a gal our age (you go!) and Carter laughs that he knows that already.
Outside Carter runs into Henry and they commiserate about Jack’s 1947 kiss with Allison Henry’s smokin’ hot stranger wife, whom he doesn’t want not to know anymore. Fargo descends, in the middle of making POTUS-level preparations for the VIP guest coming up the road in a blacked out SUV. Vincent’s provided an array of savory and sweet treats and Jo stands by as the security detail. Carter makes a comment that this isn’t The Bachelor, which gets a “says you” response from Fargo. The SUV arrives and out pops Claudia (from Warehouse 13) onto the red carpet (complete with velvet ropes and balloons). Fargo beams and she takes in the scene with a shy but cheery “’sup, bitches?”
Credits.
Claudia recaps Warehouse 13 history with Fargo and he introduces the crew. Carter leans to Zane (who’s there trying to scam free treats) and says this isn’t going to end well. Claudia inquires about the goo she’s come to fetch, a neutralizing insulation, ostensibly designed to help the Warehouse 13 folks safely transport artifacts, which of course will become this week’s McGuffin ingredient.
We resume at Henry’s garage where Charles is oddly enough rocking out to “Car Wash” on the radio and pronouncing 70’s music to be “off the hook” while they test out portal possibilities with the bridge device. Grace returns from a trip, and greets her husband with a kiss and a cuddle while Charles excuses himself and restarts the music. Henry begins to spin her to the music and as things slow down she asks him to show her how much he missed her and he stammers a bit and begs off the nookie in favor of work and she’s left standing there with “Did that just happen?” look.
Cut to Charles smoking and playing piano (in his 40s style office at GD) as Allison enters with the coffee (which has got to be cold by now, just saying) and she talks to him about having to quit smoking and he flirts with her some more. Out in the rotunda, Claudia is wrapping her grand tour but is looking for a bigger bang when Eureka delivers via redwoods that suddenly sprout out of the lobby floor and up through the ceiling. To which she smiles, “Now that’s more like it,” while the rest of the crew greets it with a “what now?”
Henry, Grace, Jack, and Claudia confab about tree rings and realize the trees are 1947 era. Carter beams because he knew that on his own. Henry and Claudia depart and Grace corners Jack and asks if there’s someone else and Jack reassures her that’s absolutely not a concern. She worries about what’s changed and she tells Jack that she just wants her husband back and Jack files that away.
At Carpe Diem, Jo is picking up a healthy smoothie as Charles pops in and asks Vince harden his heart with a bypass special, to which he swoonily agrees. Charles lights up and his GD nicotine device zaps him like a bug zapper. Jo begins to chastise him about smoking but collapses mid-argument and is rushed into GD, where Allison finds that the latest 1947-era relic to bounce into 2010 is a ginormous unfired rifle shell currently sitting way too close to Jo’s heart. She orders surgery.
Claudia and Fargo walk with Carter and bandy about artifacts, teleportation, and particle physics and ID a potential suspect. Back in the hospital at GD, Zane is by Jo’s bedside when she wakes up, and for a moment you can see she’s trying to sort out whether all of the 1947/2010 mashup was a dream and then Zane speaks and she remembers this is the new Zane and yet, he was still worried. He gives her grief about passively aggressively doing drivebys of his lab every day and then takes leave after handing her a military magazine get well gift. It’s a start. Allison comes over with the bullet, which Jo can readily confirm is 1947 era.
Claudia tags along with Carter to Cafe Diem to interview the physicist suspect when the room starts to shimmy. Claudia asks if it’s an earthquake and Carter says they should be so lucky. When the dust settles, they find a WW2 era plane sitting in the middle of the café. Let’s do the time warp…
When we pick back up, the agreement is that the plane is circa 1947 but brand new, and the physicist and Claudia discuss displacement vs. wormholes. Henry asks for Claudia’s help and she happily takes off with Fargo to do field work (in a field) to check radiation signatures. Henry and Jack argue when Henry admits that this is all likely happening because of the teeny tiny test he and Charles did that morning.
