SPOILER ALERT. You’ve been warned.
When did television become so amazing? The likes of Dexter, The Sopranos, and countless other high quality series didn’t exist when I was a kid. The closest was whatever Star Trek: The Next Generation variant tried to recapture the Trek audience, or those few animated shows with consistent and engaging storylines ignored by adults too blinded by the false notion of animation being purely kids’ fare.
A friend force fed me four seasons of Syfy’s excellent kinda-sorta science-fiction drama Eureka, and it is quality television, I tell you what.
The premise is deceptively simple, but open ended enough for a wide variety of relationships and conflict. There’s this hidden town called Eureka, a secret society of super smart people advancing technology under the guidance of the US government and hidden from the public eye. Jack Carter, a US Marshall who stumbles on the place by accident, uses layman-esque common sense and ol’ fashioned detective work to help solve the town’s various wacky, technology-fuelled problems, eventually becoming the town “sheriff.”
Currently on its fifth season, this simple idea evolved into a magnificently woven tapestry of dynamic character relationships, from friendship to romance, platonic respect to parental worry, and so much more. These relationships evolve beautifully as the series continues. One example of many: Jo Lupo, a ridiculously formidable woman and Jack’s subordinate, initially feels snubbed Carter was offered the sheriff position over her. Her resentment turns into platonic, deeply rooted respect, a respect Carter returns. In fact, being a paternal sort, Carter becomes something of a surrogate father figure to Lupo, and her respect turns into a desire to prove herself to him, which leads to — wait, that would be a huge spoiler, even given the aforementioned alert. But you get the idea, and rest assured, Lupo’s next move is as surprising as it is totally in character.
Every one of Eureka’s main cast goes through similar, very real, very believable arcs. Sharply contrasting the show’s often silly humor and over-the-top technological setting, Eureka’s character growth and interactions form its emotional cornerstone, its very heart. And it’s not all black and white, either: characters will often make seemingly less than altruistic decisions for what they perceive to be the greater good (Allison Blake, Henry Deacon), while others are the very definition of “shades of gray” (Zane Donovan).
The conflicts and plot arcs change up from season to season, but there’s very little outright filler. Though almost every episode is capable of standing on its own, each drives the current arc forward, often tying in “this week’s moral” into the encompassing conflict. Interestingly, despite its pros, most of Eureka’s episodes follow a similar whodunit formula: introduce the guilty party as seemingly innocent, throw in red herrings, and base everything around some oddball piece of technology revealing something about the world or a character.
Therein lies the true adeptness of Eureka: it turns something formulaic into something grand, sticking to its guns while simultaneously growing, evolving, expanding. The status quo is shaken up several times, yet there’s never a sense of losing track, and in this day and age of status quo being equal to or greater than God (capital G not betraying this handsome fat man’s militant atheism), it’s good to see Eureka simultaneously respecting and snubbing its nose at the notion.
Writer or not, Eureka will entertain, and probably teach you something about how strong character development and interpersonal, evolving relationships are supposed to work in fiction. Watch it, any way you can. Preferably in some way that pays.