Television Review: EUReKA, Season 5

Even though EUReKA is one of their most popular shows, SyFy decided to cancel the series after this season because their special effects budget was too large.[1] Now SyFy is being overrun by a swarm of low-budget reality-television schlock like America's Smartest Kids, Change the Day You Die, Collection Intervention, Destination Truth, Dinner With Deepak [2], Dream Machines, Face Off, Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Haunted Collector, Haunted Highway, Hi Tech Hoaxes, Hollywood Treasure, Hot Set, Insane or Inspired?, Monster Man, Overthunk, Paranormal Witness, Scare Tactics, School Spirits, Stunts Unlimited, Tyler Shields, and Viral Video Showdown.[3] Pretty soon there won't even be any science fiction on the SyFy channel (just like there aren't music videos on MTV anymore).

My verdict: There were a lot of inconsistencies (and improbabilities) in the first episode that hinted at the nature of the first few episodes of this season. There were some interesting episodes, as usual, but in this season some of the characters started getting annoying. Zane reverted, acting more like the Season 3 Zane than the Season 4 Zane.[4] Allison seems to be on one big PMS trip—and it only gets worse as her relationship with Jack progresses. And Holly becomes increasingly neurotic. They really should've let her stay dead. To my great astonishment, in one of the episodes Sheriff Jack himself was the problem so it was Allison, not Jack, who saw the obvious solution and saved the day. That was rather refreshing. The series finale seemed like it was going to be a pack-up-everything-and-close-the-shop episode, but instead they went for a Cheers-like "never mind". It was nice to see some of the old characters come back (Zoe, Taggart, Beverly, Grant), but they left out a few (Stark, Tess, Lexi, Lucas, Kim, Eva Thorne, General Mansfield, Senator Wen, Dr. Warren Hughes, Pilar, Spencer, the original actor for Sheriff Andy, or even the Artifact [5]). The final scene was very clever, though.

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Notes:

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka (U.S. TV series)#Cancellation.

[2] My experience with Deepak Chopra's philosophy is limited. But it's still enough that I can predict that this show will probably be the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel—both for the SyFy network and for Mr. Chopra himself.

[3] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syfy#Series/pilots announced 2011 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of Syfy programs#Reality.

[4] Admittedly, a lot of these are briefly shown when Jack's life flashes before his eyes. But can I just say that this would've been a lot more interesting if Jack had popped out of the wormhole back in the first season timeline? Also, in the teaser for the penultimate episode I thought it was implied that it was versions of themselves from the other timeline that were taking over, which I thought was more compelling than having the NPCs escaping from the 'Matrix'.

[5] If you are unaware (or don't remember) there was an instance of time travel between Season 3 (read my review here) and Season 4 (read my review here). Zane was not one of the time travelers so his character behaved differently in the new timeline.

Image attributions:

Oregon Temperate Rainforest is by Sam Beebe, Ecotrust, available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbeebe/5225638554/.