MovieChat Forums > Eureka (2006) Discussion > My Most HATED TV Trick!! (Spoiler, Spoil...

My Most HATED TV Trick!! (Spoiler, Spoiler, Spoiler)

posted 9 years ago by gigik2
8 replies | jump to latest

GRRRRRR!! Sort of LOL, but mostly GRRRRR! Loved Fringe, UNTIL the betrayal by the writers. Sort of have been wanting to watch Eureka, so Netflix (oddly, but now it makes sense) has only Seasons 4 and 5. So, foolishly and luckily, went ahead and watched a couple of episodes. Why, why? Why do writers do this?! Why even go back and watch the first seasons anyway? Netflix doesn't need the first three seasons because they never happened anyway, just start at Season 4 and save some time. Jo was never a deputy, Fargo was never an under-appreciated nerd, Allison was never suspicious of GD - they were all the directors of the whole thing.

SOOOO glad I didn't try to watch Eureka in real time. Not spending another second on this show after my little rant here. :) LOVE IMDB! A great place to vent. After Fringe destroyed the original timeline of the show didn't watch it again either. When Bobby stepped out of the shower, didn't watch Dallas again either. This trick is always the death knell to a show, so why do they do it? GRRRRR!

(And I did read about the finale after I realized what they had done with the show, but too little, too late!)

[–] LadyCatherine 9 years ago

Sorry you feel that way. I never got into Fringe. I happen to love what they did with Eureka. Screwing with the timeline beats walking out of a shower (in my opinion).

Though I didn't mind the way they ended Newhart and St. Elsewhere.

I refuse to be outwitted by a 2-dimensional character in a cheap romantic thriller!

[–] gigik2 9 years ago

Aaaaww. Thank you for responding so nicely. I did find St. Elsewhere and Newhart's finales annoying as well, but not really affecting because they were the finales. St. Elsewhere's was ridiculous and I'm sure Bob Newhart just couldn't resist.

But when the writers decide to be cute in the middle of a series by undoing the characters' established storylines, I lose interest in continuing to watch. I guess because time is limited, and I can't watch many shows. If I'm watching a show, then that means I am interested in the characters and have bought into the show's premise - how will these characters fare or resolve the given situation? To me it's writer laziness. They have written the characters into a situation they regret so they just hit a big reset button. They can't call it original or inventive because it has been done so much.

Anyway, thank you for responding so nicely. Really was on a rant about my main TV Show Pet Peeve!

[–] LadyCatherine 9 years ago

I tend to cut sf shows a lot more slack because they have their own reality that bends the rules. St. Elsewhere took a big risk in their ending, but, for me, it worked. Not everyone liked it, to be sure. But it makes me think of the very end of Men in Black, where Earth ends up being a marble that an alien is playing with. (There are days I wonder if our planet isn't a science experiment that isn't getting a passing grade.)

I will say the shower scene gave us hope with Remington Steele. The 5th season was so godawful, the response all over was "please let one of the characters wake up and hear the shower running." I would have welcomed it for that show, and when the original erasure occurred, I almost rolled my eyes out of my head--and I didn't even watch the show!

You're welcome. I try to be nice, despite what my cats say. (There are some places online where my claws come out big time.)

I refuse to be outwitted by a 2-dimensional character in a cheap romantic thriller!

[–] gigik2 9 years ago

LOL. A dream erasing a season of Moonlighting would have been a good thing as well. Loved the universe in a marble from MIB, and in general would have liked a world in a snow globe. My dislike of that ending was the implication that the story was the daydream of a child. Why would a child create a complicated dream about work/office politics? The ending to me would have worked for a fantasy.

As messy as Lost became and as convoluted as the story became, I admired the writers for working their way through the quagmire they created and not using the magical time wheel to reset. I was expecting them to bail on the story and do just that.

[–] LadyCatherine 9 years ago

Almost every show I like outlived its welcome. X files. MacGyver. Forever Knight. Last season, last couple of seasons. So on, so forth. I wonder if I would have had the same irritation at Eureka if they *hadn't taken that trip back in time?

Then there's the reboot when Kim died in Section 5--Henry went back in time, saved her, and they went down a path where Jack and Allie married and she was expecting their child. When Jack reset the timeline, he told her there was no way they didn't get together. Well, when he fixed things, they *weren't and clearly wouldn't be together. But by going back to the 40s, they eventually *did get married and in the last episode Allie reveals she's pregnant. So as the Moody Blues said it: we decide which is right--and which is an illusion.

Kind of like the old philosophy puzzle: last night I dreamed I was a butterfly. Today am I a butterfly, dreaming I am a (wo)man?

Whoa. This is getting too heavy for a work night.

I refuse to be outwitted by a 2-dimensional character in a cheap romantic thriller!

[–] Banshee_Boardwalk 9 years ago

They have actually already done that with The Flash in it's first season no less.

With Eureka the whole show was all about Allison and Jack getting together. So by the time they reset everything on Founder's Day, Jack's only real threat which was Nathan Stark had been erased from existence anyway so the endgame was pretty much a foregone conclusion...

[–] hka-3 9 years ago

Netflix doesn't need the first three seasons because they never happened anyway

The first three seasons did happen . As the writers have said it's the same timeline, it's just altered (which is different than an "alternate timeline"), so many of the same details occurred, such as Carter, Zoe and Zane coming to town. Carter, Allison, Fargo, Henry and Jo had the same memories we did of the first three seasons. Since they were the same people we had gotten to know, we could empathize with them when they had to adjust to their altered surroundings, while attempting to impersonate the people they were known to be by others in the altered timeline.

Many of us who watched in real time knew changes to the show were unavoidable in order to keep it going due to the writers' strike and the global financial crisis, leading to SyFy's newest controlling owner -- Comcast -- cutting the budget for Eureka.

Back then I had a hard time imagining Eureka continuing, considering the previously mentioned turmoil which could effect budgets for shows all across the board. Fortunately creative people involved with Eureka figured out ways to shift things around in order to accommodate the newer circumstances surrounding the TV industry. Shifting character roles on Eureka allowed the writers to focus on GD even more than before, which helped trim the budget. One example was having main-character Jo employed at GD, so storylines regarding GD endeavors/mishaps could directly involve her more often and in a way which made sense.

In season 4, I found most of the changes entertaining. Fargo is one of my favorite characters, so for him of all people to be in charge of GD was pretty funny. I liked that Kevin could now interact with everyone and I enjoyed Dr. Grant's storyline. It's also fun to figure out what else may or may not have happened in the altered timeline that we and the time traveling characters didn't see.

Mag, Darling, you're being a bore.

[–] GreyHunter 9 years ago

I honestly don't see the problem. All these things did happen as far as the main characters are concerned. There's a reason that the show sent those exact 5 back in time despite never adequately explaining why those 5 in particular would be sent back rather than another set of characters, or fewer characters or whatever. Those 5 were the central characters of the show, the ones that provided the most continuity from the first episode to the last. So altering the time-line was only peripheral -- we essentially see the events in Eureka from S1 to S5 in terms of how the events involve Jack, Jo, Allison, Fargo, and Henry. Other characters recur, of course, but those are the core. So when time changed, it didn't affect their personal histories. They remember all the things you are upset about losing, so the core of the show remains unchanged. Jo was a deputy. Allison once headed GD. Henry lost Kim. Fargo was a nebbish assistant to the PTB. And so forth. Their new circumstances don't affect that in the least (unlike, say, Henry changing the time-line and leaving everyone but him in a different world.) The events in the new time-line even bear this out -- how the characters deal with the difference between what has happened to them in the past and the new world they're living in is an important part of the plot-line in Season 4.