TVSquad

It's been a long time (almost a year at this point) since Sci Fi's surprise hit Eureka has been on the air. The show, a casualty of last year's writers strike and this year's recession woes, returns next Friday, July 10 at 9 PM with the final 10 episodes of season 3.

Series star Colin Ferguson and co-creator Jamie Paglia spoke to reporters on a media call and dished a little dirt on all the mid-season drama that's coming up. After the jump we'll get into Sheriff Carter finally having a "real honest love interest," the possibility of two well-liked characters making a re-appearance on the show, and, sadly, the one face that we won't be seeing (at all) around Eureka. Just a heads up to serious spoiler-phobes, there's an answer to at least one question you may want to avoid.

(S03E04) "Ohh, dude." -- Jack Carter, on learning he would have to memorize a formula for the next time loop shift.

Boy, I do loves me a Groundhog Day episode! No, I don't mean an episode of a show where they pull a helpless groundhog out of its hole in the cold of winter just to "predict" what's coming up in the next six weeks. I'm talking an episode that features some sort of time loop where a character or characters relive a particular day over and over again. As they go along they learn from the mistakes they made in previous loops. Eventually, through some way that usually isn't understandable, the time loop is closed and things move forward. It's been done on past shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files.

Now, Eureka joins their ranks with another Groundhog Day episode. At first, I was looking forward to the episode. And, as it progressed, I really enjoyed how the story expanded and how Carter put the pieces together. Then, came the solution and....Oh, no no no no no! (SPOILERS AHEAD)

(S03E02) "This is the best season yet!" -- Fargo, speaking about the ongoing adventures in Lab 27.

Now that the storylines for this season have been established by last week's season premiere, and the gratuitous product placement has been introduced, Eureka moved ahead with an episode that was straight out of a Sci Fi Channel original movie. Except, you know, more entertaining. Not that those Sci Fi movies aren't entertaining, mind you. You have to have a very broad imagination to make a movie about Noah's Ark holding evil spirits bent on destroying the world.

But, I digress. What makes Eureka a refreshing change of pace in the science fiction genre is, while everyone in the town is brilliant and talented and unique in their own way, they are human. In other words, they have their own personal feelings and foibles. Yet, in Eureka, they are able to all work together to keep the town what it is. And, when someone or something comes around to throw off the balance these geniuses react.