If you caught Eureka this past summer, you saw something amazing: an old trope used in a truly new way. Many shows have had their alternate-timeline episodes (every Star Trek, to begin with), but Eureka is the first TV show I have seen to go to an alternate timeline and stay (rather like the Star Trek movie reset, in fact). The writers kept us guessing, till the last moment of the last episode, whether our main characters would, in fact, stay in the alternate timeline they accidentally (or, possibly, by Keven the autistic genius' design) landed in. In the finale, especially, they played with our expectation (or fear) that the season would "reset," sending characters and relationships back where they started. But, thank goodness, the alternate timeline was confirmed as the new reality.
Stepping sideways this season made an already good show better. The writers were able to keep everything that was working well (the main characters, the zany science mysteries), and revitalize everything that had stalled. The characters we have grown to know and love were thrust into new situations, and given new challenges; the accident-prone Fargo, for example, suddenly found himself the head of GD, a puppet of the DOD. Relationship drama burst out like daisies in spring: Jack and Alison finally got together; Jo and Zane never were together (though Jo still loved him, of course); Henry found himself married for years to someone he'd just met. In addition, the morally ambiguous time-travel stowaway Dr. Grant stole scene after scene and kept us wondering. No one walks the line between evil and misguided like James Callis, who walked the line between evil and crazy as Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Gallactica for years. It's a shame he seems to be written out of the regular cast by the end of the season finale.
I hear Eureka is taking a page from Doctor Who's book and bringing us a Christmas special this year. Now that's something to sing Hallelujah about.
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