By Christina Radish
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Colin Ferguson at the TV Guide Emmy Awards after-party held at Social in Hollywood, Calif. on August 27, 2006. |
Last season, the Sci-Fi Channel introduced viewers to the unusual town of Eureka, where superlative geniuses live and work in a supportive environment. Although the secret town will never appear on any maps, most of the quantum leaps in science and technology during the past 50 years were produced by Eureka’s elite researchers. However, scientific exploration is rarely what one expects, and years of experiments gone awry have yielded some peculiar by-products.
In season one of Eureka -- the Sci-Fi Channel’s highest-rated original series of 2006 -- newly separated lawman Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) was driving his teenage daughter, Zoe (Jordan Hinson), home to Los Angeles from Seattle when their car crashed outside the strange, quirky town, setting in motion a sequence of events that have resulted in him becoming the town’s new sheriff. This season, Jack will have to not only deal with his 16-year-old daughter’s teenage drama, but also face the return of his estranged wife.
Montreal native Colin Ferguson, along with creator/executive producer Jaime Paglia and executive producer Charlie Craig, share hints with MediaBlvd Magazine about what’s in store for his character and the crazy town of Eureka on season two.
MediaBlvd Magazine> Before the show launched and set the ratings records for the Sci-Fi Channel, what were your expectations for Eureka? Did you have a gut feeling that the show would be successful?
Colin Ferguson> No, but I’m pessimistic. We make the show in a void and, even though we’re all converts and we’re doing the best job that we can, you really have no clue how it’s going to premiere or what it’s going to do. And so, when it did come back as favorably as it did, it was a huge sigh of relief for everybody, and I think we’re all really grateful for it.
Jaime Paglia> All of us enjoyed the show last season, and we just hoped that other people would find something that they liked, too. The fact that they did and they embraced it was just really lucky, and an amazing gift.
Charlie Craig> I wasn’t here the first season, but I can say that almost all shows fail in the first season. Frankly, I think anything that survives has proven itself already, so I can only imagine how excited these guys were.
MediaBlvd> The advertising promotion for the second season is very environmentally conscious. What was the inspiration for that, and how will that affect plot lines in season two?
Jaime> That was a happy circumstance, in that the “Visions for Tomorrow” campaign is something that Sci-Fi’s been involved with, as a channel. We definitely consciously try to look for the environmental messages that we can get into the show because I think all of us would like to be doing things that are going to be helpful to the planet, as opposed to destructive. This season, in particular, we just happened to have a few more episode ideas that were much more in that vein -- dealing with things like global warming and recycling, and all those things.Colin> In one of the episodes, we talk extensively about Eureka having the most advanced waste reduction system in the world. And, a direct counterpoint to that is the episode where we talked about boiling a lake to get us out of trouble. We walk both sides of the line, for sure.
MediaBlvd> Have any of you had a moment in your life or career that just proved to be so significant, but at the same time, you wondered where the idea came from?
Charlie> For me, it’s probably programming a VCR.
Jaime> I have not figured out how to program my VCR yet. I think the moment I discovered that I actually could get TiVo, it made things so much easier. That changed my life.
Colin> In an increasingly technological society, we’re all constantly exposed to new technology. That’s one of the appeals of the show is. People see that in their own life. Everyone’s constantly having these moments of, “Okay I can do it. I can make this work.”
Charlie> On our show, we reward curiosity. We have characters who do things in ways that other people wouldn’t try them. That’s the only way you’re ever going to get a “Eureka!” moment. It’s persistence, but it’s also thinking outside the box and looking at things from a different perspective. That’s how you get to places that no one even knew you were trying to get to.
MediaBlvd> Don’t you find it ironic and interesting that brainiac qualities, that cause the super smart to be ridiculed and beat on as kids, are the same qualities that allow them to gain power, fortune and glory, as adults?
Jaime> We’ve tried to play with those things that, as kids, make you popular or put you in those different cliques. Hopefully, you are a person of substance in the world and that, ultimately, is what becomes important. It’s fun to play with those expectations on the show.
Colin> I was watching CNN a little while ago and they had a report about how the dot com boom was in Seattle and San Francisco because those communities encourage outside-the-box thinking. They said that people who have been either put, or who live, outside of the box, have a perspective on things that helps their genius develop the high-end stuff. That was pretty neat.
MediaBlvd> In the first season, you covered nanotechnology and time travel, among other things. What kind of phenomenons or technology can we look forward to in season two?
