Eureka: A “Glimpse” “Up In The Air” Leaves Series Non Renewed After the Fifth Season!

Dear  Eureka fans!

We are reticent to begin a review with the following news of a non renewal, however below is the statement from Syfy August 08, 2011, apparently leaked to EW and others regarding the cancellation of the Eureka series before its sixth season.

Editors Note: We held publication of this story until 11:40 PM Pacific time August 08, 2011 by which time  several series creators had confirmed the non renewal status of Eureka.

“After painstaking consideration, we have had to make the difficult business decision to not order a season six of Eureka. But Eureka is not over yet. There is a new holiday episode this December and 12 stellar episodes set to debut next year, marking its fifth season and six memorable years on Syfy. The 2012 episodes are some of the best we’ve seen, and will bring this great series to a satisfying end. We are very grateful to Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia, their team of incredible writers, and an amazing cast and crew who have consistently delivered a series we continue to be very proud of. We thank the fans for their support of this show and know they will enjoy its final season in 2012.”

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We now continue our coverage of the fantastic Eureka episodes “Glimpse” and “Up In The Air” which was ironically up in the air until the announcement today. This is a combination review of both recent episodes in preparation for the next superb episode in the series. Much will be revealed in the forthcoming “Omega Girls” when we will learn about what has happened to Allison and with the return of Senator Wen portrayed by Ming Na!

Eureka – Glimpse:

This episode of Eureka begins with an advertisement for team members to participate in a space flight to Titan, a moon orbiting Saturn. We quickly learn that Fargo (Neil Grayston), the head of Global Dynamics, and Holly Marten (Felicia Day) will be judging the local applicants. As they sit down to a quick bite at Cafe Diem, they are approached by eager applicants. Vincent (Christopher Gautier) shoos the offenders away, but Dr. Parish (Wil Wheaton) who has a people skills problem, does his best to sell himself as the perfect candidate even before the official interviews take place. He offers his newest creation, “limachoids, a nutritionally perfect food”, that tastes like chicken. Fargo is somewhat impressed, until he finds out that limachoids are banana slugs.

Meanwhile, Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) walks into Sheriff Jack Carter’s (Colin Ferguson) underground bunker smart house to greet Carter, and also making it plain that, although they are sleeping together, they are not living together… yet. Sadly, Allison is still having headaches, a problem that was introduced in the previous episode. Carter suggests that Allison see someone about it, but Allison is not fond of doctors. However, Carter does have a backup plan, a trip for Allison, her two children and Carter to the baseball hall of fame. The two of them are deciding on a good time to go when Zane (Niall Matter) strolls down the stairs from a bedroom followed by Jo Lupo (Erica Cerra) who clearly states to Carter and Allison, “Not a word”.

Later, Jo and Zane meet at G.D. for a briefing on new technology to help her department and Carter’s Sheriff’s office with security. As she sits in a chair, Jo insists that last night was it between them. Enter Carter and Fargo.

Zane presents the technology; PALS – Predictive Algorithm Lenses, an early warning system predicting problems before they occur. It calculates people’s personalities and predicts their behaviours. It also shows a visual of an event before it happens. A pretty cool system that seems to be pretty accurate as the show progresses. Jo’s first experience with the system reveals Zane’s narcissistic tendencies are at 88%. But that’s not all. Zane brags that the large amount of Thermal Processing Fluid contained in a large container system nearby can handle anything. This comment leads to problems later on, of course. Carter decides not to participate, claiming he’s more of “a real cop”.

Dr. Parish has his own problems. He believes that someone is interfering with his limachoids. Jo, with her new PALS, can easily see that Parish’s dormancy gel is jammed in the nearby pipes. Carter to the rescue. He un-jams the system only to get the gooey gel dumped all over him.

As Carter gets checked out by Allison in the Infirmary, Holly enters to ask why Allison has not put her name in for the space program. Allison had written a book about medicine in space in the other time line. She had wanted to go into space at one time, but has given up on the idea, as she said, “I’m a mom, now.”

At the interviews, Dr. Parish almost immediately gets shot down by Fargo. Parish is annoyed, but Fargo is determined that Parish is off the list. Fargo is equally certain about Henry Deacon (Joe Morton) who Fargo accepts with enthusiasm. As they take a break, Fargo seems to have a problem he doesn’t share with Holly, but she accepts his invitation to dinner. Will Fargo finally find someone permanent? Holly seems just as geeky as Fargo and perfect for him, but the writers seem to enjoy throwing relationships off balance. I suspect that it won’t be smooth sailing for these two in upcoming episodes.

