TV Jots

TV’s Brazen (Bumbling) Brainiacs Return

Tonight at 9pm EST, the third season of Sci Fi Channel’s most fun series to date, Eureka, opens with the typically clever episode “Bad to the Drone.” What’s in store for viewers?

Well, if you’re a longtime fan of the show, as I am, all of your favorite regular characters are back, along with a new one who might have a lengthy slog ahead of her before she comes anywhere near earning the title of Miss Popularity.

That newbie is crisp corporate clean-up woman Eva Thorne, played by Frances Fisher (Titanic), who arrives in town to take over the Top Dog position at Global Dynamics and set things right at Eureka’s epicenter of scientific advancement, hence her quickly assigned nickname The Fixer.

Whether or not a bit of corporate housekeeping is her only agenda remains to be seen, and the details of Thorne’s ulterior motives, if she has any, will probably unfold slowly throughout all or most of the season, à la the infamous bed-and-breakfast owner and shrink Beverly Barlowe (Debrah Farentino).

The main disaster of the episode — there always is one, right? — takes up much of the plot as Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) searches for a rogue attack drone named Martha. The runaway weapon just happens to have something akin to a personality, and it’s not a happy one either.

At the same time, the frustrated sheriff has to cope with the parallel personality change in his maturing teenage daughter Zoe (Jordan Hinson), who’s now starting a waitress gig at the local eatery Café Diem to complement all of the developments that freaked him out last season.

Then there’s Carter’s jailed best friend Henry Deacon (Joe Morton), whom the sheriff dutifully visits as the prisoner waits for his trial to begin regarding that little biohazard alert he caused at the end of the second season.

Eureka is always a bunch of fun to watch, and this episode continues that trend. However, if you’ve never sampled the show but are curious, don’t let the fact that this is the third season scare you away.

Sure, it helps to know what’s what and who’s who in advance, but if newcomers pay attention to the opening “Last Time On Eureka” montage, everything that happens afterwards is fairly easy to follow, right down to Allison Blake’s (Salli Richardson) response to Nathan Stark’s (Ed Quinn) marriage proposal that stunned her and viewers on the second-season finale.

The Verdict: A-