Bad to the Drone:
Written by: Jaime PagliaDirected by: Bryan Spicer
Original airdate: July 29, 2008
Synopsis via Eureka Wiki (with edits):
Jack is concerned and not happy about the “big step” that Zoe is taking, a part-time job working at Café Diem, especially with a fusion reactor being the source of the Cafe’s power.
Allison and Stark are talking about the proposal he gave Allison, with her uncertain given their first marriage failed and that he always put his work first.
At GD, the team readies their test of the Viper, an anti aircraft defense system when Eva The Fixer Thorne comes in, assigned there by the DoD to clean things up and get things worker make efficiently and within budget.
The test begins and one drone that Dr. Edison calls Martha, is expected to beat the Viper in the test. Viper knocks out all of the drones except for Martha who somehow attacks and disables the Viper before flying off, not responding to any commands.
Jack visits Henry in prison but he fires his lawyer and says that he is guilty of everything he has been charged with. Jack tells Henry that he did it to save Allison's son and to that Henry says, “Some things can’t be forgiven.” Across town, DoD agents are collecting everything from Henry’s garage as evidence. Jo lets it slip that Stark proposed to Allison.
Jack meets Eva before he is tasked with finding and getting Martha back before any more damage happens and talks to Edison, but he has no clue what happened with Martha, saying that she is a learning computer and that she learns at an incredible rate. Jack likens her to a teenager who is temperamental and dangerous.
Martha finds her way to Cafe Diem and hovers in front of Jack’s jeep. Jo arrives and points her laser gun at her but Martha goes into battle mode and emits a sonic blast that takes out all the windows in the jeep. The two manage to get Martha to follow them to the sheriff’s station and despite turning invisible, they get her trapped in the jail cell. Martha blasts a hole in the station's wall and escapes while Stark comes by and mocks the fact that Jack thought a jail cell was going to stop Martha. Eva is there and says that since Jack has been in Eureka, the incidents have tripled, saying numbers don’t lie, insinuating that it’s Jack’s fault, while she compliments Stark's management style.
Jack and Jo arrive at Edison's house but only his wife Mina answers the door with champagne and two glasses. Edison soon pulls up and they talk in his workshop, as he has no clue where Martha is and that he did not program Martha to turn invisible like she did, but she will likely need to return home in order to recharge. Stark th en shows up with his team and bolstered by Eva’s compliments, confiscates Edison's life work.
While talking with Zane, he tells Jack that Martha could recharge with any fusion reactor and they race off to Cafe Diem. Zoe is in the fridge there looking for supplies for Vincent when she gets lost. She mistakes Martha for a shuttle robot of Vincent’s and helps Martha charge her battery who then shows her the way out of the large fridge and then disappears again.
Jack and Jo enter with blasters and try to flush Martha out when Eva and Larry enter Café Diem and Martha shows herself and shoots toward Larry and hits the book he's holding before Jack and Jo take Martha down with their proton blasters. They later find a transmitter attached to Martha and confront Edison’s wife Mina about it. Mina admits to having adjusted Edison’s programming so that Martha could out perform the drones and show her husband as a success but denies having placed the transmitter.
The investigation leads them to Larry who planted the receiver and controlled her with a device hidden with a copy of Eva’s book. He wanted to impress Eva with his technological prowess.
Back at GD, Martha awakens and escapes again, this time with the other drones. Martha goes to Zoe’s house but when Jack arrives the drone is gone and Zoe is fine, saying that she thinks Martha was trying to help Zoe get away from Jack.
Back at Global Dynamics, only a few beacons for the EM Pulse shield surrounding Eureka remain after the drones attack. Jack tells them to power down the beacons and to let Martha go, saying Martha is like a teenager that needs to blow off steam but will eventually come back and relax. Eva disagrees but Jack tells her that she was just trying to set Zoe free after Jack grounded her but Eva tells Stark to call in air support to shoot the drones down. Both Stark and Allison believe Jack, leaving Eva to call General Mansfield who orders them to get their forces in the air and attack Martha.
Jack tells Allison to lower the shield as a sign of good faith but it is up to Fargo to “accidentally” shut the shield off. Stark orders the fighters to not attack unless they are attacked first. Edison rigs up a communication device to Martha and Zoe tells Martha that running away doesn't solve any problems and that parents are there to help you out. They manage to talk the drone down and all is saved.
Back at GD, Eva is upset that her orders were not obeyed and says that they were all lucky. She puts Stark in charge of Global Dynamics on a temporary basis and puts Allison as the Director of Operations while she, Eva, will serve as Chairman.
Allison catches Jack before he leaves and thanks him and he talks with her again about Stark’s proposal to her and that he'll be there for her either way.
Later at Café Diem, Allison and Stark are talking and she finally accepts his proposal.
Back at Global Dynamics, in her new office, Eva pulls out a vial of blue liquid.
