Sunday, April 27, 2008

Eureka - more amusing than brainy

We've been watching Eureka on DVD. Eureka is a small town which is populated by scientific geniuses, all of whom are employed by - or related to someone employed by - a secret government organisation. A norma-IQ US marshall, Jack Carter, stumbles upon the town and saves the populace, and the world, from the various mishaps that arise from dangerous scientific experiments.

So far I've only seen the pilot and a couple of other episodes, but here's my opinion anyway.

It's a fun show full of likeable characters, but I wouldn't say it was ground-breakingly intelligent or transgressive: I've only seen one woman scientist (and none of the women characters are less than stunning, which I can't say about the male characters) and I'm annoyed by how these supposedly highly specialised scientists seem able to turn their hand to anything. The latter doesn't remind me of Renaissance polymaths like Leonardo da Vinci, rather The Professor in that old tv show Gilligan's Island.

I wondered whether the writers are getting their ideas from another tv series, Heroes. In one early episode of Eureka there was a time-freeze effect which allowed the bad guy to get away - very reminiscent of Hiro whatisface who could bend space and time. Then, it turned out that Eureka's bad guy wasn't freezing time, but in fact destroying people's short term memory - which is what the Nigerian dude was doing in Heroes.

Another thing is that the hero of Eureka is a relatively dumb, but intuitive, cop, saving the hyper-intelligent locals from themselves. I may be taking this the wrong way, but isn't the show glorifying dumbness at the expense of intelligence and higher education?

4 comments:

david santos said...

I loved this post and this blog.
Thank you

Watson Woodworth said...

Haven't seen it but it sounds like Northern Exposure in reverse.

Angela said...

It doesn't sound like a show for me.

Violet said...

david santos: um...thanks...

nigel: yeah it's been compared to Northern Exposure.

angela: you'd enjoy it if you like science fiction-y stories.