South Bend Tribune, 7/27/2008
Colin Ferguson and Salli Richardson-Whitfield discuss the third season of ‘Eureka.’

Ferguson’s everyman grounds ‘Eureka’

By Jeremy D. Bonfiglio
Tribune Staff Writer

Source: features
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Edition: mich, Page E12

Colin Ferguson has shot six episodes of the upcoming third season of “Eureka,” but he’s not quite sure where the Sci Fi Channel series is headed.

“Where we’re going isn’t where I would have gone, but I don’t think I’m right,” he says by telephone from the show’s Vancouver set.

The quirky series, which returns at 9 p.m. Tuesday, follows the exploits of Sheriff Jack Carter (Ferguson) as he tries to keep order in a community of geniuses whose top-secret research inadvertently and frequently threatens the town’s citizens.

Although Season 3 will continue to delve into the classified inner-workings of the Global Dynamics laboratory run by Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) and Dr. Nathan Stark (Ed Quinn), the writers have apparently abandoned Season 2’s more dramatic formula. Or have they?

“All the guys on the set think it’s so different this year,” Richardson-Whitfield says by telephone, “but I think these episodes fall into where it’s supposed to be. It has this goofiness that’s back. Last year was a little dark.”

Judging from Tuesday’s opener, it appears both actors may be right. The third season begins with Carter tracking down a rampaging fighter drone that has escaped just as corporate troubleshooter Eva Thorne, aka The Fixer (guest star Frances Fisher), arrives to streamline Eureka’s scientific excesses for commercial gain. Sure, it is a little light and leans more toward the episodic model of Season 1, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t dramatic undercurrents.

“Eureka” has found a niche by attempting to be both comedy and drama, delicately blending mystery, humor, absurdity and science fiction. And this season, unlike the previous two, the show’s writers have a little more room to maneuver through that world. The series will air eight episodes through September, then return for another 13 in January, Ferguson says. The first season had just 12 episodes, and last year had 13.

“This year, there’s definitely a lot of surprises,” Richardson-Whitfield says. “We know that Nathan asked me to remarry at the end of last season. We are planning a wedding, but what does that mean? I’ll just leave it there. We’re also all in jeopardy of losing our jobs, and there’s also a new secret about (Thorne’s) agenda in coming to Eureka.”

The series will introduce more of the Carter family when the sheriff’s freewheeling, New Age-y sister Lexi (guest star Ever Carradine) comes to stay with her brother and niece — a plotline Ferguson has called “pretty cool.”

So why isn’t Ferguson more excited about this season?

“I just tend to want to go deeper into the character and explore,” he says. “But who knows? It might cut together (and be) genius.”

If Tuesday’s episode is any indication, Ferguson’s concerns are unwarranted largely because of his own performance. He continues to find an uncanny way of portraying Carter as this sort of intelligent yet confused everyman that grounds the series no matter what tone it decides to take.

“Colin is really brilliant at bringing it down to something that’s genuinely real,” Richardson-Whitfield says. “The show deals with such outlandish stuff, but it is real life for us, and you believe it because he is always so grounded.”

When asked about that portrayal, Ferguson describes Carter as being “pretty close to the bone.”

That sentiment, perhaps more than any other, may explain the show’s appeal.

When asked about what Ferguson brings to the show, Richardson-Whitfield says it best.

“You can’t just do a show about scientists,” she says. “That just gets boring.”