Jaime> We are dealing with the weather, which was something that we wanted to do. We really wanted to try to find more character-driven storylines. What happens if, all of a sudden, Carter is the most intelligent person in town? What happens if a family member is reunited with you, in a way that you had never anticipated before? What happens when your ex-wife shows up after a year? The new storylines have a direct impact. We spent close to a month in the writer’s room, saying, “Okay, let’s just look at all of our characters and see what journey we want them to travel on, from the first episode until the last.” We built arcs for them, over the course of the season, and then, we went back and looked at all of our long lists of ideas and thought, “Thematically, what would be a good choice, for this particular episode, given what we want to have happen with those characters?” And, I think that we’ve really managed to stay true to that, for the course of the season.
Charlie> Thus, you have the story about the unpredictability of weather and the attempts to control it and make it predictable. That would be in an episode, in which Carter’s ex-wife shows up, unannounced. That’s the most unpredictable thing you can imagine happening, in several of our characters’ lives. And, we have an episode about a personal force field, and what happens when that goes awry. The person who chooses a personal force field is someone who’s really seeking contact from people, and is now barred from having that contact. We try to be layered here in our approaches.
MediaBlvd> How do you come up with some of the scientific gadgets and experiments?
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The cast of Eureka talks to the online media at the SCI FI Channel Digital Press Event, June 2007. Photo by Eike Schroter/SCI FI Channel. |
Jaime> We have subscribed to pretty much every techie magazine that there is, and those are constantly available in the writers’ room. We do a lot of online research. We have a great science tech advisor -- Kevin Grazier, over at JPL -- who comes up with things as well, along with the stuff that you pick up in the news, every day. There’s always something bizarre that someone finds and brings in, and we say, “That could be an interesting idea for a plot.”
Charlie> On the other hand, we’ll say something like, “We want to talk about a machine that can predict the weather.” Then, we do the research and find out what’s capable now, and what should be possible in the future, and then, we attach the facts to the idea that we have. When we tell a story about a personal force field generator that’s not really out there yet, there are elements of that story that are realistic and are being tested for various things, so we have to take that leap and say, “Where might we get 50 years from now, knowing what we know today?”
MediaBlvd> Is there anything that you guys have wanted to do that you just couldn’t fit into a plot line?
Colin> The great thing about working on this show is that everyone and their brother has an idea, which is really fun. It’s a very fertile environment. But, we only have 13 stories that we can tell , so the guys have to be really selective.
MediaBlvd> Which of the crazy Eureka inventions do you think you’d want to make use of in real life, especially if all the bugs were worked out, before you ever get your hands on it?
Colin> There are two of them, and this speaks volumes about how self-centered I am. I go back to Blink because I would like to run really fast and be like The Flash. Maybe it just keys into the 10-year-old boy inside of me, but I think that just seems like the coolest thing. Or, the hover-board. They’re such incidental inventions, as far as the show goes. You have The Artifact and all these grandiose inventions, but I’m a sucker for a good toy. I think that’s what I’d really enjoy.
MediaBlvd> Are there any inventions that you would never use, or that you would find very silly?
Colin> Yeah, the time travel one. If the show waited for every invention to be properly researched and safe, then we wouldn’t have much of a plot.
Jaime> I’m sure that I would never use the mind-meld machine to read somebody else’s thoughts. That’s just a bad idea.
MediaBlvd> What are you doing with the overall plot that you started in the first season, in regard to there being a conspiracy against Eureka?
Jaime> From my standpoint, last season, we did not get a chance to explore that in as great a depth as we had originally intended. Part of that was just the process of making the show. Part of it was re-ordering episodes and having to lift out storylines because they no longer made sense, out of order. This season, we made a concerted effort in the writers’ room to say, “Let’s make sure that we are doing justice to that,” and explaining things like who the Consortium is and what Beverly Barlowe is up to and what really is happening with this thing called The Artifact. We want to give the audience answers this season, as opposed to just more questions. And, from an investigator’s perspective, that very complicated plot gets all the more complicated in the first episode back. I can’t say why, but if you watch it, you’ll see. At the end of last season, Kim (Tamlyn Tomita) was killed. From my perspective, that’s the key into that whole plotline. So, there’s a really long road to unravel, which we start with, right off the bat.
MediaBlvd> What exactly is the season-long story arc that will be the serialized storyline this season?
