So there really is original programming on the SciFi channel. Now I have been quite upset with this cable network since they cancelled Farscape (right after they made a deal for an additional season). SciFi is know for their consistency in ripping off bad ideas, and cancelling good programs at the drop of a hat. Since being acquired by NBC (the fun people that haven’t had an original idea in a decade - Friends was a rip-off of a BBC program) there has been no real improvement. Scare Tactics is not sci-fi. ECW is not sci-fi. The ‘revisioned’ Battlestar Galactica would be better if it were named something else cause it does not evoke thoughts of the show it is named for, nor does it homage the themes of the original.
The SciFi channel has never really gotten its target core audience. Black Scorpion was ridiculous. Lexx was just too weird to me. The Invisible Man was intelligent and dropped like a hot potato. Farscape being cancelled cause such an outcry that (at least 3 of my posts) posts to their website in protest were either deleted or edited, and it crashed for the first 3 days after the announcement (right after the 4th season ending episode) several times. The execs at the channel have always seemed to think that fans of the genre will accept anything if it has a unique name or non-mainstream theme (Ghosthunters, the guy who ‘speaks to the dead’, the couple who discuss dreams) regardless how lame it is or how little it has to do with sci-fi. And the fact that a cable network that cried how little money they had spent tons to get the tired Stargate SG-1 series, and then started a slew of horrendous ‘original’ movies based on bad sci-fi movies (The Core was a direct rip of Deep Core which sucked anyway) or 1950's movies (giant animals - huge snakes, spiders, etc.) and 1970's disaster films (global killer hurricanes). You get the idea. Really no reason to watch the channel and I had long wished them off-air.
But finally there is a something worth seeing. Unlike the way too hyped Stargate spin-offs or the terribly ‘revisioned’ Galactica, the execs slipped and let an actually original program on-air. EUReKA is a nice breath of fresh air. It has decent actors, a plot (given there are some huge plot gaps) and a connection to sci-fi. The execs must have been drunk when the ok’d this.
The concept that there is a place filled with the best and brightest in this nation is in the realm or reality. That they have and are producing innovations that advances the world technology is unique. They have a bit of a soap opera feel, in that everyone is multi-purposed. The hooker/bed and breakfast owner/psych-analyst. The space shuttle engineer/car mechanic. The major/sheriff. The Department of Defense agent/mom. And it goes on. The fact that the Marshall is our eyes in this crazy place, and that he is a troubled single dad with a potential square of lady interests (the DOD agent, Deputy Lupo, the hooker/spy) doesn’t hurt. There is potential for a lot of things to happen in the story line.
I LOVE the fact that there are Black African Americans and Latinos in EUReKA. It’s been so long since there has been a show where most any minority group is shown as intelligent contributors to the program. I don’t recall where such a character was a main character. [If you do please tell me the show and what years it was on] Even the young Black African Latino American boy is a genius. And the characters have flaws, like the boy previously mentioned is autistic - known in the past as an ‘idiot savant’. These elements give the show a bit of a feel of credibility, of reality, that just isn’t on the airwaves today. And they attempt to be intelligent about it. They don’t pander to the audience explaining every little thing, because they get that the American public is intelligent enough to understand concepts a bit higher grade than elementary school (ie. ER or CSI versus Friends or The Simpsons).
Still they should work on the science a bit. A rift created by tachyons that creates in essence temporal bubbles that ages objects over a thousand years would not separate an object and move it relative to the earths motion. There are 2 very different concepts at work there. Nor would that effect cauterize a wound. And why the effect moves, randomly yet in conjunction with the spin of the Earth, yet is localized on this one town also makes no sense. But perhaps I ask for too much? And with any decent sci-fi there are some things that have to be accepted. At least in this case its not a bitter pill to swallow.
I doubt the program will make it more than a season or 2. I would expect it to be cancelled mid-season down the line. That is what the SciFi channel has consistently done. So when I say its worth watching, keep in mind you may get left with many unanswered questions down the line. It’s not the fault of the cast, crew, or writers. Blame the execs. Yet given that probability I think its work watching.
Hey where else will you see Black African American, Hispanic, minority men and women that are highly intelligent and in positions of some amount of power? Where else can you find those same type of characters in main roles? Where else are they the good guys? I wouldn’t watch with that as my main reason, but it’s a great bonus when you can get it.
This is what I think, what do you think?
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