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Eureka: Alienated

... in which Spencer hijacks a Global Dynamics satellite for his illicit movie night, causing a weapons demonstration to go awry during a U.S. Congressman’s budget review tour.

Although it was a rather funny take on the dangers of illegal downloading, I didn’t really care for this one. Anytime one or more core characters succumb to a pack mentality and become overly aggressive, I get flashbacks of ‘The Pack’ from Buffy. Shudder. At least in this case, Carter came to the rescue before anyone did something truly terrible. Sure Congressman Faraday appears to be in evil league with Beverly, but dissecting him probably would have been taking things a bit too far.

I did enjoy the exploration of the Carter-Jo relationship. I haven’t actually seen any indication that Jo was harboring resentment toward Carter because he got promoted ahead of her. I attributed any surliness we’ve seen to her general demeanor. But I still liked how their amusing contest of wills over access to the advanced weaponry rack degenerated into a real hashing out of their issues. And I was genuinely touched by Carter’s declaration in Taggart’s lab, “You’re not an appendage, Jo, you’re my partner. And there’s no one in this town that I’d rather have watching my back than you, and that’s the truth.” I’m glad she decided to trust him, and it was nice to see them working together at the end.

This episode also delved back into the series’ overarching mythology, as we learned that Beverly and Congressman Faraday work with a group called “the Consortium” and they have a very strong interest in “the Artifact,” which is under top secret lockdown in Section 5. The Artifact appears to be a glowing object surrounded by swirling red-orange light. It apparently emits high levels of extremely dangerous radiation. Stark says it is terrestrial in origin, but GD can’t figure out who created it. “Oh my God.” “That’s one theory.” He also states that it already has “change[d] everything.” Very interesting.

Other Thoughts

Very clever title, playing on both the alien invasion aspect and the isolating effects of fear and paranoia. Like Alien Nation.

Loved the X-Files alien abduction spotlight and the crop circles.

Jo: “Sorry. You can’t enforce the rules, if you’re not willing to follow them first. Better hit the books.”

I was amused by Garwin Sanford playing a stereotypical, smarmy Congressman. He was such a nice guy on Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis!

According to Beverly, Stark lives to push boundaries and leave his mark, and pride is his greatest sin. I think that’s true to a certain extent, but I also think he truly cares about the scientific progress advanced at Global Dynamics, as well as the citizens of Eureka. He certainly hesitated to give the order to shoot when special ops had Jo in their sights.

Allison: “So everybody’s OK?”
Carter: “Oh no. They’re freaking bugnuts. Restraints. Now.”

One of the advanced weapons was called the “BMFG Liquidator.” Hilarious!

Final Analysis: It was nice to spend some more time with the secondary characters, but overall I wasn’t too keen on this one.

Jess Lynde is a highly engaged television viewer. Probably a bit too engaged.

2 comments:

  1. I think I fell asleep while we were watching this one. :) This one did make me start to like Jo, though. She'd been a one-note character up until now. Nice review, Jess.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with both of you. While the overarching stories of the week have been either very weird or silly, the character interactions are worth the watch. I did like the Carter/Jo interactions and the way the relationship moved forward.

    ReplyDelete

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