Eureka
Also known as	A Town Called Eureka
Genre	Science fiction Comedy drama
Created by	Andrew Cosby Jaime Paglia
Starring	Colin Ferguson Salli Richardson-Whitfield Joe Morton Debrah Farentino Jordan Danger Ed Quinn Erica Cerra Neil Grayston Niall Matter Matt Frewer Tembi Locke James Callis
Theme music composer	Mark Mothersbaugh John Enroth
Opening theme	"Eureka on My Mind"
Ending theme	"Eureka on My Mind" (season 1) "Carter's Theme" (seasons 2–5)
Composers	Bear McCreary Mark Mothersbaugh Mutato Muzika
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	77(TV episodes) + 8(webisodes)(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Jaime Paglia Bruce Miller Matthew Hastings Stephen Welke Paula Yoo Wendy Wallace
Production locations	Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	44 minutes
Production companies	Universal Media Studios (2006–2008)[a] Universal Cable Productions (2008–2012)
Original release
Network	Sci-Fi Channel
Release	July 18, 2006 (2006-07-18) – July 16, 2012 (2012-07-16)
Related
Warehouse 13

Eureka (stylized asEUR^eKA) is an Americanscience fiction television series that premiered onSci-Fi Channel (renamed Syfy in 2009) on July 18, 2006. The fifth and final season ended on July 16, 2012. The show is set in the fictional town of Eureka, SouthernOregon (although in the pilot episode Eureka was located inWashington – and the origin of a diamond in the episode "Best in Faux" was shown asEureka, California). Most residents of Eureka are scientific geniuses who work for Global Dynamics – an advanced research facility responsible for the development of nearly all major technological breakthroughs since its inception. Each episode featured a mysterious accidental or intentional misuse of technology, which the townsheriff,Jack Carter, dealt with, with the help of the town scientists. Each season also featured a largerstory arc that concerned a particular major event or item.

The series was created byAndrew Cosby andJaime Paglia and produced byUniversal Media Studios. While initially lacking in critical acclaim,Eureka was a ratings success for the network, averaging 3.2 million viewers during the second half of season three.^[1] In 2007, Eureka was nominated for theEmmy Award forOutstanding Visual Effects for a Series, and won theLeo Award for Best Visual Effects in a Dramatic Series.^[2] In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the show airs onSyfy and is known asA Town Called Eureka, although it is also shown under its original title on theBT Vision platform.^[3]

Deputy United States Marshal Jack Carter stumbles upon Eureka while transporting a fugitive prisoner (his own rebellious teenage daughterZoe) back to her mother's home in Los Angeles. When a faulty experiment cripples thesheriff of Eureka, Carter finds himself quickly chosen to fill the vacancy. Despite not being a genius like most members of the town, Jack Carter demonstrates a remarkable ability to connect to others, keen and practical insights, and a dedication to preserving the safety of Eureka.

Eureka takes place in a high tech fictional community of the same name, located in the U.S. state of Oregon and inhabited by brilliant scientists. Camouflaged by an electromagnetic shield, the town is operated by a corporation called Global Dynamics (GD), which is overseen by theUnited States Department of Defense. The town's existence and location are closely guarded secrets.

• Sheriff Jack Carter, portrayed byColin Ferguson, is a U.S. Marshal who reluctantly ends up as the sheriff of Eureka. Jack is consistently dumbfounded by the wonders Eureka produces, as well as its propensity to produce things that often threaten the entire town (or world). Despite being a man of average intelligence in a town full of geniuses, Jack's admittedly simple ideas and his intuition often save the day.
• Zoe Carter, portrayed byJordan Danger (seasons 1–3, recurring in seasons 4–5), is Jack's rebellious teenage daughter. Unlike her father, she is intelligent enough to keep up with the town's residents. Yet, like her father, she also possessesstreet smarts, something lacking for most of the town's residents. She hopes to attendHarvard Medical School and become a physician and later does due to the alternate timeline.
• Dr. Allison Blake, portrayed bySalli Richardson-Whitfield, is a Department of Defense agent who acts as the liaison between Global Dynamics and the federal government in season one. Later, she becomes the head of Global Dynamics. Allison, unmarried, is mother of Kevin, who hasautism, but is shown to have improved symptoms in an alternate timeline (apparently attributable to high-tech cranial implants).
• Dr. Henry Deacon, portrayed byJoe Morton, is the townjack of all trades and a brilliant scientist. Henry has ethical objections to the kind of research conducted at Global Dynamics, so he prefers to be employed as the town's mechanic. Henry's assistance is often invaluable in defusing the bad situations that are created by experiments at Global Dynamics.
• Dr. Jim Taggart, portrayed byMatt Frewer, is a somewhat eccentric animal expert. He works ingeophysics.
• Vincent, portrayed byChris Gauthier, is the owner of Cafe Diem.
• Dr. Nathan Stark, portrayed byEd Quinn (seasons 1–3), is one of Eureka's top scientists. He and Jack are frequently at odds, although both respect each other. On and off, he is romantically involved with Allison. He is modeled afterTony Stark, a Marvel Comics character.^[4]
• Dr. Beverly Barlowe, portrayed byDebrah Farentino (seasons 1–2, recurring in seasons 4-5), is the town psychiatrist. She secretly works for a mysterious organization known as the Consortium, which has expressed a desire to exploit Eureka's innovations by whatever means necessary.
• Josephina "Jo" Lupo, portrayed byErica Cerra (recurring in seasons 1–2, regular in seasons 3–5), is Eureka's deputy sheriff. She is a formerU.S. Army Ranger with a love of firearms.
• Dr. Douglas Fargo, portrayed byNeil Grayston (recurring in seasons 1–2, regular in seasons 3–5), is a junior scientist, treated somewhat dismissively by his peers. Accident-prone, he often ends up a victim of the disasters befalling the town, and has caused a fair share of the problems. Grayston also provides the voice of S.A.R.A.H. (Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat), thebunker home Jack and Zoe Carter live in.
• Zane Donovan, portrayed byNiall Matter (recurring in season 2, regular in seasons 3–5), is a rebellious genius who is recruited to Global Dynamics. He allegedly caused a stock market crash, and agreed to work for GD as an alternative to imprisonment.
• Dr. Grace Monroe, portrayed byTembi Locke, (seasons 4–5) a scientist, mechanic, and wife of Henry Deacon in an alternate timeline created after the Eureka Five time-traveled to 1947.

