… But I bet you know clip show. Gah! Clip show! I did not see that coming. Although, really, I should have. After the surprise was sprung, I started to recall talk of a clip show from the producers. Still, as a general television watching rule, I don’t like the clip show. All too often it serves no other purpose than to get another episode in the can without spending any money, offering little in return for the loyal viewer. There was a bit of that to this one, but I will give the folks down at Eureka HQ credit. They did at least work a reasonable Eureka story in to explain all of the flashbacks. That, and they chose to show us Allison in her underthings again, which always counts as a positive.
The idea at the root of the episode was not a particularly new or novel one. Recorded memories have made numerous appearances in various scifi stories for years and years. That’s not a bad thing. The reason it keeps popping up is that it’s such a cool idea. You could probably make a case for it being the entertainment holy grail. Imagine the possibility that instead of watching Eurkea, you’re inside Carter’s head, experiencing it. It sounds crazy and far fetched. But then, it wasn’t that long ago that the thought of getting up the morning after your favorite show aired to find that some bearded crazy in the northwest corner of the country went ahead and screencapped Allison in her underwear and you could see it on your phone, wherever you are, was just as outlandish.
It probably won’t be a “wireless neural connection through the optic nerve to see memories as you recall them,” but I don’t have to much trouble accepting the idea that at some point something like that will be possible. Although, now that I think about it, I really hope it’s not a wireless neural connection. Talk about your invasions of privacy. It suggests a future filled with tin-foil hats.
With most of the cast losing their memories, and a large chunk of the episode devoted to flashbacks, this episode really boiled down to two things for me. First, how has Fargo not been booted out of Eureka yet? This time, he very nearly wiped the minds of the entire town and killed the head of GD. If you think about the few instances where we have seen discipline handed down (most recently, Julia in “You’re Face Or Mine“), Fargo’s presence continues to make less and less sense.
And then there was the continuation of the Allison/Carter/Tess story. Like sand through the hourglass, these are the quantum physics of their lives. I have to say, it looks like Ryan was spot on in the comments last week. Carter and Allison pretty much acknowledged that it is all the baggage that is keeping them apart. And we did see things continue to ramp up between Carter and Tess. Her new role as head of GD while Allison is on maternity leave would seem to signal that this new trend will continue. I am, however, still troubled by that “Guest Starring” label every time I see it.
The other bit of crazy-Eureka-science that I really liked was the cleansing process. “It fires a blast of coherent phonons that vibrate any organic matter at a subatomic level.” I’m still not entirely sure how that works, but if you google around for coherent phonons, there is a ton of interesting reading, including things like this: “The generation of coherent acoustic phonons with femtosecond laser pulses opens the possibility to control phonon dynamics in amplitude and phase.” It also kicked back my new favorite scientific concept: nanoseismology.
At the end of the day, it was the Eureka clip show. That’s going to knock it off the list of favorite episodes more often than not. As far as clip shows go though, this was one of the best implementations I have seen. And really, that’s good enough. The show has been on long enough to have earned a clip show. Plus, how can you be angry with what’s coming next? TAG!
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Aug 29, 2009 @ 11:04 EST5EDT
I just finished watching season one the other day … I had forgotten a lot of it … and it was funny seeing it yet again last night.
Of course the episode did lead to a few things … Tess becoming acting head of GD, Zoe thinks she might finally have found some direction for her life, and unless they remember, she has complete access to section 5 still.
As for Fargo, with some exceptions like the death ray he and Spencer activated … or the force bubble, he usually indirectly creates problems with other people’s experiments … but he’s Fargo …
This is one time when I didn’t blame Fargo, but rather the remembrall’s designer (Tess?). It’s ridiculously dangerous that simply deleting data on the main system would also delete memories in the original wetware. It should have been designed as read-only, never write-capable.
We all know that Carter and Allison is the endgame, but there have to be a few bumps along the way. Actually, all the season one clips just reminded me of how much more I liked Allison before Nathan came along and before her promotion. She was much snarkier when she was basically Carter’s partner in the field and not stuck in the head office at GD.
I think it’s safe to say that Tess is just a one-season guest star, hence the credit. She’d have to be here for the long haul for them to add her to the regulars.
The only reason this clip show didn’t bother me is that Eureka has had so many awesome scenes that they could have easily doubled the running time. Do the old actors get paid for the use of their footage? I was wondering when Frances Fisher was onscreen for a few seconds, even before the entire Ed Quinn montage.