Closing the gates on America’s “favorite little town”

Okay so by now you have all heard about the cancellation of the show about our favorite little town; SYFY’s Eureka.  To us, this was a shot to the heart out of the clear blue sky and we had no idea to suspect such a disaster was coming.  Since the day I heard about the proposed cancellation, I have been doing research online.  I have looked high and low for information from SyFy themselves explaining what the deal is, if this is truly happening and if so, how far off can we set the clock to count down.  Unfortunately, all I could find were articles on other people’s entertainment websites expressing how upset they were to hear about the decision, but no concrete reason or statement from the network.  I thought, well maybe this is just a horrible rumor, I mean… Haven is still on for crying out loud… how could Eureka be cancelled if Haven is making it just fine?!

Finally, I found a single page that listed the statement from SyFy directly.  It’s not pretty, and it’s not what I wanted to hear to say the least.  Here’s what it says:

“After painstaking consideration, we have had to make the difficult business decision to not order a season six of Eureka. But Eureka is not over yet. There is a new holiday episode this December and 12 stellar episodes set to debut next year, marking its fifth season and six memorable years on Syfy.

“The 2012 episodes are some of the best we’ve seen, and will bring this great series to a satisfying end. We are very grateful to Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia, their team of incredible writers, and an amazing cast and crew who have consistently delivered a series we continue to be very proud of. We thank the fans for their support of this show and know they will enjoy its final season in 2012.”

So there it is.  After all these years of excellent entertainment and never once letting its audience down, a mysterious “business decision” has prompted the end of the best show SyFy has produced.  Ever.  I have emailed them to see if I can find a more direct answer, but who knows if they’ll get back to me directly or just send me a “thank you for your input” form letter.  I figured it was worth a shot.

Eureka perfectly blended the intelligence and comedy of the geek culture while honoring its roots with frequent, respectful references to Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, World of Warcraft, Comic-Con, role playing and so many other aspects of the culture it’s difficult to name them.  There are bonding moments in this show that allow people who are in no way fans of the geek universe to join with those that live within it and find a common ground.  In fact, I began Eureka night at my parent’s house and it has become a family gathering ever since.  I will be sad to lose this show and every person I’ve spoken to is more than disappointed, they’re angry.  SyFy has undergone several changes in the last few years and taken on somewhat of a different face and personality.  In some ways, we love the changes and in others, well… not so much. (No offence, Sharktopus)

One more aspect of Eureka that really brought new demographics to the geek culture; a love story.  A heart-wrenching, yearning, hit and miss, almost there then things fall apart love story.  Not one, but several major subplots which included love, loss, time travel, dimensional shifting and timeline changes that were both gut-wrenching and exciting and filled the story with warm fuzzy feelings fluffy enough for any girl with a longing for a good tale of romance and woe.  These storylines brought in the girls who may not have taken a second glance at a show like Eureka and brought to the culture a whole new kind of fan; the chick flick girls.  Sure, at first they watched it for their boyfriends and husbands, but soon enough it was easy to see the hot boys and the love affairs, the scandal and the love lost, found, lost again and back around to melt even the hardest of hearts.

All in all, Eureka gave us and continues to provide a meeting ground of all types of people from every culture, not just the geek culture.  It was able to bring intelligence, heart, wit and the spirit of adventure and discovery into a world where every one of all types could comingle in agreement… Eureka was the little town that brought a whole world of people together.  We can’t hope for the experience to be recreated, we can only be thankful that it was.

So that’s that, folks.  I now leave you to enjoy what’s left of the series at our weekly, Eureka night, a fairly new practice that has become a highlight of my family’s new traditions.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of this amazing show to see how many more times Jack can say, “that can’t be good,” to see how many times his car is destroyed, how many more amazing discoveries Allison and Henry can make, to see if Fargo will ever fall in love, if Jo and Zane get over themselves and get married already and maybe someone will finally put an end to Beverly and her quest to destroy Eureka.  All we can do is watch and wait.

We would love to hear from you on this- what is your favorite Eureka moment?  Favorite Jack-ism?  Favorite disaster?  What is it you love most about the show?