The series was created byAndrew Cosby andJaime Paglia and was produced byUniversal Media Studios. The season one original music was composed byMutato Muzika; season two and beyond were composed byBear McCreary. The executive producers were Paglia, Charles Grant Craig, and Thania St. John. While initially lacking in strong critical acclaim, Eureka had been a popular success, averaging 3.2 million viewers during the second half of season three.^[1] In 2007 Eureka was nominated for the Emmy Award forOutstanding Visual Effects for a Series and won theLeo Award for Best Visual Effects in a Dramatic Series.^[2] In the United Kingdom onSky1 the show is known asA Town Called Eureka although it is also shown under its original name on theBT Vision platform.^[3]

Characters fromEureka havecrossed over toWarehouse 13 and vice versa, and characters fromWarehouse 13 have crossed over toAlphas, making the tripletsister shows.^[5][6][7][8]

On August 17, 2010, the channel, now known as Syfy, announced that the show had been picked up for a fifth season of 13 episodes.^[9][10] Fan sites and a show writers'Twitter feed said on August 4, 2011, that the show had been picked up for a sixth and possibly final season of six episodes.^[10][11] It was then announced on August 8, 2011, thatEureka would not get a sixth season, but it would instead be canceled after season five.^[12] However, one additional episode of the fifth season was approved in order to give theseries a proper finale.^[13] On February 16, 2012, Syfy announced that the show's fifth and final season would premiere on April 16, 2012.^[14]

• Chilliwack, British Columbia – Downtown Wellington Avenue Cafe Diem set all five seasons.^[15]
• Ladysmith, British Columbia – Downtown First Avenue, Roberts Street.^[16]
• Burnaby, British Columbia –Vancouver Film Studios for the majority of the insides of Global Dynamics, Café Diem and S.A.R.A.H.^[17]

Eureka was part of Sci-Fi's developingshared fictional universe, with several characters crossing over between series:

• Global Dynamics researcherDouglas Fargo (played byNeil Grayston) fromEureka traveled to South Dakota to updateWarehouse 13's computer system in theWarehouse 13 episode "13.1". Warehouse 13 computer wizardClaudia Donovan (played byAllison Scagliotti) subsequently traveled to the town of Eureka, Oregon to check out the technological marvels at Global Dynamics in theEureka episode "Crossing Over".

• Fargo again appeared in theWarehouse 13 episode "Don't Hate the Player" when Claudia, Lattimer, and Bering traveled to Palo Alto, California to find Fargo beta testing avirtual reality simulator with the aid of a dangerous artifact.

• Additionally,Hugo Miller spent some time in the town of Eureka, departing with Douglas Fargo at the end of episode "13.1"; he returns in "Love Sick", commenting that, "every week [there] something seems to go 'boom'!" His presence there is off screen.

The series premiere was watched by 4.1 million people, making it the top-rated cable program for that night; it was the highest-rated series launch inSci-Fi's fourteen-year history.^[18] The season two premiere drew 2.5 million viewers, making it the top-rated cable program of the day.^[19]

For calendar-year 2008 as a first-run, the series delivered 1.42 million viewers in the 18–49 demographic.^[20]

The third season premiere was viewed by 2.8 million viewers, and the season 3.5 premiere ofEureka earned 2.68 million viewers in its new time slot.^[21] The fourth season premiere was viewed by 2.5 million viewers.^[22] The fifth season premiere was viewed by 1.8 million viewers,^[23] on par with season four's closing episode "One Giant Leap".^[24] The fifth season closer "Just Another Day" generated 1.58 million viewers.^[25]

Critical reaction was mixed, with general praise for the premise, but overall middling reaction to the writing of the pilot.