Out in the field, Fargo and Claudia chat about her and Todd breaking up and Fargo is mid-happy dance when the radiation signatures spike and they find themselves in a 1947 mine field, where Claudia promptly steps on a mine. Back at Henry’s garage, Carter is still pissed and Charles insists the test shouldn’t have caused the issue, until they realize the magnet from the bridge device is pulling things into 2010 from 1947, and the two may well collapse into one another.
Just about then, Charles starts to cough. He keeps coughing and Carter realizes that Charles himself is the actual magnet. Even though Charles is coming undone, literally, he worries that he would still be a magnet if he’s dead and Henry says they need to neutralize him. Carter has the Eureka moment of the week when he suggests they dip Charles into Fargo’s goo to stop the shuffling time boundaries. The price? Charles doesn’t ever get to go back home. Just then a WWII rocket breaks through the wall and seals the deal, and Charles says to goo him.
Outside, Claudia and Fargo argue over how to get her away from the mine and come up with a way to delay the timer. Fargo catches her as she leaps off the mine, which goes boom. They fall to the ground and commence with joyous smoochies only to have the familiar click of another mine interrupt them. This one is under Fargo’s noggin.
Back at GD, they’re prepping the goo. Jo is still working from her sick bed and she sees the explosion on her monitor and sends Carter off to the mine field to get Claudia and Fargo. The goo procedure commences and Charles starts flailing and makes the Leslie Nielsen joke about picking a bad day to quit smoking. They realize they can reprogram Charles’ nicotine patch so he won’t disintegrate, do so, and start the procedure again.
All of the 1947 items, except Charles, return home. At the garage, a frustrated Grace is working on a car and Henry comes in. He speaks very sweetly to her and she softens. He apologizes for being distant and she says she can wait for him to sort himself out, but she can’t help him if he won’t let her in. He sweeps her away from the car and they start dancing. She smiles. Baby steps.
Charles is back in his GD office and signing the bridge out of Eureka (but he keeps the bulb). Allison talks to him about missing home and he says he is home now. He thanks her for saving his life and rounds back to buying her drink and she agrees to meet him.
At S.A.R.A.H., Jo is on the couch, fondling her engagement ring and Carter comes in with two beers. They commiserate about Allison and Charles and she tells Carter that Charles isn’t him. He says he doesn’t trust him and she says he needs to nut up and do something about it. He asks her about Zane and she says she sees glimpses of the old Zane who loved her. She asks if they’re having “girl talk,” and he says no, they’re having “guy talk.” They clink glasses and resume TV watching.
Fargo walks Claudia out of GD with a gift basket of Fargo swag and talks her into taking the bridge device back to Warehouse 13 (sequel?). He offers her a job if she ever wants it and she begs off but leaves him with another big smooch before she heads out.
You can catch season four episodes of Eureka on Hulu and Syfy eight days after they air.
• Healthy Kevin
• No Zane for Jo
• Fargo as the head of GD
• Carter reunited with Tess then re-broken up
• Henry has a smokin’ hot wife, Grace
• Dr. Charles “Old Spice” Grant jumped back with them
The episode opens at the top of the morning, with Carter running into Allison at Café Diem. He gripes a bit about Jo’s reality TV watching. She’s on a coffee errand to load Charles up with caffeine while he tries to kick cigarettes and she guinea pigs GD’s new nicotine therapy on him. Carter asks if that will involve immense pain and suffering and teases her about Charles being such a flirt and she tells him Charles said she has nice gams. To prove the point, she sashays off in a skirt that’s a scoche short for a gal our age (you go!) and Carter laughs that he knows that already.