Advanced Research:
We’ve seen director Bryan Spicer before, he directed 6 episodes of Seaquest, and a season 4 episode of Heroes. He also directed 2 episodes of Eerie, Indiana.Eva “The Fixer” Thorne was played by Frances Fisher. Early in her career she was in over 250 episodes of The Edge of Night (soap opera). She was a main cast member in the remake of Attack of the 50 ft Woman, Unforgiven, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, and Night of the White Pants (the patriarch of a distinguished but crumbling Dallas family is forced to hit the town with his daughter's punk rock boyfriend) to name just a few of her many credits. She was in 5 of the 9 episodes of Watchmen, 7 of 17 episodes of Electric Easy (set in a futuristic Los Angeles in which humans struggle to co-exist with robots, known as "electrics”, forbidden love story), and she also had a run recently in The Rookie.
She played the lead role of Lucy in Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter, and the lead in Resurrection (the lives of the people of Arcadia, Missouri are forever changed when their deceased loved ones return). She had a recurring role in Sinner with Bill Pullman (Detective Ambrose employs some unusual tactics, and a deep capacity for empathy to solve his cases. His boundless dedication is driven by his dark past, leading him into powerful and often dangerously intimate bonds with his suspects). Most recently in 2025, she was a supporting cast member in The Wrong Paris (a woman joins a dating show for an art opportunity, thinking that it's in Paris, France, but it's actually in Paris, Texas).
Dr. Ethan Edison was Jonathan Young, who was in Stargate as Dr. Parrish.
Mina was played by Lauren K. Robeck. She was a main cast member in the series Critters: A New Binge back in 2019. She was also higher up on the cast list for Firefly Lane. She’s had high and low cast credits in some TV movies, such as Deadly Midwife (upon the arrival of their new baby, Lauren and Anthony hire a new mid-wife. But things may not be as they appear) and Junebug (Juniper, a book editor turning 40, is magically reconnected with an eight-year-old version of herself who questions her life choices, including the dream of writing her own stories). She was a main cast member in the movie When Mom Becomes a Murderer (after her friend's mysterious death, a teen discovers her mother isn't who she says she is and has a deadly past. Now it's a race against time to solve her friend's murder before she's next).
The term downsizing was originally coined in the 1970s by the prominent management consultant and author Charles Handy. While Handy coined it as a broader business and psychology concept, it gained mainstream popularity as a corporate and workforce reduction strategy during the U.S. recession in the early 1980s. Automakers in the U.S. coined the term in the late 1970s/early 1980s to describe the shrinking of vehicle sizes to meet new fuel economy standards.
Lee Iacocca was an American author, engineer, and executive who developed the Ford Mustang, Continental Mark III, and Ford Pinto cars while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then revived the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s. He was president of Chrysler from 1978 to 1991 and chairman and CEO from 1979 until his retirement at the end of 1992. He was one of the few executives to preside over the operations of two of the United States' Big Three automakers.
According to the records accessed by Martha in this episode, Stark is 39, Allison is 37, Larry is 25, and Eva’s age is classified and her job is corporate consultant. Zoe is shown to be 17 but it is reiterated in the episode that she is still 16.
The bunker address is also shown as 3 Coriolis Loop. The Coriolis effect is the apparent curving of moving objects, air, or water due to Earth's rotation.
Degree Deodorant is a real brand. The product appears in the first 8 episodes of the season as a new financing deal made through Syfy Channel.
What about Bob?:
Written by: Charlie Craig
Directed by: Fred Gerber
Original airdate: August 5, 2008
Synopsis:
As Eva starts making changes to Eureka, including the cutting of 75 jobs, a hiring freeze, shutting down the museum, and making sure no food is free at Cafe Diem from now on, GD has a problem on their hands as one of their scientists, Bob, that worked in self contained self sustaining 18 square mile lab/park has gone missing. The other scientists have no idea where he is and most don’t care as they don’t particularly like him since he is rather forward with people and has a history of being a bit of a sleazy womanizer. Jack decides to go in but Eva sends Alison with him.
After getting inside, one of the scientist’s daughters, Teri, is attacked but there’s no sign of what. Jack finds Bob’s ripped uniform, and then a shoe covered in a clear goo that Stark and company begin analyzing and later find out is human, kind of. Stark also says they need to begin procedures for shutting down the project and reintegrating the scientists back into the real world. Eva on the other hand, wants to quarantine the whole thing and leave everyone inside, which bothers Stark given Allison is inside.
Jack comes up with a plan to trap whatever attacked Teri and eventually trap and capture Bob except he has begun to change into a lizard type creature. Stark theorizes it is some kind of reverse evolution and goes to Henry for his help, using a holographic version of him to enter the biosphere.
