Review: SyFy’s ‘Eureka’ Heads into New Season - With or Without Sheriff Carter?

“Eureka no longer requires your services. You are fired, Carter.”
Fans of small-town Sheriff Jack Carter,  played by Colin Ferguson, have been praying it ain’t so for weeks as they await the return of the most-watched series on Sci Fi, the cable channel that reinvented itself this week as SyFy, a place to “Imagine Greater.”
Of course, if the order held, banning Carter from his adopted and far-from-normal small hometown, well, even Eureka wouldn’t be the same.
So the newly renamed SyFy channel is launching “Eureka’s Season 3.5” with the premiere answering the mid-season cliffhanger debuts at 9 p.m. Friday.
Also this week, the 17-year-old cable network launched its new name and several new shows, including “Warehouse 13,” a series that debuted Tuesday about two Secret Service agents assigned to a top-secret storage facility in South Dakota.
Also debuting Tuesday was “House of Imagination,” a two-minute branding film that showcases the network’s top talent and new name, and is designed to be broken into five- and 15-second promotional spots.
The spots also showcase SyFy’s new mission: Providing on-air and online content, both traditional shows and films, and new media, including games, through SyFy Ventures and its adjacent businesses, SyFy Games, SyFy Films and SyFy Kids.
“While continuing to embrace our sci-fi fantasy legacy, we wanted to cultivate a distinct point of view with a trademarkable brand name that reflects our broader range of imagination-based entertainment,” SyFy President Dave Howe said in a written statement announcing the new brand.
“With the new tagline, Imagine Greater, SyFy allows us to build on our 17-year track record of success with a brand built on the power that fuels our genre, the imagination.”
SyFy said that includes broadening its audience of 95 million homes with an international expansion, scheduled to reach more than 50 global channels by the end of 2010.
Back in Eureka, America, imagination is still key to life’s daily mysteries, and viewers will learn that imagination isn’t limited to the minds of the town’s geniuses.
The show opens with Carter and Deputy Jo Lupo learning there will be a new sheriff in town. The military has a better option than either one of them, and “he is designed to be ahead of the program, unlike Carter,” according to the Department of Defense.
He is Sheriff Andy, who arrives in a silver trunk, a somewhat unconventional manner even for Eureka.
Inside is a $2.9 billion program, and “the biggest advance in soft robotics since the Furby,” claims Douglas Fargo, one of the town’s geniuses who seems as eager, initially, for the new law officer to be on duty as is the military.
Sheriff Andy’s arrival pits a hard-drive-brained robot against human intuition and perseverance, as the struggles to solve the latest, classified-research-based, mystery of the day continue.
Everyone in town, including S.A.R.A.H., the artificial intelligence that runs Carter’s household, weighs in on the investigation.
And weight offers the first clue to what’s going wrong.
Also during Season 3.5, Joe Morton, who plays Henry Deacon, makes his “Eureka” directing debuts.
“Eureka” became the most-watched series on SyFy last year, when during the first half of the third season, the show averaged a 2.2 household rating and 3 million viewers a week, SyFy reported.
SyFy promises that the second half of season three will offer viewers the same action and humor they’ve come to expect from the show.
Friday’s episode certainly follows suit. It also sets up a new season twist, as the solution of the day leads to a revelation for the future.
Just think: “Eureka possible.”

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