Outside Carter runs into Henry and they commiserate about Jack’s 1947 kiss with Allison Henry’s smokin’ hot stranger wife, whom he doesn’t want not to know anymore. Fargo descends, in the middle of making POTUS-level preparations for the VIP guest coming up the road in a blacked out SUV. Vincent’s provided an array of savory and sweet treats and Jo stands by as the security detail. Carter makes a comment that this isn’t The Bachelor, which gets a “says you” response from Fargo. The SUV arrives and out pops Claudia (from Warehouse 13) onto the red carpet (complete with velvet ropes and balloons). Fargo beams and she takes in the scene with a shy but cheery “’sup, bitches?”
Credits.
Claudia recaps Warehouse 13 history with Fargo and he introduces the crew. Carter leans to Zane (who’s there trying to scam free treats) and says this isn’t going to end well. Claudia inquires about the goo she’s come to fetch, a neutralizing insulation, ostensibly designed to help the Warehouse 13 folks safely transport artifacts, which of course will become this week’s McGuffin ingredient.
We resume at Henry’s garage where Charles is oddly enough rocking out to “Car Wash” on the radio and pronouncing 70’s music to be “off the hook” while they test out portal possibilities with the bridge device. Grace returns from a trip, and greets her husband with a kiss and a cuddle while Charles excuses himself and restarts the music. Henry begins to spin her to the music and as things slow down she asks him to show her how much he missed her and he stammers a bit and begs off the nookie in favor of work and she’s left standing there with “Did that just happen?” look.
Cut to Charles smoking and playing piano (in his 40s style office at GD) as Allison enters with the coffee (which has got to be cold by now, just saying) and she talks to him about having to quit smoking and he flirts with her some more. Out in the rotunda, Claudia is wrapping her grand tour but is looking for a bigger bang when Eureka delivers via redwoods that suddenly sprout out of the lobby floor and up through the ceiling. To which she smiles, “Now that’s more like it,” while the rest of the crew greets it with a “what now?”
Henry, Grace, Jack, and Claudia confab about tree rings and realize the trees are 1947 era. Carter beams because he knew that on his own. Henry and Claudia depart and Grace corners Jack and asks if there’s someone else and Jack reassures her that’s absolutely not a concern. She worries about what’s changed and she tells Jack that she just wants her husband back and Jack files that away.
At Carpe Diem, Jo is picking up a healthy smoothie as Charles pops in and asks Vince harden his heart with a bypass special, to which he swoonily agrees. Charles lights up and his GD nicotine device zaps him like a bug zapper. Jo begins to chastise him about smoking but collapses mid-argument and is rushed into GD, where Allison finds that the latest 1947-era relic to bounce into 2010 is a ginormous unfired rifle shell currently sitting way too close to Jo’s heart. She orders surgery.
Claudia and Fargo walk with Carter and bandy about artifacts, teleportation, and particle physics and ID a potential suspect. Back in the hospital at GD, Zane is by Jo’s bedside when she wakes up, and for a moment you can see she’s trying to sort out whether all of the 1947/2010 mashup was a dream and then Zane speaks and she remembers this is the new Zane and yet, he was still worried. He gives her grief about passively aggressively doing drivebys of his lab every day and then takes leave after handing her a military magazine get well gift. It’s a start. Allison comes over with the bullet, which Jo can readily confirm is 1947 era.
Claudia tags along with Carter to Cafe Diem to interview the physicist suspect when the room starts to shimmy. Claudia asks if it’s an earthquake and Carter says they should be so lucky. When the dust settles, they find a WW2 era plane sitting in the middle of the café. Let’s do the time warp…
When we pick back up, the agreement is that the plane is circa 1947 but brand new, and the physicist and Claudia discuss displacement vs. wormholes. Henry asks for Claudia’s help and she happily takes off with Fargo to do field work (in a field) to check radiation signatures. Henry and Jack argue when Henry admits that this is all likely happening because of the teeny tiny test he and Charles did that morning.
