One that got away: Eureka

Authors note: I interrupt my scheduled post, because I am super excited to announce that we at Dorkadia found that we had an extra Friday badge around for Pax Prime 2013 – so instead of selling it on ebay and making our next mortgage payment, we’d rather give it away to someone who couldn’t make it through the EPIC queue line to buy a pass! Check out our contest here, and best of luck to you!

On any given day, it’s safe to assume that my husband is playing some video game, while i’m in another room chatting away on the interwebs while watching some TV show or another. For the past week or so, I started watching Eureka – a procedural comedy presented by SyFy for 5 years. I knew this show existed, but for some reason, I totally missed this bandwagon!

So in about one week, I marathoned all 5 seasons of Eureka – I couldn’t put it down. This show is equal parts scientific jargon about science that maybe could work in practice but we’ll hand wave it and say does for context of the show, and dicks and fart jokes. (For example: Dr. Witicus: It’s been building since last night. It is an incredibly dangerous confluence of meteorological events.
Carter: Uhh?
Henry: A perfect storm.
Carter: Thank you.
Dr. Witicus: A spinning cyclone of instability. High up in the cryosphere.
Henry: Ice funnel of death.
Carter: Gotcha. Why don’t you people just say ‘ice funnel of death’?)

The premise of this show, and a deal of it’s charm, is that Eureka is a hidden town somewhere in Oregon, comprised of genius scientists and their families – all working for “Global Dynamics” – a group that strives for scientific breakthrough, while submitting it’s promising results and receiving their funding from the Department of Defense. Enter the new town Sheriff, Jack Carter. Jack is street smarts and incredibly caring, but by no means a scientist. So we experience the world of Eureka through him – scientific jargon that doesn’t quite make sense? Don’t worry, in 3 seconds side character X will give you the laymens terminology.

I’m a sucker for procedural TV shows – I still catch myself watching CSI if I surf to CBS’s website! Something that I love about Eureka though is that the hijinks that ensue each episode are almost always because some experiment went awry – not because someone wanted to murder someone else. It’s really refreshing when I realize how much of my viewing is under much darker premises. What Eureka has that other nerdy TV shows doesn’t, is an unashamed embrace of all things nerdy. Every single scientist in Eureka is so proud of what they have achieved and are happy to defend that what they are doing isn’t abnormal because it’s nerdy. Unlike say, Big Bang Theory where nearly every character is actually ashamed of being a geek. Instead of Sheldon who is closer to having a real mental condition rather than just being socially awkward, Eureka has the debonair and charismatic Nathan Stark who is proud of being smart and is successful AND gets the girl because of it.

Each episode (1 hour each) is trying to solve some immediate problem from shenanigans let loose in the town of Eureka, but they always build to a bigger plot. This includes larger issues of challenges of messing with time travel, espionage, and yes this is a comedy show, so there are romances that we follow for all 5 seasons as well. Guest stars include Wil Wheaton, and Felicia Day.

If you’re looking for something to watch and are ready to not have yet another zombie show (I warn you – there is one zombie like episode that I couldn’t watch all the way through due to my high level of terror at zombies), I would say Eureka is well worth your time. Streaming on Amazon!