Can someone explain Eureka to me?

I hate to say it, but you really should watch the pilot.... and first season, it'll fill in a lot of the blanks.

Sheriff Carter "stumbled" upon Eureka and they were so impressed with him, they gave him a job.

The town is full of smart people.

Stark is obsessed with this thing called the Artifact.

Every week there's some high tech snaffu and Carter is part of solving those snaffu's

 

I haven't watched this season yet, so I don't know what kind of mystery is going on for sure, but Eureka is basically a "company town" made up of super-smart eggheads who mostly work for the local think-tank (I can't think of the name of the company right now). They do mostly government work from what I remember, inventing new stuff that the general public doesn't know about and will not "hit the market" for several years into the future. The Sheriff stumbled upon it with his daughter in the pilot when he got caught in a time distortion field that ended up killing the original Sheriff. He was asked to take over when they realized that while he wasn't book smart, he was a talented detective/lawdog.

 

...and one ongoing theme of the show is that all the smart people are often too smart to figure stuff out, while the sheriff is just simple enough.

 

While there is an underlying plot line that ties the episodes together (the "Artifact" and the accident investigation), each episode stands well on its own with a "disaster of the week" that nobody BUT the non-genius sheriff can seem to solve (too much over-thinking I guess).

From the Sci-Fi website...

A (CONFIDENTIAL) TOWN HISTORY

As World War II came to a close with mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the impact that science and technology would have on the continued security of our world became catastrophically apparent. America nearly lost the race to build the atomic bomb; it could not risk such a close call again.

With the help of Albert Einstein and other trusted advisors, President Harry S. Truman commissioned a top-secret residential development in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest, one that would serve to protect and nurture America's most valuable intellectual resources. There our nation's greatest thinkers, the über-geniuses working on the next era of scientific achievement, would be able to live and work in a supportive environment.

The best architects and planners were commissioned to design a welcoming place for these superlative geniuses to reside, an area that would offer the best education for their children, the best healthcare, the best amenities and quality of life. A community was created to rival the most idyllic of America's small towns — with one major difference: this town would never appear on any maps. At least, none that haven't been classified "eyes only" by the Pentagon.

Thus, the town of Eureka was born. But for all its familiar, small-town trappings, things in this secret hamlet are anything but ordinary. The stereotype of the absent-minded professor exists for a reason, and most of the quantum leaps in science and technology during the past 50 years were produced by Eureka's elite researchers. Unfortunately, scientific exploration is rarely what one expects, and years of experiments gone awry have yielded some peculiar by-products.

From unrequited love to professional jealousy, from addiction to depression, the problems of Eureka's townsfolk stem from life's myriad of everyday challenges. But with the population's unique talents, troubled psyches and limitless resources, these small-town concerns have a way of becoming big-time problems. It is at that intersection, where human frailty and super-science collide, that Eureka begins….

 

"Northern Exposure" meets "Erie Indiana".

 

I'd like to add that Henry is brought in to solve every problem that the town has. Apparently, Eureka would have destroyed itself years ago if he wasn't around...

 

Big, secret company full of braniacs = Global Dynamics.

Apparently, the town (or at least GD) is behind some sort of force-field that hides it from the rest of the world. One of the early episodes showed the sheriff driving through it.

Of course, the government is secretly keeping tabs on everything and everyone there...

It's a nice, mindless bit of entertainment. Don't get too caught up in trying to follow the science, though.

 

Yes, I thought there was something keeping it from the general public but the Sherriff's ex-wife showed up on one episode - how did she find it?

 

The town isn't hidden, just the company. That's how the sheriff arrived in the first place, stuck in a rain storm.

Great show. Rent the season 1 dvds, love the commentaries so far.

 

Sci-Fi channel is showing all of season 1 in November. On 11/7 there is a marathon starting with the two hour pilot and episode 2, followed by the last 5 episodes of season 1. Then on 11/29 there is another marathon, which naturally starts by reshowing the final 3 episodes, followed by episodes 3 through 7. This schedule is actually quite sane compared to the order in which they're currently rerunning the season 2 episodes.

I started watching with season 2, so I'm interested to see the first season.

 

Actually the original Sheriff wasn't killed. He was hurt and retired and suggested Carter replace him.

J

 

Season 1 and the episodes of season 2 are available on Amazon Unbox if you use it/have Windows. I grabbed the episodes and put them on my media PC, then blew through season 1 last week. I agree that it is worth watching at least the pilot and final episode of season 1 to catch up, if you don't have time to watch the whole season (which is only about 13 episodes.)

 

I am especially impressed that Harry has a name tag for all the town offices he fulfills.

I remember one show where he switched from Mechanic to Medical Examiner without pausing in his dialog.