Jaime> Obviously, we wanted to address the impact that Kim’s death going to have on the relationship between Henry (Joe Morton) and Carter. That ties directly into the storyline that we began last season with The Artifact and the people who are interested in getting to it and understanding it. And, Allison is now being thrust into the role of being the Director, and Kevin has a very special connection to The Artifact. So, those are things that are all going to be playing out, over the entire course of the season. We don’t hit them in every episode, but every few episodes, we’ll be expanding on that storyline.
MediaBlvd> Colin, when your character first got to Eureka he was a U.S. Marshal. Would you like to see more of his past explored on the show?
Colin> Yeah, as long as it fits into the plot that we’re telling now. It would be interesting, on a character level, just to see what his past used to be, but he’s someone who’s leaving his past behind. The guys did an amazing job in the off-season. We all got together and talked about what we wanted to do for the second season. Carter’s still whining and not wanting to be there, and we collectively agreed that it would be more interesting, and give it some place to go, if over second season, he really attempts to embrace the town, embrace his daughter and step up as a father. In that sense, he goes from the guy you see the town through, to an actual character in the town. It would be interesting to see what his past was, as a guy who’s leaving that behind. I think it plays into his present enough. I’m curious about it.
Jaime> We’ve definitely layered in storylines that do directly reveal things about Carter’s past. One, in particular, has to do with his daughter and driving lessons. We try to find moments for that, here and there, so that you are constantly remembering that these are people that have had lives before being here. We want to delve into that as much as we can.
Charlie> On the other hand, we’ve toyed with the idea of a criminal from Carter’s past, coming to town, but those stories all start to not feel like Eureka stories. They start to feel like other television show-type stories. And, one of the biggest challenges on this show is to not tell stories that you could also have told on anything, from CSI to Matlock. If there’s not something really particular that makes it a part of this town, there’s no point in telling that story. There are only so many elements from the past that you can bring in realistically, without losing what you’re trying to say about this town.
Colin> The most interesting one we actually do this season is when my ex-wife comes to town. What a monkey wrench that is, holy smokes. That really turns everything on its ear, for a while.
MediaBlvd> What can viewers expect will be going on with some of the secondary characters on the show?
Colin> There’s tons of stuff that goes on. Lupo (Erica Cerra) starts experimenting with potentially starting to date somebody, which is a revelation for her character. Carter’s daughter is 16 now, so boys are around, and that will have ramifications on my character. My ex-wife comes to town, so that will affect Allison (Salli Richardson). Allison is pursuing Stark (Ed Quinn), and making sure that relationship stays on track. There’s just a lot of stuff going on.
Charlie> With Zoe, there will a big difference, now that she’s 16 years old. She’s going to want a car, and she’s going to learn how to drive, and there is relationship stuff that happens with her, on the boyfriend front, as well as the fact that her mother is coming to town. Fargo (Neil Grayston) is going to get some deeper family relations, in an episode. There’s a lot that takes place around Kevin (Meshach Peters), Allison’s son, that affects her life. We’re just trying to add detail to the lives they already had, so that they become even more real and dimensional characters.
MediaBlvd> Are you introducing new characters this season?
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Colin Ferguson and the cast of Eureka talk to the press at SCI FI's Digital Media Event. Photo by Eike Schroter/SCI FI Channel. |
Jaime> We’re bringing in a new potential love interest for Jo (Erica Cerra). There’s also a new love interest for Zoe (Jordan Hinson). We set out this year to try to increase the population in the town. It’s nice that you can create a story involving some new guest character, and then, if you like that person and they work out, as an actor and as a character, a couple stories down the line, you say, “Let’s bring Zoe’s friend back ‘cause she was fun to have. She’d be a good person to be in this episode.” That way, we can expand the level of people in this town.
Colin> And, from a day to day perspective, it’s the smartest way to go. You can plan these huge arcs, but if you’ve got the wrong person, you’re screwed. So, the fact that the guys are writing people in and really seeing who clicks with everybody before they move forward, is just so smart.
MediaBlvd> What is the experience like, of acting with the disembodied voice for your house?
Colin> It sucks. You have no one to look at. Odds are, the person reading the dialogue is outside of the house, yelling over a wall, so that you can hear them. We’ve figured out how to do it now, but for the first season, it was challenging…
Charlie> When Colin’s acting, he’s not hearing the voice you’re hearing on TV. Here’s hearing the script coordinator read a line out of a script, so it’s not even like he gets to act with the actual character. He gets to act with whoever happens to be able to read the lines, while they’re standing next to the camera, so it’s about as far removed from the real experience as possible.
