It’s Sadly the End of EUREKA

Next Monday, July 16, the science fiction television series Eureka will air its series finale on Syfy, bringing to an end a popular show after five fantastic seasons. Given that the end is so near, it only seemed right to pay a special tribute to the show that changed the face of television for the better.

Back on July 18, 2006 Eureka debuted, telling the story about a fictional town in Oregon inhabited almost entirely by geniuses and scientists. That is until U.S. Marshal Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) walked into town with his, at the time, juvenile delinquent daughter Zoe (Jordan Hinson) after an accident sidelined them near the border of this mysterious town.

It was only a short time later, due to a faulty experiment, that Jack found himself chosen to take over the role of Sheriff of Eureka and five seasons of crazy, weird experiments, accidents and mayhem has taken place all with Jack at the center. And while it took a little longer, his daughter Zoe eventually became a happy part of the community, developing her love of school and studies, becoming a well-rounded young adult with an early invitation to Harvard Medical School.

The central point of the show is Global Dynamics, the huge advanced research facility where nearly all of the residents of Eureka work. GD, as it is known in the world of Eureka, is responsible for the development of nearly all major technological breakthroughs in the last 50 years.

Among the staff at Global Dynamics includes the following:

Dr. Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), a Department of Defense agent who was the liaison between Eureka and the Federal Government who later became Director of Global Dynamics; she is also the mother of Kevin, an autistic youth whose father died when he was still a baby;

Dr. Nathan Stark (Ed Quinn), who was married then divorced and almost remarried to Allison; he was also one of the top scientist’s at GD; but while trying to save the world from a time paradox on the day of their wedding, he sacrificed himself [and shortly thereafter Allison learned she was pregnant and became the mother of their daughter, Jenna];

Dr. Henry Deacon (Joe Morton) is the jack-of-all-trades in Eureka; he was a brilliant multi-disciplined scientist and the town mechanic too; he later became the mayor of Eureka and while he was married to Kim, a fellow scientist at GD, who unfortunately died, he later “married” Dr. Grace Monroe (Tembi Locke) after the time leap that was experienced by the core cast of characters during Season 4;

Dr. Douglas Fargo (Neil Grayston) was a junior, accident-prone scientist who eventually became the head of Global Dynamics thanks to the unexpected time leap that altered his life and those of the main cast in Season 4; he made quite a transformation after that leap into a capable leader and found love with fellow scientist Dr. Holly Marten (Felicia Day);

Zane Donovan (Niall Matter), a rebellious genius, who came to Eureka as an alternative to imprisonment [he was arrested for fraud for causing the New York Stock Exchange to crash] and eventually became a valuable member of the GD staff, working as head of Sector Five;

Josephina “Jo” Lupo (Erica Cerra) a former Navy Seal who was the Deputy of Eureka, working – at first begrudgingly – alongside Jack Carter, but eventually became Jack’s best friend; after the aforementioned time leap, she became Head of Security at GD and after some rocky times, developed a solid relationship with Zane.

Among some of the other key players who have been featured over the past five seasons in the town of Eureka, either working at Global Dynamics or for the town itself were:

Deputy Andy (Ty Olsson and later Kavan Smith) was a robotic law enforcement unit created by Global Dynamics “who” was originally tapped to replace Carter as Sheriff, but instead remained as Deputy, taking over for Jo when she was promoted to her GD position;

SARAH (voiced by Neil Grayston) is actually an artificial intelligence that runs Carter’s house; her “personality” was built on top of an old military project and reportedly was based on a war games simulator; later SARAH was restored to normal operations and began a “relationship” of sorts with Deputy Andy;

Dr. Trevor Grant aka Dr. Charles Grant (James Callis) was an assistant to Albert Einstein in the 1940s and worked on the military base that preceded the town of Eureka; he not so inadvertently made the time leap with the key players during Season 4, taking on a new name and working as a scientific historian as a cover for his being in the new version of Eureka where the key players landed;

Dr. Beverly Barlowe (Debrah Farentino) was the town psychiatrist, who secretly worked for a mysterious organization known as “the Consortium” and has been the on-again, off-again villain over the course of the series, meeting with Dr. Grant, who worked with her late father, and convincing him to work with her toward a still-uncertain goal;

Dr. Jim Taggart (Matt Frewer) was an eccentric animal expert and worked in geophysics; he became one of Jack’s best friends and even, albeit briefly, dated Deputy Jo Lupo;

Vincent (Chris Gauthier) was the owner of Café Diem but also has a Ph.D. in Molecular Gastronomy; he is essentially the eyes and ears of the town of Eureka; and,

Kevin Black (Meshach Peters and later Trevor Jackson) was Allison’s son who was an autistic savant in the original timeline of the show, but after the key players returned from their unexpected time leap he is no longer autistic but rather an off-the-charts genius.

The first season consisted of 12 episodes, the second season had 13 episodes and season three contained 18 episodes. Season four had 21 episodes while season five will consist of a total of 13 episodes, bringing the grand total of the full episodes of Eureka to 75. The four previous seasons are all on DVD with the final season set to be available on DVD shortly after the series finale airs.

Eureka was created by Andrew Cosby and Jaime Paglia and has been produced by Universal Media Studios.

Once again, the series finale of Eureka will air on Monday, July 16 on Syfy at 9/8c. Make sure you don’t miss out on what will assuredly be a grand ending to a fun-tastic series that will be greatly missed.