TV Review: Eureka 3.7 – Here Come the Suns

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 17, 2008

Eureka, SciFi, Airs Tuesday 9/8c

Episode: “Here Come the Suns” (Season Three, Episode 7)

Synopsis: It’s election time in the town of Eureka, and three people are running in a tight race for mayor. However, in the middle of the campaign, a miniature sun mysteriously appears overhead, causing a heat wave and 24-hour daylight. Sheriff Carter (Colin Ferguson) has to find a way to extinguish the town’s night lite – and investigate the mystery beneath the town being covered up by Eva Thorne (Francis Fisher) – before everything literally goes up in flames.

Review: While I consider myself a fan of the show, there were two huge stumbling blocks in this episode. The first comes from the election subplot, which seems to get very popular with television shows every time there’s an impending presidential race. The sudden campaign craze in this episode, complete with Zoe (Jordan Hinson) and Fargo (Neil Grayston) as over-zealous campaign managers, felt a little too much like an old Boy Meets World installment in which everyone’s running for class president. The sudden uptick in local politics seemed a little trite in the TV world.

The other problem I had with this episode is the not-so-subtle nods at Degree, the show’s anchor sponsor. Initially, I thought tying the deodorant product into the show was somewhat clever. If you watch the ads, you’ll see a cameo by Niall Matter in character as Zane Donovan, the brain behind Degree’s wetness protection. These tie-ins are cool. However, using Zane’s cool-down research as a key plot point in this show – and having a few too many convenient placements of the Degree logo and product throughout the show – went from clever to overkill in record time.

Strip out these annoyances, and “Here Comes the Suns” is a basic Eureka story featuring a genius screwing up some experiment that almost wipes out the town. More interesting, I felt, was the further revelations of what Eva Thorne is hiding beneath the town. Carter and Allison Blake (Salli Richardson) are onto her, but trying to pry information from Thorne is proving to be harder than it looks. Ultimately, this subplot of this episode was what kept my attention, and I look forward to what is going to happen (and what did happen 70 years ago) in the smartest little town on Earth.

Up Next Week: It’s the mid-season finale in which Jack digs more into the mystery under Eureka that Throne has been hiding. We will learn more about the scientists who died underground 70 years ago and the doomsday weapon they were supposedly building.

For more coverage of your favorite shows, check out the Control Freaks Archive.

Did you watch Eureka this week? If so, feel free to discuss below.

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