Out in the field, Fargo and Claudia chat about her and Todd breaking up and Fargo is mid-happy dance when the radiation signatures spike and they find themselves in a 1947 mine field, where Claudia promptly steps on a mine. Back at Henry’s garage, Carter is still pissed and Charles insists the test shouldn’t have caused the issue, until they realize the magnet from the bridge device is pulling things into 2010 from 1947, and the two may well collapse into one another.
Just about then, Charles starts to cough. He keeps coughing and Carter realizes that Charles himself is the actual magnet. Even though Charles is coming undone, literally, he worries that he would still be a magnet if he’s dead and Henry says they need to neutralize him. Carter has the Eureka moment of the week when he suggests they dip Charles into Fargo’s goo to stop the shuffling time boundaries. The price? Charles doesn’t ever get to go back home. Just then a WWII rocket breaks through the wall and seals the deal, and Charles says to goo him.
Outside, Claudia and Fargo argue over how to get her away from the mine and come up with a way to delay the timer. Fargo catches her as she leaps off the mine, which goes boom. They fall to the ground and commence with joyous smoochies only to have the familiar click of another mine interrupt them. This one is under Fargo’s noggin.
Back at GD, they’re prepping the goo. Jo is still working from her sick bed and she sees the explosion on her monitor and sends Carter off to the mine field to get Claudia and Fargo. The goo procedure commences and Charles starts flailing and makes the Leslie Nielsen joke about picking a bad day to quit smoking. They realize they can reprogram Charles’ nicotine patch so he won’t disintegrate, do so, and start the procedure again.
All of the 1947 items, except Charles, return home. At the garage, a frustrated Grace is working on a car and Henry comes in. He speaks very sweetly to her and she softens. He apologizes for being distant and she says she can wait for him to sort himself out, but she can’t help him if he won’t let her in. He sweeps her away from the car and they start dancing. She smiles. Baby steps.
Charles is back in his GD office and signing the bridge out of Eureka (but he keeps the bulb). Allison talks to him about missing home and he says he is home now. He thanks her for saving his life and rounds back to buying her drink and she agrees to meet him.
At S.A.R.A.H., Jo is on the couch, fondling her engagement ring and Carter comes in with two beers. They commiserate about Allison and Charles and she tells Carter that Charles isn’t him. He says he doesn’t trust him and she says he needs to nut up and do something about it. He asks her about Zane and she says she sees glimpses of the old Zane who loved her. She asks if they’re having “girl talk,” and he says no, they’re having “guy talk.” They clink glasses and resume TV watching.
Fargo walks Claudia out of GD with a gift basket of Fargo swag and talks her into taking the bridge device back to Warehouse 13 (sequel?). He offers her a job if she ever wants it and she begs off but leaves him with another big smooch before she heads out.
You can catch season four episodes of Eureka on Hulu and Syfy eight days after they air.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Eureka season four recap (the story so far) by Heather M
When an established show that I'm already quite affectionate about uses the term "reboot," I get a little twitchy. I'm old school like that. So, when that term started getting kicked around about the fourth season of Eureka, already a gem of a show on Syfy that had the rug pulled out from under it last year when the network chose to split the third season into two segments twelve months apart, reboot seemed liked insult, meet injury.
I do have to concede just a little bit that a lot happened in season three, so much that probably if it had aired altogether you would have experienced a bit of whiplash trying to process everything. By the end of the season, which aired last September, the widowed Allison gave birth to a daughter, delivered by her true love (as far as I'm concerned), Sheriff Jack Carter, and his daughter, Zoe, who was about to leave for Harvard. Carter was experiencing a little of the” should I stay or should I go” blues because his newly minted relationship with Tess was about to be tested as she departed for a job in Australia. Deputy Jo was humming along with a reformed Zane, happy and in love. Fargo had a steady gal. And the extraordinarily wounded Henry was doing the best he could after losing his wife a second time when her doppelganger/clone died. So, a goodly amount of change and sadness abounded as season three concluded.