Segue to Carter and Jo as they walk into G.D. Jo’s PALS are working as well as ever, predicting an explosion as Dr. Dylan (Donovan Stinson) and Dr. Parish argue. It turns out that Dylan’s prop for his successful presentation is highly explosive. He is holding the canister as his exchange with Parish becomes more and more heated. Jo’s PALS predict the explosion as she and Carter watch the exchange. Jo races forward and grabs the cylinder just as it falls, stopping the explosion. Carter, impressed, agrees to get his own pair.

Allison has a prop of her own, as we see her reading the book her alternate self authored. But her headache persists. Henry enters, noticing. Allison dismisses his concern. Henry congratulates her on being, “The Blake” and encourages her to get involved in the newly evolving space program. Carter enters, but now that he’s wearing the PALS, it indicates to him that Allison is likely lying when she says she doesn’t want to be involved in the space program. Carter is immediately uncomfortable with this knowledge and leaves fairly quickly.

Later on, Carter and Jo arrive at Cafe Diem as Dr. Parish decides to leave. Jo receives a PALS prediction of a cataclysmic event surrounding Parish at 96%. Naturally, the next event they both witness is a massive explosion just as Zane enters the cafe.

Surprisingly, the explosive event is put on hold briefly as Fargo and Holly interview a guest celebrity. The very famous Stan Lee of Spiderman and Marvel Comics fame makes a cameo appearance. He appears as Dr. Lee and asks Fargo, “You’re running this thing, son? What are you, twelve?” He prefers the name, Generalisimo, but Dr. Lee will do. He has been working on Gamma radiation and has had some very exciting results.

When Fargo suggests, “Don’t you think you are just a titch too old for space travel, Stan Lee’s response, “Don’t make me angry son. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” It looks as if the producers are looking at comic book fans to add to their viewers. The nod to various Stan Lee comic book series and characters made me smile.

Jo approaches Zane in his lab to question him about the explosion at Cafe Diem. The problem is bigger than they both thought because something is taxing the PALS system. Zane is working on it but doesn’t have an answer. With all indications pointing at Parish, Carter questions him, only to get mostly insults back. It isn’t him. Carter meets up with Jo again and asks her if Zane had a bandage on his forehead like the one he had in the prediction. Since he didn’t, they both realize that event hasn’t happened yet. Holly and Fargo approach Jo and Carter.

Holly shares with Carter about Fargo’s ability to read people, “almost like a sixth sense”. Carter puts two and two together and reveals that Fargo has borrowed a pair of PALS for personal use. Moving to Zane’s lab, they discover the core with the thermal processing fluid is beginning to overheat. Fargo is angry because no one told him the PALS system cannot handle more than two people at a time. Jo becomes angry back, explaining that there is going to be an explosion on main street and Zane could die. Zane overhears and reacts, bumping his head on a panel he’s working on, creating a cut on his forehead. And, the PALS system has crashed and they are flying blind. As Allison places a bandage on Zane’s forehead, she suggests that they already have enough recorded on the PALS hard drive to give them information about the explosion.

Back to Fargo’s office where Holly has been handling the interviews on her own, Fargo divulges that he had some help in making his decisions with the candidates. This upsets Holly. She feels that Fargo wasn’t being honest with her. She is so upset, in fact, that she leaves, ending the interviews for the day, and the dinner that they were going to share.

Henry’s system is adapted to Zane’s hard drive to show the explosion at Cafe Diem. As they examine the explosion, Carter, realizes that the explosion didn’t happen down town. It happened at G.D.

Fargo goes right to work evacuating everyone from G.D. Naturally, there are stragglers. As things progress, we learn that Fargo’s take charge attitude as people are evacuated pleases Holly, Jo really was worried about Zane’s well being, which pleases Zane, and Carter’s review of the 3-D image of Cafe Diem reveals shards of Dr. Dylan’s canister of propellant are sitting on the cafe’s counter. Carter confronts Dr. Dylan who explains that the explosion is plasma based and thus not from one of his cylinders. It’s a combustible metal fire. Henry provides more information. The explosion is from a massive thermal meltdown. This leads us back to – Carter realizes it’s the PALS system.

