Postby Brigdh » Mon Mar 11, 2013 9:14
The TV show Eureka is pissing me off lately (and it might be all my fault).
I think its a really good show, except that the writers like to misuse time travel as a reset button.
The rest of this post will likely contain spoilers.
For me, time travel in a long running TV show is non-harmful if either the episode using it is basically non-cannon, or all the effects of time travel are undone such that the episode (or episodes if its a two-parter) has zero actual impact on the entire series. Otherwise it just kills a show. Star Trek (up to Enterprise, and that wasn't terrible) seemed to that. Eureka, in my opinion, does not.
I was looking for something to fill my Netflix queue as it was getting a bit low while I was waiting for last year's summer blockbusters to become available (I rarely see any movies in the theater these days), and I remembered that one my current favorite shows, Warehouse 13, has some cross over episodes with Eureka, so I thought I'd put the series in my queue as the show is now over.
I really quite liked the dynamics between Jack (the average intelligence protagonist), Nate Stark (a Tony Stark ripoff), and the other geniuses that routinely talk over Jack's head. I thought the show had a nice balance between having an over arcing story, and having the villain/crisis of the week.
Things start to go wrong at the end of season 1, where the series jumps ahead to something like 4 years in the future, only to find that the universe is going to end because someone didn't die in the present day at the site of some near disaster. The usual "the good of the many out weight the good of the one" occurs, and time is "reset". Except, both Jack and his good friend Henry are left remembering what happened in the alternate timeline, and Henry is pissed over it because the person who dies what his lover. Eventually this is wrapped up by Henry devising a device to wipe Jack and his memories of the alternate time line, except that Henry tricks Jack into going first, while Henry refuses to go through the same. Henry then mutters that he will never forget and never forgive Jack for what Jack did. So the writers go 95% of the way to undoing the time travel kerfuffle, but leave Henry affected.
At first I hated this as now I thought Henry would be backstabbing Jack at every step, while publicly acting like Jack's friend. Instead, I think the result was even worse, where Henry's vow of hatred is brought up ever so often for the next season or so (until its forgotten about), but Henry never does anything. It would have been better to just have Henry not remember anything, since Henry never actually did anything with his memories.
Early in the third season, they do it again. This time, they kill off Nate, who was a great source of drama by being an arrogant SOB to Jack, just because Jack isn't a rocket scientist. Basically, this time loop thing gets started where Jack ends up living the same day over and over, only to notice things are getting worse every "jump back". To end it, Nate has to sacrifice himself in order to correct the malfunctioning time device at the right moment. So, now the dynamic of the show is off, as there really isn't anyone else that can fill Nate's role of an opposite character to Jack.
The rest of the season ends up being a smattering of new characters that are introduced for an episode or two, then dismissed. In hindsight, it appears the writers were test diving some characters for the next time travel debacle.
At the beginning of season 4, five people of the main cast travel back to 1947, and muck about, totally screwing with everything. When they finally get back, it turns out they brought someone back from the past, which completely changes everything. One of the characters who went back in time and was just proposed to, now has never dated that person. Several of the "guest charters" from the previous season are now back in regular roles. For half the season, I'm waiting for the episode where they go back in time to fix everything so that the show goes back to how it was, since it seemed like the same setting, but entirely different characters, and in nearly ever case, worse. By mid season, they do go back in time, but fix precisely nothing (it turned into a "we must allow things to progress as they did to preserve history", even though they ####ed with history in the first place), and it ends with the time traveling cast sending away the time machine as its too dangerous.
The rest of the season is wasted on rehashing all of the relationships, that are now the same, but slightly different because the time line isn't exactly the same, which ends up being almost a rebroadcast of the first season, and the reintroduction of villains that were defeated, but magically are back because now they were never defeated in the first place.
At this point, I'm basically still watching only because the "crisis of the week" problems are sometimes interesting (about every third episode), and I somewhat feel like I should just finish off the last season so I don't regret leaving it unfinished. I'm already 4 seasons in, whats another few episodes? I suppose this means I'm falling into the sunken cost fallacy making my torment all my fault though.
What pissed me off enough to write this though, was the first disc of season 5. I happened to glance at the summary on the disc protector, and noticed that it mentions that the half of the cast that disappeared in a failed experiment at the last season's cliff hanger have come back, 4 years later, to find the town completely different than when they left. Well, great. Another time travel event that has probably complete transformed the show again.
It seems like every time the writers are in a corner, because they want to do something different with the characters, they resort to time travel as a way to reset the slate however it suits the writers at that particular time, instead of carefully crafting a narrative to link the established past to where the writers want to be. I find it to be jarring, and unpleasant, because it completely removes my suspension of disbelief which only makes me notice all of the plot holes being introduced (and time travel tends to have more plot holes than normal events). Not only that, but I was invested in seeing how certain characters develop their relationships, and all of a sudden, those relationships are not valid, which either means the characters have to reestablish the relationships which seems like a waste of time (duplicated plot being conveyed), or now the characters have completely different personalities which conflict with the personality I happened to have liked.
So yeah, I'm clearly more than a little pissed if I've managed to write that much hate on a single topic, and I think I'll be glad when I'm finally done with the last three discs.