Cut to ten months later, and Eureka is back, being teased as a new variation of itself. Well, they lied. Sort of. I'd call it more a new old Eureka, in a very, very good way. The original sense of whimsy is back and the "roll with it" nature that Carter arrived in Eureka with is back, too. The season kicked off with a time travel bent, sending all of its regular cast members into a backward jaunt to 1947 Camp Eureka, before it was a town, complete with big band music, wartime costumes, and guys and gals sensibility. And it was awesome. I spent the first half hour not entirely sure whether the whole season was going to stay in the past and then I didn't care, I just went with it.
The crew all jump at the same time, but don't end up in the same physical location when they land, so after a variety of near-misses with the brig and with the aid of resident genius Charles Grant, a PhD inventor and colleague of Einstein, they reconvene and brainstorm a way to get back home. They do get back to 2010, just not their 2010. Eureka is intact, except for tiny little wrinkles in people and things that occurred because of the crew's leap. Since protocol dictates they can’t tell anyone what happened, they're suddenly somewhat begrudging confidantes of a very big secret. Add to that the biggest wrinkle -- Charles jumped back with them.
Among the changes in the new/old town of Eureka, Allison's formerly autistic teen son, Kevin, is a happy, healthy, normal, and extraordinarily intelligent high school student. She's lost her GD presidency and is now lead doctor at the site, which actually suits her better. Jo and this version of Zane never happened; Jo’s crushed because he proposed just before the leap back and she had hesitated, so she has guilt about not saying yes and grief for a Zane that doesn’t exist here. The blow is softened when she finds out she’s no longer a deputy but is the head of security at GD. Carter is still sheriff and Zoe is still at Harvard, but this Tess never left town, and that's complicated because Carter finally kissed Allison in 1947 when he thought they might never go home. Henry has a lovely, brilliant wife, Grace, who he doesn't know. Finally, Fargo is giddy to find out he’s the head of GD. He dives right in, although he's sort of alarmed that this world's Fargo has been a complete dick to everyone, so his actual personality -- massive ego with a side of sweet and nerdy, is a welcome change to everyone at GD.
The setup creates a lot of new scenarios for the team without changing who they are as characters, so their chemistry is still very intact, which works well -- the town is different, the cast is not. Very clever, show! Jo is also now Carter's roommate because her house was blown up by an errant missile, and I hope they're just going to be roommates. I realize shows like to add drama to potential pairings but I think we've waited long enough for Carter and Allison to happen, and I don't want Carter and Jo to go there on some sort of rebound thing while she pines for Zane. The other potential tangent is that Trevor, who is settling in as a man of 2010 (although he's disappointed about the lack of flying cars) is very flirty with Allison. Sidebar: James Callis is new to the show, and he is super funny and charming as Charles. He is absolutely NOT rehashing the wild-eyed Gaius Baltar, which was my concern when he was cast.
There's also a neat role that's rotated twice so far with familiar Canadians (the show shoots in British Columbia) -- Andy the cyborg deputy -- played first by Ty Olsson of Men in Trees and then, after being "reskinned," Kavan Smith of The 4400. I look forward to seeing who they bring in next.
Now for the big suck. Syfy is again breaking the season -- 20 episodes have been ordered, but Syfy is ending the summer run on September 10th with episode 9, with the back 11 slated to return "sometime in 2011." Can we get that in late winter/early spring and not next summer, pretty please?
Next up I'll recap the newest episode, "Crossing Over," which concluded the cast swap with Warehouse 13.