Colin> What is fun about it is that you know there’s no cutaway. You know that everything you do has got to work, so it’s more like a fun exercise. It becomes more of a game, to get through the scene and make it interesting enough to watch.
Jaime> One of the things that Colin actually brings to the show is his ability to do that. He can play scenes with his expressions, in ways that you can’t always anticipate how you’re going to script it. He’s great.
Colin> Just to make it clear, SARAH’s a fantastic character, and I love working with that character. I really enjoy that. The actual technical aspect of doing that part of the show is just a little trying, sometimes.
MediaBlvd> Unlike other sci-fi shows, you really manage to keep the techno-babble down. How do you do that?
Jaime> We want the show to be accessible and fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. But, at the same time, we want to be as reality-based as we can. Whenever we are talking to our science advisor, he gives us the most technical way to say something, and then, we try to make it more accessible, in layman’s terms, without being inaccurate.
Colin> We don’t want to belabor the technical aspect of things. They usually write that technical stuff from an emotional standpoint. There’s something invested. So, it’s way easier to say it, when it means something.
Charlie> Personally, if I can’t understand it than I just make the assumption that somebody who’s not read it six times and been in the editing room with it for three weeks won’t understand it either. You only get one shot at it, when you’re watching TV, and so, I’m always just trying to simplify things. It’s about the story and it’s about the emotional response, more than it’s about the actual level of information you’re trying to impart from a technical standpoint.
MediaBlvd> With all of the inventions and fantastical aspects of the show, how do you keep it grounded, with the normal stories?
Colin> We’re sort of lucky that all the writers and all the actors seem to have the same sensibility about where the comedy has to come from. On some shows, some people go so broad that there’s just nothing to hold on to anymore. We all want a true situation that has its own drama, before we go to the comedy. We’ve been quite lucky that we all agree.
Charlie> We try to make sure we aren’t approaching a scene to get to a joke. It’s more about the conflict, and the humor is a release of the tension. Whenever you can do that, it’s going to be that much funnier.
MediaBlvd> Do you think the show taking a bit of a darker turn this year?
Jaime> I would say that it does have a slightly darker tone this year, but I don’t think that we have lost any of the humor of the show. There’s always going to be the tone that we’ve established.
Colin> It’s one of those shows that has so many different tones to it. There’s definitely more humor in it this year, so it’s hard to quantify.
Charlie> For me, it’s a question of depth. I view this show as a comedy, so by and large, they are a lot of laughs. But, we do have a serialized mythology going on, which involves a lot of elements that are darker and more complex because we’ve had time to explore them this year. At times, it’s hard to have the level of comedy we have and, at the same time, the level of real emotion. But, when we pull it off, it’s really interesting and very rewarding.
MediaBlvd> What do you think Eureka has that other shows don’t?
Colin> I was watching one of the episodes with my sister the other day. I wanted a fresh perspective, so I said, “What do you think of it?,” and she said she likes the characters and she likes seeing the interaction of the characters within a plot. I think that’s what works. They wrote some great characters that have great relationships between them. To their credit, we’re two seasons in and we’re still holding that. They put together a group of people that actually work really well together and have a similar work ethic and morality. I’d love to sit back and say, “Yeah, they did it on purpose,” but we just got lucky. We’re grateful for it and we just want to make sure we do it justice.
Jaime> We definitely have a show that is a good combination of everybody’s expertise. The creative team works really hard to try to layer in a depth to the characters and not have this be a show that’s just about science that’s gone awry. First and foremost, we’ve always seen this as a character-driven show. With every episode, I want to be able to pull the science out of it and have it still be compelling enough to want to watch it. The science, to me, is just icing. Everybody just feels pretty lucky that we got this particular group of people together.
Charlie> And, from the writing standpoint, we try to look at the stories and figure out why we are telling this particular story, not just how we are going to tell this story and if there’s something that our characters learn. In the case of Colin’s character, we set our goals high and, when we pull it off, I think the reward is greater than if we weren’t trying quite as hard.
Colin> The guys have done a great job, this season, of writing this great serial line, through stand-alone episodes. So, you can tune in and just see one episode, but if you actually tune into every one of them, there’s another story being told, which is fantastically fun to act. That’s what makes the show a little different, or special, for me.