Teri soon goes to Jack to show him that she and the others have started mutating as well. They get very little answers from Bob as to who would have wanted to do this to him, but going back to his garden they see his plants look as if they were torched. With Henry and Stark saying that the sun could have affected the water supply, Jack confronts Derek and he comes clean. He was trying to make Bob sick so he’d have to leave the biosphere and not be able to bother Teri who he was in a sort of long distance relationship with, not knowing that his plans would affect the water and everyone else as well.
Stark, Henry, and Zane begin work on the cure but it will take time. They save some time by borrowing one of Jo’s biggest guns to deliver the cure for the mutation to the affected scientists, which Stark brings himself into the biosphere.
Meanwhile Bob breaks free and kidnaps Allison. They try to shoot Bob with the cure but he manages to evade them. Teri shows up as bait to lure Bob out and it works with Bob trying to grab Teri but she is only a hologram, like Henry, which distracts Bob enough for Jack to shoot Bob with the cure.
Soon enough Bob and all the scientists are cured and back to normal. Eva meanwhile, has questions about Henry and asks Zane about him.
While Eva watches them through a monitor, Jack lets Henry watch the sunset, something that Henry had expressed a desire to see again since he had been locked up and unable to do so.
Back at Café Diem, Eva reveals to Jack that all of the changes she had planned are cancelled and that the balance in Eureka is back. Henry comes in, revealing that Eva granted him a pardon.
Elsewhere, Eva watches old movie clips of Eureka and some nuclear tests that occurred there back in the late 1930’s.
Advanced Research:
Director Fred Gerber directed 2 episodes of the reboot series Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension.
Woody Jeffreys played Bob Nobb. He’s mostly an extra here and there, with 84 credits. He has had a number of TV movie lead roles, such as A Wife’s Suspicion (a forensic investigator begins to suspect her new husband is the serial killer the police department has been hunting. This puts her and her ex-boyfriend -- a detective on the case -- in danger), Betting on the Bride (a womanizer bets that he can get someone to accept his marriage proposal after just 30 days of dating. What he doesn't know is that the woman he targets has serious commitment issues), and Killer Ending (Agatha Sayers best selling novel becomes her worst nightmare when her daughter is abducted in a copycat scenario tangled with an obsessive assistant intent on stealing her identity). He was a part of the supporting cast in the series Strange Empire (in 1869 Janestown on the Alberta-Montana border, three women band together for survival after the men in their town are murdered).
Malcolm Stewart played Rick Wallace. He was in Riverdale for 26 episodes, half as Francis Dupont and the other half as Frederich Werthers. He has been in a lot of TV Movies, such as Mingle All The Way, Christmas In Evergreen: Bells Are Ringing, and Just Add Romance. He was in two episodes of Sliders, in season 1 “Last Days” playing Allan Fontaine (an asteroid coming to earth, Arturo makes H Bomb, Remy goes to a party and possibly gets involved with swingers) and season 2 “Obsession” as Regent (Prime Oracle psychic stuff assistant).
Richard Kahan played Derek Bowers. He was in DaVinci’s Inquest and a few other walk-on roles. His biggest claims to fame are, being a main cast member in The 4400 playing Marco (4,400 people who mysteriously vanished from different points in time, only to suddenly reappear together at Mount Rainier, Washington. They haven't aged a day and slowly begin to develop superhuman abilities), and playing Gil in the series Edgemont with Kristen Kruek (the kids of Edgemont are faced with issues that happen in their lives, whether the issues are racism, homosexuality, or discrimination).
Elysia Rotaru played Teri Wallace. She was the lead in the TV movie A Snowy Christmas, and was a supporting actor in Dumbells with Chris Gauthier, Residue with Matt Frewer (a private investigator reads a book of sinister origins and unknowingly puts his daughter and himself in a fight for their lives...and their eternal souls), Girl House (a beautiful young college student moves into a house that streams video to an X-rated website. After a deranged fan hacks the site and finds out where she lives, she spends the night fighting for her life), and Heart of Clay (a dying sculptor, celebrated internationally as a modern-day Rodin, encounters an ethereally erotic and mysterious female spirit who forces him to reconcile with 7 women from his past whom he has hurt in the pursuit of his artistic success). She also appeared in Smallville as Banshee, and had a recurring role in Arrow as Taiana Venediktov. She’s done a number of voice roles as well, including Justice Society: World War II and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths as Black Canary, Chip and Potato as Dilla, and Marvel Cosmic Invasion as She-Hulk.
Zane’s shirt may be a reference to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which houses a unique collection dedicated to beetles. At first glance, it appears to be a typical display, with dozens of specimens carefully arranged by size and species. However, the entomologist in charge of the section decided to add a special touch to the collection: a replica of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, displayed as if it were just another beetle, carefully pinned like the rest of the specimens. Further, it may also represent computer bugs, and perhaps his new whitehat status as a reformed blackhat hacker.
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