He races into Zane’s lab. The PALS system is predicting it’s own explosion. While checking with Fargo to make sure everyone is evacuating G.D, he discovers that Dr. Parish isn’t leaving yet because he’s trying to save his Limachoids. Carter reasons that the dormancy gel he ended up wearing earlier in the episode might be effective in shutting down the meltdown.

Fargo immediately goes to work to divert the material to Zane’s lab. Of course, although the gel has arrived at it’s destination, the valve connected to the container containing Zane’s thermal processing fluid is stuck. While he attempts to open the security gate, Jo climbs down into the system and, just in the nick of time, opens the valve and saves the day. Zane manages to pull Jo back up to safety. With both of them lying safely on solid ground, Jo says, “Thanks for being there for me,” Zane’s joking response, “My pleasure, but that was the last time.”

The show ends with Henry calling Carter to let him know a further security thread has been discovered with the PALS system, an image of Allison Blake with an assessed security threat of 99%.

Eureka – Up In The Air:

It is actually quite ironic that last week’s episode was entitled “Up In The Air” because that is exactly where Eureka sits as a series at the moment. Syfy had confirmed it has ordered six episodes for a sixth season of the show. Last week the network has disputed the report that the shortened order definitely marked the end of the series. However as reported above there will be no six episodes nor a sixth season.

Mark Stern, president of programing at Syfy, said last week: “[Producers] Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia have brought a creative vitality to that has kept it fresh and inventive. Although we do not have a commitment beyond six episodes for the sixth season, we are hopeful that this will not be the end of the franchise.”

Since the current episode of Eureka is part of season 4.5, that means that there are still at least 19 more episodes of Eureka left to watch before it comes to an end. Jamie Paglia tweeted on August 5, 2011 “So for Season 4.5 is airing now & we’ve already announced Season 5 and 6 plus a holiday episode. Hope that clarifies things!” Well, not really, Mr. Paglia based on the statement from Syfy today.

We will now be left wondering what the creator had planned for those now to be non existent six (6) episodes. Social media now means that fans find out the details of their favorite shows virtually instantaneously. With negative past experiences when popular shows have been canceled, the show runners and studios cannot blame fans for getting a little nervous when decisions at the top do not seem too promising.

Best lines in this episode are from Jo Lupo (Erica Cerra) when she is berating Alpha team as she is preparing to whip them into physical shape, “You wanna go into space…on purpose, you gotta go through me first.” And from Sheriff Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), “Someone robbed a bank! Yeah!” said with completely unfettered enthusiasm. Then, a little later, Carter, while looking at the space where a bank used to be, “Andy (Kavan Smith), you said there was a bank robbery”. Andy replies, “Yeah, someone stole it last night.”

This episode focuses on Alison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) and Jack Carter. Carter is introduced to a super dense element that has been added to the outer body of his jeep, making it impervious to dings, dents and write-offs. Since the jeep seems to get destroyed almost every episode there is definitely an advantage to a protective coating. However, Henry Deacon (Joe Morton) is behind it. Thus, we know there are going to be problems.

Fargo (Neil Grayston) is enamoured by Holly Marten (Felicia Day). No surprise there. He was smitten with her last week. However, he discovers in this episode that he has competition in the brilliant, but annoying Dr. Parrish (Wil Wheaton).

Alison receives new equipment for her lab, thanks to the Astraeus Mission to Titan; a positive improvement over her not so top of the line current medical equipment. Not so positive, though, she seems to be handed more and more work as Fargo is more and more distracted by Holly and his rivalry with Dr. Parish. With all the additional responsibilities, it seems that Alison is blacking out for periods of time. We first notice this when she attempts to gather her staff together to help with unpacking the new equipment only to discover that it is already unpacked, sorted and placed on shelves.

Deputy Andy informs Carter that someone has robbed a bank. Carter, believing that he finally has a real ordinary crime to deal with, practically dances out of Cafe Diem. Life is good again, until he learns that the bank has not been robbed, it’s been stolen. Henry informs Carter that the bank is made of a super-dense element, making it almost impossible to steal. Where have we heard about that element before? Things are beginning to fall into place.

Meanwhile, Zane (Niall Matter) enthusiastically takes to the space training that Jo Lupo is dishing out, not only taking part in the Alpha Team, but the Beta Team as well. Sadly, because he has a criminal record, he is intelligible for the mission. When Jo discovers this, she struggles with how to tell him.

