Episode: Eureka 4.02 – “A New World”
Original Air Date: July 16, 2010
Screencaps from burgundy_shoes.
This episode starts where the previous episode left off, at Carter’s place. Carter is totally baffled by the fact that Tess and he are still together, and her reference to deciding about “it,” not to mention some project she is working on named “Tiny.” Carter is even more confused when Kevin shows up and he’s not autistic.
Carter goes over to Dr. Blake’s house to share the good news that Kevin is not autistic and the horrible news that Tess is living with him. Blake is of course not happy that Tess is back, but Carter doesn’t seem too thrilled either.
Meanwhile, Jo is depressed that in this new timeline Zane not only didn’t propose to her, but is dating some other blond airhead. Actually, she’s not an airhead. She’s some kind of biomechanical engineer or something.
Carter consults with Henry (who informs Carter that he is now married to that new character, Grace Monroe) and Fargo. Fargo explains that he never met his girlfriend Julia (who is now a millionaire working for Google and married an astronaut). Just as everyone is walking around feeling sorry for themselves, Dr. Grant shows up complaining that there aren’t more flying cars. He wants to look around and see what has happened to the world in the last 40 years, but that is not such a good idea, seeing as how learning how modern society works might mess everything up if they ever get to send him back.
Just as they are planning what to do, a giant robot spider shooting lasers runs through the town. It turns out this is the “Tiny” that Tess was talking about.
But that’s just a clever way to provide a plot device to resolve things at the end. For now, Henry figures out that, in order for Dr. Grant to be transported to the present, he would have had to manually change the cell phone. In other words, his appearing in Eureka wasn’t an accident at all.
When Carter takes Grant to the town jail, we learn another alteration that has taken place. Sheriff Andy (the totally awesome robot from last season who temporarily took over Carter’s job and should have become a recurring character) is now Deputy Andy. Jo’s not happy about it, of course. But Andy is back.
There is more awesomeness. Fargo is the director of Global Dynamics. Then there is non-awesomeness. Tess says yes to the “it” that she was talking about, and it really seems like “it” means marriage or something. But then there is awesomeness again: Tess tries to work on Tiny, and gets shocked so bad she’s sent flying across the room. We also learn that Dr. Blake is now only the head of medical operations, not the director, and Jo is head of security.
I spent ten minutes trying to rearrange the above paragraph in a way that is less confusing. Let’s just say a whole bunch of things have changed, and we’ll have to wait a few more episodes to find out if those changes are good.
Meanwhile, Henry has been studying the time-traveling satellite doohicky to figure out how to get Dr. Grant back to his own time, but it spontaneously blows up. Henry doesn’t have the expertise to rebuild it. Fortunately, Dr. Grant is the original inventor, so they bring him in to help.
Eventually, they figure out that an antimatter buildup caused by positron lighting surged through the machine. The problem is, this would be the first positron lightning storm ever. It can’t be a coincidence.
The gang puts their heads together and realize that a positron lighting storm, if it could be harnessed, would allow for the creation of antimatter on Earth. If this were harnessed properly, it could make limitless clean energy possible. But it would also make the perfect weapon possible. This sounds like a white list project. (Henry explains that “white list” projects are so potentially devastating that they operate in secret without documentation. This is Eureka, after all.)
The problem is that the director is the only person who would know about this project, but Fargo is the director. So, if Fargo created the white list project before the timeline switch, he won’t remember where it’s located or what its purpose is. Fargo does think, though, that if he did create a white list project, he would have located it in Section 5.
A quick trip to Section 5 locates the positron lighting storm. In order to turn it off, they have to ground the positrons, but this will be extremely dangerous (this is Eureka, after all). Andy volunteers, and with Carter and Dr. Grant’s help, is able to to shut down the positron lightning storm. He gets totally demolished in the process, but he’ll be okay once they repair and reboot him.
Time to wrap up some loose ends: It turns out the “it” Tess was talking about was the idea of moving in with Carter. Jo is still depressed that she didn’t say “yes” when Zane first asked her to marry him. The bridge device is dead, and the energy field is decayed beyond repair, which means that the new alternate universe is going to be permanent. They decide they can’t tell anyone.
Are all these changes a good thing? On balance, I suspect they are. I wanted more Fargo, and I got it. I wanted them to bring back Andy, and I got that too. Henry got a love interest. An interesting new character name Dr. Grant portrayed by a great actor has been introduced. Even the negative thing — the return of Tess — might be good if they play it right (the scene where the electric shock sent her flying across the room was hilarious. Hopefully we’ll see more of that). So, I am tentatively optimistic.
Rating: 3 / 5 Stars
