Season premiere was last night.
Anyone else watch?
I thought it was a pretty solid opener.
I didn’t catch it, but my wife loves the show . . . I like it as well, although it sort of feels like “Sci-Fi Matlock,” comfort food television that occasionally involves lasers.
Pretty good. It’s good we have a new villain.
I still say this show has a very dark view of personal relationships, and Carter is never going to get the girl. Good show though and a lot of fun. I really enjoyed how thye kept flipping what was the cause of the drone’s rebellion. Loved the fridge: “It’s like Narnia.”
I was highly disappointed. Carter is lacking in the spunk and charisma from the first season and was even more moapy then in the second season. I didn’t like the cast dynamics. I didn’t like the general tone of the show and I’m not digging the villian or that Alison is engaged to Stark. I also miss Henry.
I feel like an ass for recommending this show to so many people with such a shitty fucking start of the thrid season. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s summer and there’s hardly anything on TV I wouldn’t watch this. It’s got two more episodes to improve and show some of that spunk and charm and chemistry that it displayed in the first season and some of the episodes of the second season before I give up and decide to play a game instead of devote time to this empty shell of a show.
Carter being all weird over Alison kind of bugged me. I thought he’d gotten over her last season and was involved with the hot dry cleaner chick, and now he’s all sad that Alison and Stark are getting back together? Weak sauce.
I was happily surprised by how much I liked season 1, but season 2 really disappointed me with the fairly dull wrap-up to many interesting plotlines. It’s just one episode, but the season 3 opener didn’t reverse the trend for me. It makes me wonder if SciFi pressured them to reduce the ongoing storylines, because the show seems ‘simplified’ these days. Less ambiguous characters, less lingering plot threads, etc.
It’s not bad, and I’m hopeful it’ll improve, but it’s gone from “really anxious to watch” to “I’ll get around to it”…
And in case anyone didn’t know, due to the strike, only 8 or 9 episodes will air before it’s off again until next year.
My major nit was at the end, for a show which supposedly is aware of it’s borrowing from the genre for it’s plots, the vial not being filled with a green glowing liquid was just plain wrong.
I don’t like that “the Fixer” has a deep secret. Why can’t she just be a cold Bitch and leave it at that.
And yeah Carter being mopey is a bit of a downer. Especially since it appeared he had moved on from Alison. Maybe some of his memories are starting to come back from the season 1 finale/season 2 opener.
I can totally see “the fixer” canning him as the big cliffhanger to end the season.
So…
When did the show become the Degree Deodorant Variety Hour?
Did I miss that memo?
And did the show’s producers miss the memo that gratuitous and obnoxious product placement is not alleviated by referring to it cutely within the show?
If this is the future of television advertising I want no part of it.
I’ve enjoyed this show the way I enjoy movie popcorn - it’s light, puffy, topped with things that are bad for me, and curiously satisfying on a very limited basis. Didn’t think much of Season 2, but I like the show’s leads enough to Tivo it.
The gale-force deodorant barrage, however, is making me more and more inclined to skip it. Anyone else thrown by this? Or is this just one of the signs that I’m becoming crotchety and old?
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Jesse Custer View Post So… When did the show become the Degree Deodorant Variety Hour? Did I miss that memo? And did the show’s producers miss the memo that gratuitous and obnoxious product placement is not alleviated by referring to it cutely within the show? If this is the future of television advertising I want no part of it. I’ve enjoyed this show the way I enjoy movie popcorn - it’s light, puffy, topped with things that are bad for me, and curiously satisfying on a very limited basis. Didn’t think much of Season 2, but I like the show’s leads enough to Tivo it. The gale-force deodorant barrage, however, is making me more and more inclined to skip it. Anyone else thrown by this? Or is this just one of the signs that I’m becoming crotchety and old? |
I think they are just trying to tie all that into the shows theme of the Fixer trying to make it profitable. Hopefully once they do away with her they’ll cut that shit out.
I do like the way they brought Henry back, although I’m sure the fixer will have him working for her on what ever it is she’s looking for.
And I totally see the season ending cliffhanger being Carter getting fired.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Paul755 View Post I think they are just trying to tie all that into the shows theme of the Fixer trying to make it profitable. Hopefully once they do away with her they’ll cut that shit out. |
I’ve been assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the blatant advertising is to help shore up the cost of the show/the show’s effects. If that’s the case, I doubt Fischer’s departure will change that. I hope it does, though. It really bugs the crap out of me. It’d be one thing if each portion of the show was bookended by “brought to you by Degree” announcements, or if they did a once-a-show ‘pseudo commercial’ like the one with Zane, or if they chose strictly to meta-comment on the placement by using the ‘profitability’ angle that Fischer talks about.
But all three? All at once? Congratulations, Degree. I hate your product now.
I liked that they brought Henry back as well, and I think Carter and he have a really nice chemistry together, so I’m hoping that they explore that friendship some more.
