I'd say that Eureka's my favorite among new sci-fi shows, with Warehouse 13 a close second. But I'm a little worried about this season's "reinvention", and that they've succumbed to the noir fad to put a dark tinge on everything. To me Eureka's strength was entirely its lightheartedness, it was pure escapist geek-paradise fantasy.

Maybe it's just seeing several names from Battlestar Galactica that has me on edge. Bear McReady is doing the music now, and it sounds heavier and more ominous. And Gaius Balthar? First of all, he needs to practice that American accent; maybe he should take lessons from the actor who played Junior Adama. But I guess more fundamentally, a character played by James Callis can lead to no good. His "genius casting" may well signal that the writers have dark days planned for Eureka.

Still, all in all, I do love that show.

If you want to talk "casting genius", let's talk Warehouse 13. Adding Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) to the cast last season really was "casting genius". That young woman has a gift for physicality like Lucille Ball, whether stuck to the ceiling or sliding down a zip line or getting pulled into the gears of a machine in a scene very much like the famous bit of Lucy in the cake factory. And she does the geek thing with very high fidelity. Ahh, if only I were about four decades younger....