Whenever I watch Eureka this season, and I see an advert on the network formerly known as Sci-Fi for one of their stupid goddamn are-you-serious-with-this-bullshit reality shows, I get angry and then sad. Eureka was and is such a great show, and it deserved better than it got from the network. I guess if we knew then what we know now, we would have put in more ghosts and wrestling.
Colin, Jaime, and Neil came over for boardgames and homebrew last weekend. We had so much fun, what was intended to be a few hours of goofing off turned into an entire day and most of the evening.
I love the stories and characters on Eureka, and I am really proud of the work I did as Doctor Parrish… but what I miss most about Eureka is getting to see these people (and others who are not pictured) every day.
Afterthought – In comments, Jeff L. makes a point that I agree with:
To a point, I recognize the reality shows as a necessary evil in the current cable marketplace. The much higher margin on shows like that is what enables the channel to put on the more expensive scripted stuff. And you can make the case that a lot of the reality stuff is at least tangentally related to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Genres (wrestling, on the other hand, pure money grab).
Based on the ratings for its scripted shows, if SyFy tried to run on a schedule of mostly original programming, it would probably be off the air in 6 months. So I've chosen to just watch what I like through the miracle of Tivo (and I try to do it within one day for max ratings bump) and I just ignore the ads for the shows I don't like.
Syfy may not be the destination channel it once was, but they still put out some quality programming, and as noted, they are a business so they can't really be blamed for making business decisions, as much as we personally may disagree with the whys and hows of them.
When I talk about how much I miss Eureka, and how much I want to kick certain NBC/Universal executives in the nuts for cancelling it, I readily admit that I'm not coming from a rational place. I am coming from an emotional place, because something that meant a lot to me was taken away.
I get it, it's business, and I'm not going to pretend that it's anything different… but I'm also not going to pretend that, for me, it isn't personal on some irrational level.
Not this week’s episode but in last week’s episode, where Parrish and Fargo were sitting at the table in the closing scene: for a split second I saw the ghost of Wesley Crusher instead of Parrish. And then the faucet started.
I got a tear in my eye lamenting this was the last season.
How could SyFy???
*sigh* I’ll miss Eureka. Heck, I miss all of those good shows. Our week used to revolve around Sci-Fi Friday. We still get our chuckles out of the so-bad-they-are-good Saturday night made for TV extravaganzas on SyFy, but it’s just not the same.
Wil… I’m glad you got to have a good evening of homebrew with the guys. It’s been interesting to contrast you in an ensemble cast of your own age vs. Star Trek where you were The Kid.
Personal is not irrational, it’s just, well – emotional. You were attached and didn’t want to become unattached. Perfectly understandable. It sucks that everything is about money.
Nice photo, btw. You all look like you’re having fun.
What this says to me is that the parent company needs to set up a “All-Reality and Wrestling” station to pay for the TRUE SCI-FI channel!!
Speaking as a sci-fi fan in the UK, it feels like there isn’t any decent sci-fi on TV unless you’re getting American channels somehow, which is a shame. I miss the days when the BBC were showing Star Trek:TNG repeats as well as DS9 and Voyager.
And before anyone points out what they think is a flaw in my argument, Dr Who, while awesome, doesn’t really count as sci-fi.
This is my beef with SyFy.
1. They were once a specialty niche channel directed towards SCIENCE FICTION (and fantasy). They changed their name from SciFi to SyFy and changed their structure to reach a wider demographic/audience/other tv exec talk bullshit. So they’re a once-niche channel that only marginally caters to their once-intended audience.
2. Yes, they’re a business. Cant argue with that. So, ya, I’ll go along with the points made about reality TV being a “necessary evil”. I can go along with that.
3. What pissed me off most about SyFy was HOW they went about with the treatment of Eureka with their final season. They agreed to 2 more. Then (and correct me if I’m wrong) but they then reneged on the agreement not even 24 hours later. I’m bias and admit my linear memory may not be 100% on this point. But then it was HOW it was found out. No one should find out first that they’re fired via twitter/FB/etc the way the cast was. No one should find out first that the deal that they thought was sealed up was then shot down via internet social first.
In this case the network REALLY screwed up in their handling of a great show and they just didnt show enough class.
I love the show and thought you character was great, its a shame they cancelled and it is in its last season. hopefully there will be something cool being made to take its place.
We got hooked on Eureka, watching them on DVD and can’t wait till the final episodes show up on DVD. Having said that, I was annoyed fairly often at some of the lazy plot devices that were very unrealistic.
E.g. when everything is floating they send the Sheriff floating up to the bank on a medicine ball. Really??! No rope, no tether, no harness, no way back down. Suppose he had missed the bank and floated into space (as his jeep did)? Suppose he had slipped off the ball at some point and plummeted to earth? Did they have a back-up plan to get him out of the bank in case it a) fell or b) floated away? Would it have been so hard to at least stick a rope on the ball and drag it to the bank so an errant breeze doesn’t blow him away from the bank?
Nope. The fate of the world rests on some guy floating into an open window on an untethered medicine ball and hoping he doesn’t slip off a smooth round surface while trying to climb into a window. Heck, they didn’t even give him a grappling gun to fire into the bank so he could reel himself in. Or a propulsion system that would steer him.
Funny scene. We chuckled, but we both shook our heads at the writers who put together a plan reminiscent of something Sponge Bob might put together. I can buy into all the outlandish technology, the violation of physics because in the Eureka world, that is how things happen. But writing a script that makes the brightest people in the world compare unfavourably to a kids’ cartoon character….??….well, there’s no reasonable excuse for that (drunk, hung-over, last second rewrite while drunk and hung-over, producer’s child wrote the scene??).
Anyway, that was my pet peeve about a show that we both enjoyed watching and will watch the rest when it is available. And we loved the characters, their interactions, and thought all the actors played their parts brilliantly (also liked the running jokes with the jeep, and with Andy. One episode we said, “Andy hasn’t been destroyed for a while. He’s about due”, and then his legs were eaten by bugs).