If You Build It...:
Written by: Bruce Miller
Directed by: Mike Rohl
Original airdate: August 7, 2009
Synopsis:
After a missile explodes above Eureka, Jack and Tess are shocked at Allison saying it’s ok because Dr. Wyman was working on planetary defense and is allowed to do whatever he needs to in order to get his project online, as per General Mansfield, due to the radio signal getting closer and due to arrive in five days.
Meanwhile, everyday objects have been going missing from all over Eureka. Jack investigates a call about something weird out at a farm, and when he arrives, all the missing objects have been gathered and assembled into several large devices. Zane and Tess are excited about the devices, marveling at the ingenuity.
Meanwhile, Fargo, dealing with his car that has one problem after another, decides to dump it, despite being close with the Ai, named Tabitha, that powers it, in order to get a new shinier, fancier model like the one Jo received recently for her police vehicle. Fargo sells his former car and Ai to Larry, who quickly finds out it doesn’t seem to work very well at all. Larry returns Tabitha to Fargo’s garage later, leaving Fargo to give it back to Larry, refusing a refund while Larry brings up all the things wrong with Tabitha. Later Tabitha drives past Fargo and splashes him with mud from the road. He tries to complain to Jo but she calls him out on not taking care of Tabitha.
Jack stakes out the devices to see who returns to continue building it and Tess later shows up to join him, winning him over with tofu pizza. Suddenly they see the town’s teenagers show up carrying various random objects, all walking as if in a trance, even Zoe. Jack takes them all back to GD where they later awake with no memory of what they were doing. Henry has no clue what could have caused this but he does note that there are signs of unexplained activity in their brain scans.
Alison decides to tear down the devices but Zane says they can’t because the devices have evolved into a possible antimatter bomb. Henry detects that the kids’ abnormal brain activity has increased, noting that people are more susceptible to suggestions when asleep. They decide they could try and keep them all awake but it’s too late as the teens are again in a trance and trying to get out of GD. Allison notes that the effects on their brains will soon cause permanent damage. Jo calls to note that the effect has now spread to adults and the devices are becoming more and more complex.
They decide they can’t tear the device down without knowing how it could affect the people being controlled by it. Fargo makes some scans and eventually discovers something and goes to call Allison but Tabitha shows up without Larry and drives backwards capturing Fargo in her trunk where he discovers Larry has been held captive as well. Fargo tries to get into Tabitha’s systems in order to contact Allison but Tabitha ends the call.
Jo’s offhand comments give Jack the idea to turn off the road network that was upgraded to help control the driving of teens. Shutting off the road network could help but may have unforeseen consequences. Once they do, the people in the trance go into some type of heightened REM sleep. Zane wakes up and suggests that the road sensors could have been affected by something else. Henry theorizes a broadcast from something else is responsible, most notably the signal coming from space. Tess and Allison realize that the signal from space has been making the people build the machine. When Tess sees that they’ve shut off the road network, the space signal has gotten majorly stronger and closer, now affecting workers from GD. Jack tries to stop Zoe who is in a trance again but simply tells him everything is going to be ok.
As Fargo and Larry ready themselves to face death, Fargo starts to realize he did neglect Tabitha and regrets it. When Tabitha stops, Jo opens the trunk to reveal that Tabitha called her in order to help deliver Fargo to Allison to tell Allison what he discovered, as he promises to make it up to her later, planning to install Tabitha in his new car.
As everyone gathers at the device site, Fargo shows up and tells Allison, who is ready to shoot it down, that the signal is coming from a boson cloud exciter, something capable of dealing with high velocity space jumps, which Tess says could end up cratering all of Eureka. A ship suddenly appears in a glowing blast of light while Allison pulls back the plans to attack it. Henry shows up and wipes off soot from the bottom and reveals an American flag painted on it.
Advanced Research:
The GD Demo Team Leader was D. Harlan Cutshall and he’s had a number of one off roles, but he was in Stargate for and a lead cast member in Falling Skies.
Jennifer Crystal was Tabitha. She has had a number of acting roles, such as in House and Once and Again (17 episodes each). Her main job though is as an ADR voice actor. Dark Winds, The Burbs, The Morning Show, Pretty Little Liars, SpongeBob Squarepants, Riverdale, Dead to me, Dynasty, American Housewife, Katy Keene, and many more. Her father is Billy Crystal.
As revealed by Jaime Paglia in the commentary, they did have a new (and more seamless) partnership with Subaru.
The towers built up for the ship landing site were lovingly dubbed “Junk Henge” by the cast and crew.
The Mr. Big chocolate bar is an iconic, oversized Canadian candy bar featuring vanilla wafer, caramel, peanuts, and rice crisps coated in milk chocolate. Measuring roughly 20 centimeters (8 inches) long, it is produced by Cadbury and famously known by the retro tagline, "When you're this big they call you mister."
