Eureka season 2 ep 4 "The Games People Play."

Cafe Society
#1

No thread last week?

Last week was kind of a bummer. It seemed to be all about how much it sucks to be Jack Carter.

Is Zoe really going to leave? Where’d the ex-wife come from anyway? Last season I got the impression she was a deadbeat, but now she’s a doctor.

Is life ever going to get any better for Jack?

Henry is on to Beverly. Beverly is really agitated about Henry getting a job at GD. Has Henry regained his moral grounding, or did he learn not giving up can get you what you want, i.e. his Kim back?

Stark is turning into Mr. Swell Guy. The snarky witty repartee between him and Jack is falling flat. You’re trying a little too hard to hate each other. C’mon guys, quit faking. You like each other and let’s face it, Allison’s too busy to choose either one of you.

I knooooow some of you are still watching.

#2

Our question is this: Is Beverly truly lighting out? The passports seem to indicate a permanent or at least long term departure, in which case of course, Ex-Mrs. Carter will take over for her. When you’ve shown your leads in the future having a baby together, you gotta throw every available impediment in their path to maintain the URST.

BTW, when Olivia D’Abo is playing the mother, I start to feel old.

To me, Stark is still ultra-smarmy. Gotta hand it to the actor, he knows how to radiate smarm. As I said above, they have to make him all puppies and Christmas morning to get Allison on the fence again, but the guy is icky.

Oh, and it was fun to once again see Dr. Zalenka from Stargate: Atlantis without his Dr. Zalenka accent. He seems to be making the rounds of scifi lately.

#3

I’d have to rewatch and think about that more. She said “we have to meet and strategize.” So maybe wherever she has to go, she just has to go there as someone else, so as not to leave a trail.

OTOH, she’s pretty smart and has to know Henry is on to her, so maybe she is bugging out.

But what was that device she thought twice about, then purposely left behind in her hidden holographic safe thingie? It looked like the same device she stuck on Kim’s desk before the accident.

#4

I want to know how the hell Beverly got into the complex and all the way to the most secure section they had without thinking anyone would ever find her on one of the security cameras.

#5

Beverly isn’t going anywhere. D’Abo is only in the next few episodes, then leaves, so Zoe isn’t going anywhere either. The panel at Comic-Con made it clear that she was there for the duration. They also mentioned that

(spoiler for the love triangle)

Allison makes her choice between Jack and Nathan in the last episode of the season

#6

Half of Vancouver must be on Sci-Fi’s payroll. Lots of work there.

#7

Seriously. I keep saying I want to move to Vancouver and be in scifi shows.

#8

Not to mention the USA Network. Psych pretends it’s in Santa Barbara instead of Vancouver.

#9

I’ve only yet seen the pilot episode, but I remember my roommate & I laughing our asses off at the really fake palm trees they stuck in the scenes where they were driving around Vancouver.

#10

I watched this episode last night. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it bore a remarkable resemblance to a Start Trek : Next Generation episode:

I don’t remember all of the details of the Star Trek episode, but the crucial similarities were:

Dr. Crusher somehow gets sucked into another dimension / alternate universe, etc. People on the Enterprise start disappearing on her, and the people that still remained had no memory of the disappeared. It gets so bad that the ship is almost empty, just her and 1 other (Riker maybe? I’m not sure). Then EVERYONE is gone. She’s trying to figure out what’s happening and asks the computer a series of questions, one of them being “What is the size of the universe?”, to which the computer answers “The universe is a sphere 768 meters in diameter” (or something like that). This helps her deduce that she’s in an alternate reality. She finds the “rift” and jumps through it back to the “real” Enterprise, just as that fake reality completely collapses.

Now, the Eureka episode:

People start disappearing on Jack, and the people remaining have no memory of the disappeared people. Just like Dr. Crusher, everyone looks at him like he’s crazy when he says people are disappearing. It gets down to almost everyone being gone. Jack asks his house, “What’s the population of Eureka” and the house answers “the population of Eureka is two” (Jack and Zoe). This helps Jack determine that he’s not in the “real” reality, but in the ATS therapy device’s reality. In order to get out, he has to enter a “rift”, and this enables him to break out of the ATS reality.

Is it just me, or does this story seem like a rip-off of the ST:TNG episode?

J.

#11

The Trek episode was just 45 minutes of mindless technobabble. No lessons learned, no reason for the rift, nothing. The absolute worst of Trek’s sins in a single episode. Eureka, OTOH, concentrated on the puzzle, and the facing of fears, and was character-driven. So, no, not so much with the resembling.

#12

Yes, the first thing that hit my mind about the episode was “Remember Me.” (ST:TNG)

And in the ST epsiode, Boy Genius Wesley was creating warp bubbles and Beverly became trapped in one.

#13

This might be my favorite episode so far this season. Lots of great moments. My favorite was probably when all the Eureka townsfolk showed up at the hospital because they heard Sheriff Carter was in trouble. It showed people really do love him and he’s part of the big Eureka family. Oh, and I got a good laugh at the end when SARAH started playing the violin music. “Sarah, knock it off!”
“But it was such a sweet moment.”

I needed a feel good episode after last week’s “Jack’s life sucks” episode.

jharvey963, it could be a rip off of a Star Trek episode, but it wouldn’t bother me a bit. Scifi shows rip each other off all the time. It’s all about the characters, and each week’s gimmick is just that, for the most part.

I only have a vague recollection of the ST ep you’re talking about, but it seems to me I’ve seen lots of shows with the basic theme of the main character wandering around trying to figure out why everyone is disappearing and no one seems to remember them.

#14

I think SARAH is one of my favorite characters on this show.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

#15

I was disappointed in this ep. As soon as it became evident that the ep was going to be just a variant on the “it was all just a dream” storyline, I lost interest big time. That’s such a cop out, and an old and thoroughly worn one, too.

#16

Whether it’s people disappearing or “it was a dream,” I agree that the difference is that Eureka tends to be about character and relationships, with the sciencey crisis serving as a maguffin, while other shows just tend to use the crisis as the sole source of drama. So Eureka is more fun, and not boring even when it borrows stuff.

I too love SARAH, but I’m always a little disturbed that “she” has Fargo’s voice!

#17

Just got to the episode last night. Had trouble reading Henry’s reaction when Jack was there mentioning how big a help Henry had been (even if imaginary). Was that a look of disgust/anger on his face?

#18

Well, Carter had just blithely mentioned how weird it was to have all these memories of things that hadn’t happened, which clearly rubbed some salt in Henry’s wounds. I think they’re trying to set up a possible revenge plot by Henry against Carter, but leaving it ambiguous enough that that may not be what happens. Henry did say he irrationally blames Carter for taking Kim away again, but he also has more reasonable axes to grind with GD, Stark, and now Beverly, so I think we’re supposed to be suspicious but unsure about his motivations.

#19

At first I got that Henry was worried that Jack’s memories might have been re-awakened. Once he knew they hadn’t, then I think he started showing the irrational anger again, but wasn’t sure.

I really like the friendly rivalry between Stark and Carter. They’ve moved past being enemies, but their is still a rivalry for Allison, and they’re still snarky to each other, but not hatefully snarky. Even in his dream:

Nathan: I have friends…
Jack: Actually, no you don’t, but let’s table that for the moment.

#20

I was talking to my wife about Henry’s expression last night. We both agreed that it was played very enigmatically. Depending on the viewers mindset, it could show resolve, anger, insight or maybe heartburn. I wonder how many takes it took to get it just right?