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You’re Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong…and a little right.

By Josh Lasser on August 8, 2006 • ( 3 )

I know that I’m less well respected, heck, I’m not respected at all, and for that reason there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that you should accept my opinion over Entertainment Weekly’s…except for the fact that I’m right.

In a review in their August 11th issue they give Sci-Fi’s Eureka a C+. The main complaint leveled against the series is that it should be less quirky and focus “more on exploring it’s X-Files roots.” The series, according to Gillian Flynn, “doesn’t know how seriously to take itself,” and “would be fascinating” if the series properly explored the scientists’ projects. She does note as a positive, the scene in episode 2 where Carter has to apologize to his house for being late for dinner. She refers to this moment as “that flash of confidence and joy when everything clicks.”

To boil it down, it seems as though if the show were funny and light-hearted that would be great, but the funny and light-hearted should not include the scientists. The scientists should be dark, mysterious, smart and totally X-Files-ey (one of her comments remarks that the plots shouldn’t solely revolve around scientist screw-ups). I don’t know if the point is that law enforcement should be treated as comedy whereas science should be serious, but that seems to be at issue in the review.

Of course, while Spooky Mulder did from time to time provide some levity to the show, one couldn’t say that he was a general source of light-heartedness and humor. And in The X-Files the majority of scientists that were depicted were evil, dumb, and/or dead by the end of the episode (and quite often the experiments either went awry or were planned to wreak havoc). So I ask, in my own quaint way:…huh, what exactly do you want Eureka to be cause I don’t get it?

One more than valid comment Flynn makes is that the love triangle between Carter, Stark & Blake isn’t quite believable (please see my other comments on the show for the weirdness in which this was initially presented).

Eureka is funny, smart, and hopefully unlike The X-Files it won’t get so wrapped up in its own mythology, myth-making, and conspiracy theory-ness so as to lose that feel. More moments like Carter arguing with his house would be great, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s Carter or one of the scientists doing the arguing.