TheSeattle Post-Intelligencer:^[26]

It's all very quirky. Too quirky, maybe, for an audience that is used to spaceships, robots, and explosions. Though every episode promises an "aha!" moment based in quantum physics and obscure scientific laws, this world is relatively flat, conceptually speaking, in comparison to the complexity woven into series such asStargate SG-1 andBattlestar Galactica. This does not meanEureka is a complete waste of time. Not at all. The characters are fun,Ferguson is believable and pleasant, the script is solidly constructed, and the visuals are slickly produced. All in all, it's a sweet series and probably not long for this world.

TheNew York Daily News:^[27]

With its playful new seriesEureka, set in the Pacific Northwest and telling the story of an outsider who comes to explore, and settle in, a remote town full of eccentrics, Sci-Fi Channel isn't just inviting comparisons toTwin Peaks andNorthern Exposure. It's demanding them. But co-creators Andrew Cosby and Jaime Paglia hold up to them pretty well.Eureka has a premise, a cast and a plot that make it one of the TV treats of the summer. The folks at Sci-Fi Channel clearly intended to reinvent the summer TV series here, and come up with something breezy and fun. AndEureka – they've done it!

• Eureka was nominated for a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. The other nominees wereGrey's Anatomy,Heroes,Rome, andBattlestar Galactica (the winner).^[28]
• On August 21, 2010,Eureka was honoured with an award for its scientific, andcritical thinking content, from TheIndependent Investigations Group during its 10th Anniversary Gala. The award was accepted by head writer Ed Fowler.^[29]

On August 8, 2011, it was announced thatEureka would be cancelled after five seasons.^[30] Syfy decided not to order a season six ofEureka: "ButEureka 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."^[31]

With the announcement of the show's cancellation, a fan campaign onsocial media emerged. Thousands of fans protested what they thought was the network's decision.^{[32][unreliable source?]} Executive producerAmy Berg clarified that the decision to cancel the show was made byComcast, the controlling partner atNBCUniversal, which owns Syfy.

Everyone is asking why. It's simple, really. We are the network's golden child in every way, exceptprofit margins. Fact is, #Eureka is an expensive show to make. And we could not maintain the quality of our show with the cuts it would take to make us profitable for Syfy's new parent company. Our creative execs at Syfy fought hard to keep us. Trust me, they LOVE us. We just couldn't make the numbers work.

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All five seasons ofEureka have been released to Region 1 and region 2 on DVD. Seasons 1–4 have been released in region 4. Season 3 and 4 were released in two separate sets for each season in region 1 and 2.

In 2014, Universal released the complete series to the German market as an 18-disc Blu-Ray box set (akaEureka: Die Komplette Serie orEureka Gesamtbox). This set is region-free and will play on Region A (North America) players. It is available to American buyers via online retailers. This set retains the original English-language audio. Titles and on-screen instructions can be switched to English in the disc menus.

In 2020, Mill Creek Entertainment released the complete series to the American market as a 12-disc Blu-Ray box set. Extras mostly mirror those in the 2014 box set, though two extended episodes from the 2014 set are not included. Critical and buyer reviews report this set has significant issues with video quality.

A soundtrack was released on August 26, 2008 on La La Land Records.^[34] The album consists of 28 tracks from the show's second season. It also includes two variations of theMark Mothersbaugh and John Enroth composed main theme.

All five seasons ofEureka are now available for viewing on-demand on

• Amazon Prime Video (for American Prime members)
• The Roku Channel for allRoku owners.

In early 2009,Boom! Studios produced acomic book series based on storylines provided by Andrew Cosby (who is also the co-founder of the comic publisher), written byBrendan Hay, with art by Diego Barreto.^[35] This was followed by a second 4-issue series calledEureka: Dormant Gene written by Andrew Cosby, Jaime Paglia and Jonathan L. Davis, with art by Mark Dos Santos.^[36]

• Eureka: Substitution Method.Cris Ramsay, New York:Ace, August 2010.ISBN 9780441018857
• Eureka: Brain Box Blues. Cris Ramsay, New York: Ace, November 2010.ISBN 9780441019830
• Eureka: Road Less Traveled. Cris Ramsay, New York: Ace, March 2011.ISBN 9780441019021

In 2011,Colin Ferguson appeared onDisasterpiece Theatre, discussing whatEureka might look like if directed byMichael Bay.^[37] In 2012,Niall Matter also made an appearance on the podcast, discussing howEureka would function as a"romcom".^[38]

In May 2012, Ferguson appeared onTabletop, a show onGeek & Sundry, where during the course of the episode he discusses his experiences and character inEureka. The Geek & Sundry network is co-hosted, among others, byFelicia Day andWil Wheaton, who made various appearances onEureka.^[39]

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