Sci-Fi Storm

I don’t have a full transcript yet and I’ve been pretty busy today, but I was on a conference call with Eureka star Colin Ferguson and creator/producer Jaime Paglia this afternoon talking about the final season of Eureka, which starts Monday, April 16th, at 9/8c on Syfy. In case you weren’t following all my sporadic tweets on Twitter, here are some highlights:

• The first three episodes will spin off the storylines for the remainder of the season. You might think after Episode 3 it’s done, but it’s not. They are also very dark for Eureka episodes [Ed: DEFINITELY!], which wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision at the time.
• Colin is very proud of the first three episodes, among the best they’ve done.
• Some of the funnest episodes yet are this season. They try and push the humor as far as they can, and occasionally there will be a great big “NO!” from behind the camera…but sometimes they sneak things in…
• Jaime got to direct an episode, called “Jack of all Trades”, which is Colin’s favorite.
• Some guests will be back…Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton of course, Wallace Shawn…and a few surprises they didn’t want to spoil, especially in the last episode. James Callis will be back as Dr. Grant.
• Beverly Barlowe (Debrah Farentino) is back
• They originally planned a huge cliffhanger for the end of Season 5, which had to change with the cancellation. Then when they got the OK for one more episode, they had 5 days to prep it and do what normally takes a month or two before they had to go in front of the cameras.
• Spinoffs or movies? They’d love to do them. Colin would especially love for it to be a traveling show, going different places to solve problems. Especially the Bahamas. 🙂
• Jaime helped set the tone for everyone on the production.
• When Fringe started, they lost a lot of the crew to that show. But others internally stepped up, and improved on what they had.
• Colin won’t find out about a pickup for his new pilot, Like Father, for about a month. He hasn’t seen the completed episode, and he’s nervous about it, but he admits he’s a pessimist.
• Jaime says Colin is not only good at general comedy, but physical comedy.
• They are currently working on Season 5 DVD commentaries already, which is likely the last thing they will do together other than conventions and publicity. They will be at PhoenixCon and DragonCon, and hope there will be a “swan song” meeting at San Diego Comic-Con. Jaime will hold a finale screening for the cast.

That’s about it. Time was limited and there were a lot of press members.

I can’t stress how much we will miss this show (both of my kids are big fans!), and want to thank Colin, Jaime, and the entire cast and crew for 5 wonderful seasons.