Eureka: Review: Season 5 Eps 4 & 5

Syfy, 7 & 14 May 2012

A rogue ‘fireball’ threatens Eureka, while Jack finds himself swapping minds with various friends and colleagues…

After the drama of the opening three episodes of this curtailed final season, Eureka resorts to dull business-as-usual with the dire runaround that is ‘Friendly Fire’.

There is a heartfelt attempt made to deal with the emotional fall out from the group’s Astraeus experiences, but melding that with a crisis-of-the-week story pulled from the show’s early back catalogue doesn’t really work. Fargo’s ‘grief patch’ was a great idea, though.

Much better was the dreaded ‘body swap’ episode, ‘Jack of All Trades’. This is, of course, an idea done to death in movies and TV, so expectations were low. However, Eureka has delivered a brilliant piece of television here, thanks to the various impersonations of Colin Ferguson’s Carter, especially those by Neil Grayston (Fargo) and Niall Matter (Zane). Unfortunately, the return of the always-amusing Wallace Shawn adds little to the overall story, other than a sense of threat/ticking clock to complicate things.

Only four episodes to go, and then it’s all over for Eureka.

Verdict: A run-of-the-mill disappointment, followed by a corker of an episode that shows Eureka at its best.

Episode 4 ‘Friendly Fire’: 6/10

Episode 5 ‘Jack of All Trades’: 8/10

Brian J. Robb