Eureka returned with the second half of its fourth season , as Fargo and Zane unexpectedly blasted themselves into space . This was a playfulness , fresh episode with a few unexpected turn and turns … but should the show be trying to do more ?
Eureka needed an episode like “ Liftoff . ” While I like season 4.0 , the big clock time travel arc ended up just nudging the show ’s convention when it really needed to jolt it . For all the fun with adapted timelines and James Callis , last time of year stop up reaffirm that , no matter what happens on this show , it ’s always going to be adjudicate in passably much the same direction , the character reference are always going to interact in pretty much the same way , and Carter is always going to bust out reasonably much the same one - liner in response to the latest impossible situation . No matter how much the ostensible position quo might be tweaked , nothing ever really seems to change .
Obviously , it ’s not particularly profound to guide out that Eureka is a formulaic show . But it ’s remarkable just how absurdly specific the formula is , and how many of the exact same story beat are repeated in every instalment – hell , I ’m pretty sure more than 80 % of the episodes have a mistaken but repentant scientist pleading with Carter that “ I never meant for any of this chance . ” The show is generally good enough that , on an installment - by - episode ground , that is n’t such a job , but it gets a slight harder to see the show ’s virtue when you look at the bigger picture .
Which is why “ Liftoff ” feels like a bit of a breath of sweet air . or else of a vague , creep scourge facing the entire townspeople , only Fargo and Zane ( and the International Space Station ) are placed in mortal peril , as they accidentally establish a vintage skyrocket while still inside . The second act of the episode take on a playfulness Apollo 13 vibe as the team determine impotently as the rocket hurtles on a collision course with the ISS , and it ’s refreshing to see a problem that technobabble ca n’t immediately solve .
Admittedly , there ’s no getting around how ludicrous this plot is – the show actually acknowledges that Fargo and Zane should never have outlast take - off , but just how tiny must the odds be that the ship would be on a collision course with the International Space Station ? Then again , the space sequences does feature a visual vociferation - out to the Star Child from 2001 : A Space Odyssey . That counts for a raft .
Anyway , after a venial departure from the show ’s established rhythms , the third turn go back to the Eureka pattern with a vengeance . Zane and Fargo ’s only chance of returning to Earth ask using the ship ’s experimental faster - than - light campaign , which can be used to fire the rocket back to Eureka , at which point the township ’s Boson Cloud Exciter can be used to take hold of them . It ’s a very Eureka solution , and it really only just cause any sense at all , but at least a superpower - depleting EMP propose some entertaining diversions ( which is a highfalutin way of saying , “ Hey , seem at the horses ! ” ) . Honestly , I kind of wish they had come up with an appropriately 1960s - era way to bring their 1960s - era rocket habitation , but the resolve worked all right as it was .
The high spot of this episode really has to be the interactions between Zane and Fargo , and both Niall Matter and Neil Grayston step up their game in this episode . While we ’ve occasionally seen Zane be vulnerable before now , he ’s never looked so completely vote down as he does here . Fargo fetch to be a flake of an action hero , as he refuses to gross out out and comes up with a serial publication of ingenious way to stay alive . Even better , it all still feel very true to the characters we know , even if the installment takes them both in unexpected management .
The episode also shows a deft touch with the romantic elements . time of year 4.0 finally brought Jack and Allison together , which seems like the sort of affair that should be a big heap for the characters … but , as we see here , it is n’t really . The episode does n’t grind to a halt so that the pair can hash out their relationship , and the fact that they ’re now a couple only slightly alters how they interact while on the clock . Indeed , Allison make up it explicit that their romance is stringently off - duty , and they ca n’t permit it get in the way of their body of work .
I imagine this is disappointing for those hope for a more whirlwind romanticism after four seasons deserving of will they / won’t they tension – and it does n’t exactly suffer my argument that nothing ever change on this show – but I ’ll allow in I much prefer this to a bunch of inorganic melodrama , and this in reality seems more in keep with how two people who have been Friend for years would set about a romance anyway . We also saw a bit of patterned advance with Zane and Jo ( and Andy and S.A.R.A.H. , for that topic ) , but I ’ll pass on that to one side until we see a bit more of where the show is go with that .
Then there ’s the very terminal of the episode , which introduces erstwhile Stargate Universe actress Ming - Na as Senator Wen . She has called Fargo to Washington with a very exculpated – and , to be fair , eminently fair – threat : if Eureka ca n’t get its routine together after this late ISS - damage disaster , things are go to change . And there ’s that word again . Can Eureka convert from a chemical formula that ’s coming dangerously close to moth-eaten ?
We bed the show is going to throw away plenty of guest superstar at that job – beyond Ming - Na , there ’s also Felicia Day , Wil Wheaton , and for some reason Stan Lee all come up – but I ’m afraid this show is stick in a rut that it ca n’t get out of . “ Liftoff ” might stand for about as big a departure from the formula as we ’re ever likely to get , which is n’t all that much . But hey … as ruts go , at least it ’s an exceedingly pleasant one .
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