Yesterday ’s Eureka wrapped up the time of year in striking style , with a lot of amazing Edgar Albert Guest stars , one of the gravid threat ever , a endearing celebration of space exploration , and a truly heroic cliffhanger . Eureka does n’t get much good than this .
Spoilers ahead …
“ One Giant Leap ” finds Eureka get terminal preparation for the Astraeus mission to Titan . Senator Wen ( Ming - Na ) is on script for the historic juncture , and even President Obama is going to put in an appearance — at least until a charged particle fire from a raw singularity destroy the decoy limo sent in ahead of his sojourn . Carter and Jo are on the trail of mini smutty hole , the inadvertent founding of Dave Foley ’s Dr. Plotkin , a former improper weapons maker turned ultra - pacifistic environmentalist . Foley is a lot of play as the positively charged energy obsessed Plotkin , particularly when bickering with Matt Frewer ’s Dr. Taggart and spectacularly failing to bond with Jo .
The singularity are sucking up beloved landmarks all over Eureka – include Taggart ’s mega - truck and Cafe Diem – but they ca n’t be allowed to interpose with the Astraeus launch , which must go ahead in the set window . Henry and Allison come up with a design to quarantine the singularities far away from the town and Global Dynamics , where they can dissipate safely . But the uniqueness coalesce together into a single , much bad black golf hole , and Carter is once again the only soul who can arrest it . And , once again , he succeeds … and that ’s when the installment really gets interesting .
I broadly speaking eff “ One Giant Leap ” , but I need to get my braggart trouble with the instalment out of the way . I ’m not going to get on a moral high cavalry about this , but I do notice it a bit loathly to use the apparent destruction of the prexy as the pre - recognition teaser , especially when the in - universe president is actually Barack Obama . ( And this is n’t a political affair — I ’d feel just as uncomfortable about this if the president was George W. Bush or whoever else . ) Worse , the whole affair wager like a scrap of a narrative cul - de - theca , a cheap shock that comes out of nowhere and then is resolved with a fuzz - out . Yes , the chronological succession set up the uniqueness as the Modern threat , but there ’s a lot of other possible ways the episode could have accomplished this , and almost any of them would have been preferable .
Still , if given the choice , I ’ll always choose an episode that starts poorly and ends well to the alternative . And , if you judge an episode by its conclusion then this was just about the big Eureka episode ever . The uniqueness plot of ground is one of the fuzzier threats the show has thrown at us , but as soon as all the bantam uniqueness flux into a single mordant hole , it ’s biz on for about twenty minutes of sustained awesome .
There ’s just no two ways about this – if an episode can be described as “ Carter vs. a blackened hole ” , then it ’s plausibly a pretty good episode . Colin Ferguson was on rarefied form , ratcheting up his general pique with all thing singularity while also getting his handsome damn hero moment when he fires an antimatter projectile into the event skyline of the black hollow . Special credit to director Matt Hastings and the effects squad – Eureka generally does at least a decent job with its particular impression , but everyone clearly maltreat up their secret plan for when Carter runs from the black hole . It ’s a bravura sequence that really sells that this episode is give us a more larger-than-life adventure than what we usually see .
The rest of the instalment is all about the long - awaited launch of the Astraeus , and for much of the last fifteen moment it feel like we ’re watch an epilog to all of season 4.5 . I realize I ’m not saying anything particularly groundbreaking here , but space exploration is arguably the set aspect of scifi boob tube – a sight of that is Star Trek , obviously , but there ’s also everything from Firefly and Farscape to Space : 1999 and Blake ’s 7 . ( Not to bring up about a third of Doctor Who stories , give or take . )
So what ’s so cool about the Astraeus project – and time of year 4.5 in general – is that it feels like a span between Eureka ’s contemporaneous scifi and the world of hard scifi quad opera that put ahead . While this show ’s skill has always been somewhat out there – we ’ve had fourth dimension travelling , human cloning , whatever the Inferno the Artifact was , and even some easy space exploration before now – but it all take place in a globe that was fundamentally our own , just with one top - secret township in Oregon doing a cluster of crazy shit . Astraeus feel like a giant leap into a more loosely scifi world , and while I highly doubt we ’ll see the ramifications on Eureka itself , it ’s cool to think that what we ’ve been watch over the last six years is how we get from “ our ” human race to one of starships and sempiternal geographic expedition .
