Syfy recently premiered three of their original TV shows. Warehouse 13 and Eureka are returning series’, while Haven is new for this year. First impressions can always be important, but they can also be deceiving. Let’s look at the premieres of each of the shows and see what the season seems to have in store.

Warehouse 13 survived its freshman year to get a second season. Like most Syfy shows, last season ended with a cliffhanger of Artie being incinerated in the entrance to the warehouse. This is the first thing resolved before the actual episode starts. The resolution shouldn’t be a surprise either, as it was set up not just in the last episode of last season, but the “previously” at the beginning of this episode showed the same key scenes. This episode then proceeds to tie up a few of the loose ends from last season, including getting rid of MacPherson as the season’s arc’s villain though not without him leaving a cryptic message to Artie, and then sets up this current season’s arc and villain.

This season opener was okay. It’s nice to get some closure, and I won’t be missing MacPherson. His reasons for going rouge were never satisfactorily explained, though I think his last words are related, and hopefully we will see more about it. It also set up H.G. Wells well enough that I’m intrigued enough to keep watching to see what she has in mind. Knowing Syfy shows, this season will probably more of the same, but with some of the twists they put on history and historical figures, that might not be a bad thing. But, it will take a few more episodes to know for sure if the writers are still up to the challenge.

Eureka is the oldest of all the shows as it starts its 4th season. Eureka didn’t end on a cliffhanger this year. We had some characters leave, but no one in the main cast, the show could start off with a fresh story arc this season. The town is getting ready to celebrate Founder’s Day, but in a fluke accident that involves solar flares and a machine built by Albert Einstein, five of the characters, Carter, Allison, Jo, Henry and Fargo are transported to just before the towns founding and meet one of its founders, Dr. Trevor Grant. As usual, this little jaunt back in time changes history, but only just slightly. Mainly it seems in the lives of our five main characters. So the season will seem to concentrate on the usual strangeness of Eureka, and dealing with the new reality, as well as what to do unintended time traveler Grant.

As much as I enjoy the quirkiness of Eureka, these constant time shifts that have happened every season so far are getting tiring. The writers might think it’s cool or fun to be able to hit the Big Reset Button so they can change things and/or take characters in new and different directions, but to me it just feels like cheating. It’s the waking up and finding Patrick Ewing in the shower, Or finding Jean Grey coccooned at the bottom of the ocean. Any character development that was shown in the last season can just be wiped away in favor of a new version. You can’t have any real character development this way, since you can’t trust what you saw last season will be true for next. They should stop calling this show Eureka, and change it to “Multiverse”, because it seems the writers are more interested in seeing what could be instead of what is. I’ll still the show this season, but my hopes aren’t up so high.

Haven is the freshman series this year. It is loosely based on the Stephen King novel “The Colorado Kid”. FBI Agent Audrey Parker is sent to Haven, Maine to find a federal criminal that on the loose. Haven is his hometown. The criminal is found dead, but there are mysterious circumstances around his death that Audrey stays to investigate with Detective Nathan Wuornos and finds a supernatural reason behind it. During the investigation, Audrey is shown a picture from the towns past that may connect her to it, giving her reason to stay awhile.

On the whole, I enjoyed this first episode the most. It’s not without its problems of course. It has some plot holes that might make you shake your head, such as Audrey’s matter-of-fact reaction to a woman who can control the weather, but for a series with supernatural overtones, you do need to allow for some suspension of disbelief. Hopefully not too much though. The plot of this episode was very basic, but it’s purpose was more to establish characters and the town than solve a crime, so it gets a pass this time. Speaking of the characters, I liked are main characters right off the bat. Audrey and Nathan have a good rapport, and the supporting characters of the local paper reporters and Duke, Nathan’s arch nemesis it seems, add some humor to balance against the drama. So for the moment, the good outweighs the bad in this series, and it’s one I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of.