I think, depsite it being blatant placement advertising, the Dergeee thing is going to play a role in the plot of the show. The town being the center of test for a new product line and it affects them in someway, either the Fixer controlling them, with that vial she was seen with, or the new research lab curing the problem.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by slagar View Post I think, depsite it being blatant placement advertising, the Dergeee thing is going to play a role in the plot of the show. The town being the center of test for a new product line and it affects them in someway, either the Fixer controlling them, with that vial she was seen with, or the new research lab curing the problem. |
I guess I’m just getting old.
I hate that idea. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I hated it when “Nissan Versa” was the most oft-repeated phrase on Heroes, and I hate it now. It completely sucks me out of the show and makes me loathe what I’m attempting to enjoy.
I’m aware that with the growing influence of DVR tech, advertisers are having to come up with ways to get our eyeballs on products, and that this kind of synergistic marketing is ideal as far as forcing the audience to absorb the product and its message. I’m also aware that television isn’t truly ‘free,’ and must be paid for somehow…
But I still despise it.
It was a lot better then the season opener (Stark, Henry and Carter are the A Team!).
I don’t care too much about the degree thing, maybe because everytime I see blatant product placement a little clip of George Clooney from Return of the Killer Tomatoes! plays in my head and it makes me chuckle.
Loved the bit about the mars mission before they entered the habitat.
As to the end scene… WHoA! I had to rewind my DVR to catch the actual date on the canister. Six years before the Trinity test in New Mexico!!! Is she learning new things about Eureka or is she trying to find something in Eureka? either way…Just a reminder..
Quote:
| The world’s first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos on the barren plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto. Inspired by the poetry of John Donne, J. Robert Oppenheimer code-named the test Trinity. Hoisted atop a 150-foot tower, the plutonium device, or Gadget, detonated at precisely 5:30 a.m. over the New Mexico desert, releasing 18.6 kilotons of power, instantly vaporizing the tower and turning the surrounding asphalt into green sand. Seconds after the explosion came an enormous blast, sending searing heat across the desert and knocking observers to the ground. The success of the Trinity test meant that an atomic bomb using plutonium could be readied for use by the U.S. military. |
(I’ve actually been there, if you get a chance.. it’s cool. They open it twice a year I believe)
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Snaieke View Post As to the end scene… WHoA! I had to rewind my DVR to catch the actual date on the canister. Six years before the Trinity test in New Mexico!!! Is she learning new things about Eureka or is she trying to find something in Eureka? either way…Just a reminder.. |
There was a discrepency with the date on the cannister and the date on the film. The date on the cannister was from 1938 but the date on the film was 1945, the actual year of the first test.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by slagar View Post There was a discrepency with the date on the cannister and the date on the film. The date on the cannister was from 1938 but the date on the film was 1945, the actual year of the first test. |
So do you think they’re hinting that:
a) Eureka’s scientists were responsible for the creation of the Atom bomb, and that Oppenheimer was a resident, or
b) That their scientists invented a similar weapon prior to the Trinity detonation, or
c) That in the wake of the Trinity detonation, the military turned to the folks from Eureka for an as-yet-undisclosed reason, or
d) None of the above?
OR
e. Time Travel???
i need to rewatch it.
I’m not sure what the date discrepency means. When I was watching it I thought they were showing how Eureka was created, clearing the area and creating the huge underground area with the explosion but when I realized there was a date problem they lost me on their intent.
Any of those are possibilities. Also, she might have been looking for something and the explosion was a key to what she wants. Like Oppenheimer being a resident and needing his research for some reason.
The problem with the Degree stuff is that since it’s a real product, they can’t really attack the commercialism angle with any teeth, addressing the issues with anything but a nod and a wink would piss off a very real advertiser. So it’s not a genuine part of the show, it’s a very blatant and awkward commercial that stops the show dead.
As for the episode itself, I also was confused as to what the big reveal at the end was supposed to mean… it’s not much of a cliffhanger if we can’t see the cliff.
One big problem with the show right now is that while I understand they want to milk the love triangle for all its worth… All three characters are extremely boring in this configuration. Allison and Carter acting awkwardly around each other is dull, Allison and Stark acting lovingly is repulsive, and Stark and Carter acting cordial is a waste. I never really cared about the love triangle before, but now I desperately want this phase of it to end, in hopes that the next phase is more interesting.
Also, I hated how they brought Henry back. his arc was a full season of anger and scheming and vengeance, that led to the very real consequence of jail time… undone with a, “Thanks for the pardon.” So basically we’ve now fully hit the reset button on every interesting story the show has told. I like Henry, but this was weak.
I guess my main disappointment with Eureka now is how we’ve lost the conflicts between the “good guys”. Henry working against Carter, Stark running secret projects, Allison hiding her son’s nature from Carter… these were interesting storylines not so much because of the plot points, but because of our ability to indetify with both sides of the struggle. That’s way more interesting than “new evil bitch vs everyone”, and less predictable too.