Eureka – Freaky Friday + Portal = Fun

There was something a little different going on behind the scenes this week with our friends in Eureka. Thanks to the crazy mid-season break, we’ve been hearing about this episode for months. Everyone’s favorite Sheriff, Colin Ferguson, was pulling double duty. Not content to just be the star of the show, this week he was also the director. That title change also played out in the writing as we found Carter relegated to a side story, giving us a look at what a Eureka with a Sheriff Lupo might look like. Along the way, more crazy science, a romantic angle for Fargo, and the ugly side of Allison?

Being the big fancy director should earn a guy some props, so let’s start with Carter’s little slice of this episode. If you’ve played Portal (and if you haven’t, you really should), it must have been the first thing that popped into your mind when Carter entered the recertification test. Unless it was a questioning of how this is all such a mystery to him if he’s being ‘re’certified… Either way, there wasn’t a lot to his part this week, but the brief bits we did get were fun. More than anything, it just showed again that while Carter is far from the brightest mind in Eureka, he has a certain quality that always gets him where he needs to be. And, it freed up Ferguson to go direct a sexy Jo scene, so we all win.

Meanwhile… the Eureka version of Freaky Friday was busy playing out, with a very scientific twist. This week the culprit was a combination of biometric DNA monitoring, intramuscular electrode arrays, and hypo-methylated plasma. (Obscure link – The quest for proper spelling turns up a paper on a universal fetal identifier for non-invasive fetal genotyping assays. Cool, huh?) The who of the case wasn’t much of a mystery. “Hi there, never before seen sciencey person at GD!” The better story came from the what, why, and how.

Julia (Leela Savasta, Stargate Atlantis) was the obvious culprit right away, but they did do an admirable job trying to throw us off the scent with the DNA scanning shenanigans. That, combined with all the other Eureka craziness we’ve seen over the years, made it at least possible that it was the real Jo sexing things up at virtual karaoke. (Also, I do award an automatic bonus point for any episode that gets Erica Cerra out of her uniform.) Electrocution by DNA scanner seems a perfectly logical reason to go a bit wonky.

That all ultimately made sense once we knew that it was Julia, drunk on the power of her experiment working, doing all of those very non-Jo things. Although, they did lose me a bit when Jo visited Julia, who was still Julia, after Julia had already changed to Jo, if ya know what I mean… The fact that she was doing all of this to get Fargo’s attention, and escape her own boring life was an odd twist. But one that I thought Fargo brought home when he explained that he’s just not very bright, and socially awkward. I don’t know if we’ll see the two of them together again, but I’d be up for it.

As to Jo as acting Sheriff, two things about it really stood out for me. First, her case, and investigation, had a very Carter feel to it. From her interactions with the GD folks, where she just gleens the bits that she really needs to know, to the simple suggestion that all of the eggheads have overlooked, “What if we do it again?” It all felt very familiar. You could take that two ways, I suppose. Either the writer’s just didn’t go out of their way to make things feel different with Jo in charge, or… Jo tests as perfect, and the perfect law enforcement official for Eureka does things just like Carter. I like that one.

The other bit of Jo’s story that I found most surprising was the interaction with Zane. I’ve long held a grudge where that pairing is concerned because I thought Jo and Tag as a couple was endlessly entertaining. This week, the scene with Zane talking with Julia/Jo in the holding cell marks the first time I wasn’t just putting up with another Zane scene. It took a while, but they may have finally won me over.

And then there’s Allison. That whole thing with the vote just caught me completely off guard. How would you describe it? Underhanded? Despicable? Clearly she knew that Carter would be much more likely to side with Henry and ban the DNA tracking. So, she delayed the vote until the one time when he wouldn’t be able to take part. Big brother issues aside, that’s just wrong on so many levels and casts Allsion in a very negative light. Unless it’s all a setup for further tensions later, I’m not sure why they had her do it. That would have been a much better spot for General Mansfield, providing the GD vote and working to keep Carter out of it.

So, a couple of bumps along the way, but they were smoothed out by a fun story and the all too rare sexy Jo bits. Nothing about Ferguson’s directing stood out for me, but that’s a good thing. While it didn’t wow us with fancy tricks, it also didn’t feel like, “Yeah, the star wants to direct.” It simply felt like another Eureka episode. Hopefully that’s enough to maintain the ratings successes the show found with the premiere. And Eureka can settle in to its new home on Friday nights.

Clacked by Brett Love
on Jul 18, 2009 @ 11:20 EST5EDT