Dr. Grace Monroe (Tembi Locke) is a neuroscientist. Grace’s occupation was a bit of a mystery until this episode’s reveal. Her occupation comes in handy when Alison begins to wonder why she is losing time in her day. Grace comments that Alison is probably just an overworked mother of two.

Dr. Parish, either to get closer to Holly, or to continue to bother Fargo, or both, transfers to their group as they train. Fargo has his hands full. Beside dealing with his tormentor, he is also forced to keep up with his regular duties and with the training to become an astronaut. Oddly, he seems to be the only person at G.D. who is having problems juggling the expectations.

At this point, a viewer might wonder why Fargo is allowing someone who works for him to bully him. As the company boss, Fargo would have several means at his disposal to at least keep Parish busy.

Eureka is certainly not your average town. With a missing bank, Carter and Deputy Andy compile a list of what might have gone missing along with the bank. Apparently, people don’t use real paper money in Eureka. So that means the only valuables that may have disappeared are whatever is in the Safety Deposit Boxes. One of the items missing is anti-matter, an heirloom supply kept for sentimental reasons. The big reveal for Carter is that someone didn’t steal a bank, they stole a bomb. While Deputy Andy is sent after Fargo, who has ended up in a tree, Carter goes looking for the bank.

Alison loses time again. She and Fargo are at G.D talking when there is a sudden shift. Fargo tells her she’s had a good idea. When Alison asks what it was, it seems that she has volunteered to become acting head of G.D. Not to be outdone in strange happenings, Henry realizes that the bank is made of the same super dense material as the medicine ball that sent Fargo up a tree and Carter’s jeep. However, just as Henry is about to share that very important information with Carter, he discovers that he has found the bank. He doesn’t realize that he is now floating over a lake at the same elevation as the bank. He opens his door to investigate further only to discover that gravity still works. He falls into the lake.

While Jo finally comes up with a way to tell Zane that he won’t qualify for the Astraeus mission due to his criminal record, Alison searches for her tablet. Unable to find it, she looks for it outside in her car. Alison vanishes. She has gone missing for several hours, leaving her children unattended. Henry, on the other hand, is the one coming up with all the answers, with some help from Holly. Apparently, another device inside one of the Safety Deposit Boxes in the bank is a Higsfield disruptor.

It is responsible for reducing the bank’s mass, and in items with similar chemical compounds in their makeup. And, what a surprise, it belongs to Parish. Carter has to get into the bank, turn the device off, and get the bank and the other floating objects back down to Earth. Carter manages to reach the bank by using one of the floating medicine balls. Once in the bank, he manages to deposit the antimatter into a shielded container. All is well, for a few seconds. The Higsfield Disruptor powers down, and just like Bugs Bunny’s Wile E. Coyote, the bank suddenly falls at a high rate of speed.

Lupo has the answer. She realizes that they need thrust. She suggests it’s just like landing a jump jet on an aircraft carrier. Fargo suggests a Field Amplifier to make Jo’s idea happen. Meanwhile, Carter, inside the bank, is still falling. Carter has to turn it on, then open the box carrying the disruptor for a moment. The bank comes to an abrupt stop a foot above ground so that when Carter closes the box containing the antimatter, the bank drops the rest of the way, causing little damage. Unfortunately, some other items, like Carter’s jeep, are a little too high to be retrieved. The jeep is now in orbit.

Alison takes a moment to examine herself with her new equipment. She discovers that there are man made nanoparticles, or neuro implants in her brain. But the information remains a secret because she has no control over what she does or says. We discover that Beverly Barlowe (Debrah Farentino) is controlling what Alison says and does. The Higsfield disruptor was interrupting the connection to Alison, explaining her lapses in memory and in losing time, but has yet to be discovered by anyone.

Fargo finally finds a way to get Parish off his back. He puts Parish to work doing inventory. Zane convinces Jo that both of them can get into space even though neither of them really has “the right stuff”. And Henry discloses that he has a problem with his heart that may keep him on the ground. Grace is determined to find a solution so they can both go into space together.

As they say, “The plot thickens”. With only 14 episodes of a 20 episode run, that have been shown this season, there is still plenty of time for more interesting stories to unfold! Eureka returns each Monday 8 PM E/P 7 central time on Syfy. The next episode “Omega Girls” is awesome .

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ArcticGoddess1 (Patricia)