Obviously , I love the subtext of this sequence , but the actual text was pretty strong as well . There are a couple nice , albeit heartbreaking emotional beat in the last fifteen minute of arc . The more obvious one is Jo ’s conclusion to leave Eureka so that she can finally figure out just who she is without have to prove herself to others . I was n’t really expecting Jo to depart until her farewell vista with Carter , but it ’s the right culmination to a season that has expose just how confused and damaged Jo really is . Erica Cerra does some nice work conveying how she really ca n’t last out in Eureka anymore , and I sleep together Matt Frewer ’s observance that she was going on a walkabout . I mentioned last workweek that I was n’t certain the Jo and Taggart human relationship really worked any longer — for that moment alone , I ’m willing to retract that position .
But as far as I ’m concerned , the most crushing moment belong to , of all people , Dr. Parrish . When he hobbles in on his cane and make one last “ offer ” to link up the mission , he ’s still a jerking , albeit one with a sure dickish aristocracy in his abject refusal to admit it ’s over . When he reply to Fargo ’s putdown about how it must be tough not to be a innovator with a forced , “ You have no theme ” , Parrish becomes a tragic figure .
Yes , he ’s still an ass , he ’s still an egotistical weasel , he ’s still a fundamentally confine human being who is arguably his own worst opposition … and yet , he deserve better than this . Among other things , Eureka is about scientific discovery and the quest for noesis , and it ’s brutal view Parrish ’s dream shatter like this . A net ton of acknowledgment goes to Wil Wheaton , who all season has wield the difficult trick of making Parrish strangely harmonic while never making him cuddly or nice , and it was nice to see that last moment of detente between him and Fargo .
During the net launching planning , we ’re regale to a back of Elton John ’s “ Rocket Man ” – although notthe covering of “ Rocket Man ” , much as a small Shatner would have been appropriate . There are some dainty little moments between Grace and Henry and between Fargo and Allison , and all flavour determine for a successful mission . And then shit gets dead crazy .
The last chronological sequence , in which force unsung – presumptively Beverly Barlowe and the Consortium – highjack Astraeus and send it to goodness knows where , is an improbably tense second of tv set , and a very well - execute cliffhanger . Everyone involve really sell the terror of the scene – I especially liked how Ming - Na allowed Senator Wen to lose her cool for the first time all season and depend genuinely scared – and Carter even gets one last moment of heroic ingenuity , even if it ’s all for cypher .
We have no melodic theme where the Astraeus went , and defective we ’ve capture no idea whether Allison will survive the jumping . I mean , apparently , she did pull round , because there ’s no way she ’s getting killed off , but that does n’t weigh – the sequence is gripping enough that her survival seems genuinely in doubt , even if rationally we know she ’ll be hunky-dory come next season . All in all , that ’s one perdition of a setup for time of year five .
“ One Giant Leap ” is n’t a perfect sequence , but it does so much right and cease with so much amazing that I ’d still put it in the absolute top level of Eureka instalment . This has been a very strong half - season for the show , and I ’d say “ Liftoff ” , “ Glimpse ” , “ Up in the Air ” , and this instalment all rank among the show ’s good efforts all - time , with several other episodes this season trailing right behind . While I still like the show would stretch itself just a little bit more , season 4.5 represents Eureka as pretty much the best version of itself it could hope to be . And , as these thing go , that ’s still pretty all-fired good . I ’ll see you all next year for the last fourteen sequence . Should be a good ride – it ’s certainly been a lot of fun so far .
TelevisionWil Wheaton
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