Joe Morton, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Neil Grayston, Eric Cerra, Colin Ferguson, courtesy NBC Universal
EUREKA
Friendly Rating: Elementary and older.
Safety Rating: Some violence, mostly in the form of things going boom.
Quality Rating: Finally, a smart show celebrating smart people.
Fourth season premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on Syfy.
You can’t help but love a show where as often as not, the good guys are getting themselves into trouble because they’re just trying too hard.
Eureka is a small town dedicated to genius. Formed by the great scientists of the 20th Century, it’s a company town, where the company is Global Dynamics – a quasi governmental scientific think tank filled with futuristic technology and lots of experiments going wrong.
There are bad guys, too. Don’t get me wrong. And Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), who’s just smart enough to stay on top of the troubles, even if he can’t keep up with the technology. Then there’s Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), head of Global Dynamics – yeah, a woman of color runs it. That’s also one of the things I love best about this show – it’s got one of the more diverse casts on TV, and everyone is smart.
Caution-wise, there is some violence and occasionally it gets gross. And occasionally, it’s a human being doing something vile on purpose. One can also make the argument that since Carter is the one who often figures out how to fix things, that the show is actually tweaking the geek set. I don’t agree. Carter may be involved, but he needs the genius of those around him to actually do the heavy lifting. In fact, the way the show is written, they acknowledge his gifts and he acknowledges theirs.
We’ve got a new cast member this season – James Callis is playing Dr. Grant, who will be making eyes at Allison, and given how Carter feels about her…. I know, we have to drag that part out, but it is possible to have a romantic relationship in which the couple finds conflict in trying to figure out how to make the relationship work, then the work of making it work.