I do have to concede just a little bit that a lot happened in season three, so much that probably if it had aired altogether you would have experienced a bit of whiplash trying to process everything. By the end of the season, which aired last September, the widowed Allison gave birth to a daughter, delivered by her true love (as far as I'm concerned), Sheriff Jack Carter, and his daughter, Zoe, who was about to leave for Harvard. Carter was experiencing a little of the” should I stay or should I go” blues because his newly minted relationship with Tess was about to be tested as she departed for a job in Australia. Deputy Jo was humming along with a reformed Zane, happy and in love. Fargo had a steady gal. And the extraordinarily wounded Henry was doing the best he could after losing his wife a second time when her doppelganger/clone died. So, a goodly amount of change and sadness abounded as season three concluded.
Cut to ten months later, and Eureka is back, being teased as a new variation of itself. Well, they lied. Sort of. I'd call it more a new old Eureka, in a very, very good way. The original sense of whimsy is back and the "roll with it" nature that Carter arrived in Eureka with is back, too. The season kicked off with a time travel bent, sending all of its regular cast members into a backward jaunt to 1947 Camp Eureka, before it was a town, complete with big band music, wartime costumes, and guys and gals sensibility. And it was awesome. I spent the first half hour not entirely sure whether the whole season was going to stay in the past and then I didn't care, I just went with it.
The crew all jump at the same time, but don't end up in the same physical location when they land, so after a variety of near-misses with the brig and with the aid of resident genius Charles Grant, a PhD inventor and colleague of Einstein, they reconvene and brainstorm a way to get back home. They do get back to 2010, just not their 2010. Eureka is intact, except for tiny little wrinkles in people and things that occurred because of the crew's leap. Since protocol dictates they can’t tell anyone what happened, they're suddenly somewhat begrudging confidantes of a very big secret. Add to that the biggest wrinkle -- Charles jumped back with them.
Among the changes in the new/old town of Eureka, Allison's formerly autistic teen son, Kevin, is a happy, healthy, normal, and extraordinarily intelligent high school student. She's lost her GD presidency and is now lead doctor at the site, which actually suits her better. Jo and this version of Zane never happened; Jo’s crushed because he proposed just before the leap back and she had hesitated, so she has guilt about not saying yes and grief for a Zane that doesn’t exist here. The blow is softened when she finds out she’s no longer a deputy but is the head of security at GD. Carter is still sheriff and Zoe is still at Harvard, but this Tess never left town, and that's complicated because Carter finally kissed Allison in 1947 when he thought they might never go home. Henry has a lovely, brilliant wife, Grace, who he doesn't know. Finally, Fargo is giddy to find out he’s the head of GD. He dives right in, although he's sort of alarmed that this world's Fargo has been a complete dick to everyone, so his actual personality -- massive ego with a side of sweet and nerdy, is a welcome change to everyone at GD.
The setup creates a lot of new scenarios for the team without changing who they are as characters, so their chemistry is still very intact, which works well -- the town is different, the cast is not. Very clever, show! Jo is also now Carter's roommate because her house was blown up by an errant missile, and I hope they're just going to be roommates. I realize shows like to add drama to potential pairings but I think we've waited long enough for Carter and Allison to happen, and I don't want Carter and Jo to go there on some sort of rebound thing while she pines for Zane. The other potential tangent is that Trevor, who is settling in as a man of 2010 (although he's disappointed about the lack of flying cars) is very flirty with Allison. Sidebar: James Callis is new to the show, and he is super funny and charming as Charles. He is absolutely NOT rehashing the wild-eyed Gaius Baltar, which was my concern when he was cast.
There's also a neat role that's rotated twice so far with familiar Canadians (the show shoots in British Columbia) -- Andy the cyborg deputy -- played first by Ty Olsson of Men in Trees and then, after being "reskinned," Kavan Smith of The 4400. I look forward to seeing who they bring in next.
Now for the big suck. Syfy is again breaking the season -- 20 episodes have been ordered, but Syfy is ending the summer run on September 10th with episode 9, with the back 11 slated to return "sometime in 2011." Can we get that in late winter/early spring and not next summer, pretty please?
Next up I'll recap the newest episode, "Crossing Over," which concluded the cast swap with Warehouse 13.
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