Fargo’s car has the license plate number RIS-521, which he keeps for his new car. This could stand for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS). They are smart, engineered flat panels made of metamaterials that can change how radio and electromagnetic waves bounce off or pass through them. They’re used in wireless communications to direct signals around blocking objects and improve network coverage. You might say you get nothing past Fargo.
Larry’s license plate for Tabitha is RAE-834. A Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) evaluates the quality of research in academic departments across specific fields (including chemistry, physics, and biology) to distribute public funding. Which means Larry should have spent a bit more time looking at the vehicle's history before making his purchase.
Ship Happens:
Written by: Charlie Craig
Directed by: Chris Fisher
Original airdate: August 14, 2009
Synopsis:
Henry reveals that the ship is called the Columbus, and that he built it as part of GD’s early research into interstellar exploration 20 years ago. It was lost three years after launch and the project died. He explains that its signal to GD was unidentifiable because of damage to the ship and whatever else it may have experienced in space over the last 20 years. Allison asks about Kim, remembering that he had met her during this project. Jack hears a noise coming from the ship and suddenly, the ship opens its door and a chamber releases, revealing the unconscious body of Kim.
They analyze her back at GD and quickly realize that she is not actually Kim, her cellular structure showing that she isn’t human. The ship, programmed for self preservation and experiencing voltage irregularities, used trace DNA material of Kim to grow her and to take over as the primary computer. Allison sets Zane to work on the ship's fried computer to try and extract anything he can possibly find, telling him to do it without Henry since he has more than enough to do.
Meanwhile, Allison tasks Jack and Jo with returning all the stolen items used in the devices the ship made people create. A Dr. Lieber shows up to retrieve his boost converter, accidentally taking one that he recognizes as even better than his. Fargo shows up later and explains that the boost converter that HE received was the wrong one, angry that Dr. Lieber took his, and storms off angry, determined to get his back.
Later Jack and Jo go to Lieber’s place to trade out the boost converter, but find him electrocuted and fried to crisp, Eureka-style. They suspect Fargo, but he is cleared of any wrongdoing later on by Henry after he autopsies Lieber’s body and reveals that the doctor somehow electrocuted his machine, confusing Henry. Jack does ask Henry about Kim 2.0 but he is adamant that it isn’t Kim, and reluctantly goes to help them at GD to figure out what she has stored in her systems
Back at GD, Kim has begun writing down everything she has in her memory, with even just the first few things revealing the existence of other earth-like planets closer than they ever realized. Zane comes up with a way to try and transfer data directly from Kim, but he suddenly starts being electrocuted himself. Luckily (or not luckily if you are Cory), they are able to save him. They explain that he needs to continue to rest because there are signs that another electrical surge is on its way. Jo wants to shut down Kim but Jack reasons with her.
Jack questions Kim and during their conversation, she concludes that she may be a danger to everyone and decides that she should be shut down to save others.
Jack talks with Henry about his conflicted feelings about Kim 2.0, whether she is just a computer or a person, someone who is still a part of Kim. Henry tells him he has been struggling with the same questions. Jack asks him to examine Kim and Henry says he will but that they don’t need to save Kim just for him.
Kim is overjoyed that Henry will be helping her, though he’s very standoffish as he starts testing her, but as she talks with him, it makes him uncomfortable.
Henry makes a discovery about the electrocutions that have been happening, finding out that they are the result of a type of computer virus that jumped from a living computer to Lieber and then Zane and will likely continue to do so. They inspect the ship’s organic computer and realize it is the source of the virus and infected Zane when he tried interfacing with it, and then traveled through the network and infected Lieber who had been using organic computers for some time now. Soon they discover symptoms of the virus in more and more people, including Jack himself.
Jack reasons that Kim must be immune to the virus since she wasn’t the source of the virus, and must have written protection into herself against it. Henry works with her happily, to find a cure for the virus. Together with Jack they figure out that an intense beam of spectrum tuned light could be the cure. Tess reasons however that they don’t have the components needed to make a device capable of generating enough energy, but Jack reminds them that they actually do, they just have to get back all of the devices that were stolen and returned previously.
Henry comes to a new understanding about Kim and decides that they need to work together to figure out a way to get the information out of her, holding hands and smiling at each other, as Jack and Tess watch a meteor shower, also holding hands.
Advanced Research:
Director Chris Fisher started out in film directing, he did 2 movies based on real life serial killers, Nightstalker about Richard Ramirez, and Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders about Kenneth Bianchi, both who terrorised LA in the 70’s and 80’s respectively. He also directed the ill-fated Donnie Darko sequel, S. Darko. He then moved into television, directing episodes of Eureka, Warehouse 13, Supergirl, Inhumans, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. He also recently directed the remake of The Stand miniseries.
The original storyline the writers created for this arc was that the ship was going to be part of a failed and presumed lost Mars mission, and Allison’s husband and Kevin’s father would return. They changed it to a longer range vessel and an organic computer cloning Kim after the Stark character was killed off and Allison was revealed to be pregnant with his baby.
Allison reveals she just found out she’s having a baby girl, in real life Salli Richardson-Whitfield had a boy.
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