That goes for the people of Eureka, and for viewers. There are a lot of great things about the show, but Carter is the glue that holds it all together. That’s the biggest reason that the possibility of Carter leaving Eureka to take a gig with the DHS didn’t really have much bite. That’s okay, though. It’s kind of the Eureka style. The stories often lack any real sense of tension, but they’re almost always fun and interesting. That’s what we had here, as we waited to see if Carter would really leave….
Of course, we all knew he wouldn’t. The big mystery was how it would all come about, and it really didn’t work out as I expected. To start, Sheriff Andy (Griffith! HA!)? I’m nutty enough about Eureka that I follow the writers, producer, and even S.A.R.A.H, on twitter. Recently there had been mention of this Sheriff Andy character, and it was just driving me nutty? Who was Andy, and why the hell wasn’t it Sheriff Lupo?
To be honest, not knowing the details turned me against Andy before the show even started. Thankfully, the writers quickly changed my mind. How Sheriff Andy came to be worked well in the story, and the Andy gags were pretty funny. I especially liked the corrupted names database and the issues with his language software. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Carter was only out of a job for about 50 minutes of show. But there is enough fun to be had with Andy that I wouldn’t mind seeing him pop up now and again.
As to the big Eureka mystery of the week… pretty good. As is par for the course, it did toe the technobabble line, but managed to keep it just this side of WTF? The gravity wells, and the impending doom of Eureka’s own personal black hole, set the stage well for Carter to save the day. The only thing that was missing was General Mansfield having to eat a big plate of crow.
All things considered, it was a welcome return. I’m still frustrated by the network’s insane ideas of how to program a season (a 9½ month break in the middle?), but I suppose the payoff is that we now have one more excellent hour of programming in a summer that needs all of those it can get. Next week: Colin Ferguson, director.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Jul 11, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
I thought that it was a fun episode to get back into gear with the series … I am happy to see it back and really hope that “SyFy” keeps it going
I couldn’t wait for Eureka to come back. I wonder why they moved it to Friday night and hope this doesn’t hurt the ratings any.
*POST AUTHOR*
Purely speculation on my part, but my theory is that Eureka went to Friday because it’s been so successful previously. The chances are much greater that the Eureka audience will follow it to Friday than they are for Warehouse 13 to develop an audience on Friday. So far, so good. Warehouse 13 did very well in its premiere. Still waiting to see what the numbers were for Eureka.
Is Eureka coming back for a 4th season or not?
SciFi has now stretched season 3 across 2008 and 2009.
Presumably season 3 was filmed in 2008. We haven’t heard anything about Eureka filming anything in 2009.
9 months between season halves is stupid.