James Callis on Eureka: Lots of Updates!

(Note: I'm not feeling too well and am trying to deconstruct the fandom into something manageable and positive. So I may or may not blog much in the near future. Bear with me if there aren't any updates. Check the links in the right margin.)

This post contains spoilers. If you want to jump into the new season of Eureka as fresh and innocent as the day you were born, skip it.

Eureka 4th season, official promo pic! Beautiful. I love James' coat (the buttons! They're red!) and his pose here. Someone said he looks villainous, but I think it's more "I am what I am and I will tolerate no bullshit". He looks kinda sensitive though, under the surface.

Spoilery discussion of the first two episodes at Slice of Scifi. Looks like we've got time travel all right! This could be good. It's a favorable review, and James' role sounds pretty central.

He's also in a pivotal role in the season 4 poster. All eyes on our boy! *proud*

Also: New promo! "I'm Dr Charles Grant." (This, of course, doesn't explain why some sites list him as "Trevor". Maybe it's like how Mason Duryea on Numb3rs was first "Stephen".)

James is doing an American accent again, but it's hard to tell how it sounds from such brief flashes. Overall, he looks and sounds like someone who's firm (yet kind?), polite, with a good heart. I like him, based on what we've seen. One thing though - I hope he gets to smile a little. He looks so stern and serious in all promos. (And take that vest off once in a while, but I already discussed this in the previous post.)

Also also: More details from James himself: IGN has an interview article up!

I'm in the same place, in the same studio [in Vancouver]…my trailer's in the same place. I live next door to where I used to live. The whole thing is very odd.

It's a bit odd for the fans as well, actually, because it's the same channel and some of the same people working for him. Also, it came very suddenly and now he's doing a whole season. I was a BSG fan first and James fan second - of course, it's the other way around now - but with this show, I'm not sure I can fangirl the entire cast, premise and plot. But I trust that James will do well and bring something new into it. If I still can't fangirl the show after that, that's OK, though. I didn't realize I was so used to seeing him as a part of BSG specifically; it feels downright odd to see him in another ensemble show for a whole season.

He definitely comes with a past. Indeed. But meets Allison and Allison has now become his present and his future, if I can put it that way. Or at least he'd like her to be.

Yes, we know, time travel. I love how he's dancing around it; sounds like he wasn't allowed to reveal it. (And we're probably still not supposed to know, but it's somewhat obvious from the way he's dressed in the pictures.)

So who is Dr Grant? He is "not a push-over", he's from a time when things weren't so "metrosexual" (hee, that's a term people sometimes use to describe James himself. I'm not sure what he means by it here). He's going to be a love rival and antagonist for protagonist Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson):

You know, want your rival to manifest in all these ways that justify your hatred but Grant doesn't do that. So it makes things more difficult. You want to really despise his traits, but the then you realize that he's not that dissimilar to your own. Damn! And then that's even more irritating. Both of their hearts are in the right place. They just go about things in very different ways.

I already love the way James talks about this show; you can tell he's done a lot of thinking on the role. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Carter's - a bit too macho for my liking, for one thing - so I might actually enjoy this kind of setup.

Did people recognize him when he was in FlashForward?

Callis: They did recognize me, but it wasn't like "wasn't that James Callis?" It was more like, "Wasn't that Gaius Baltar?" I think that's possibly what I'm going to have to put up with, maybe, for the rest of my natural life. Even with Eureka there will be people who are going to say, "Gaius Baltar's on Eureka!"

They're already saying that, and really, I'm getting used to the idea myself. If I'm still a fan in ten years' time, it's possible people will go, "Oh, isn't that Gaius Baltar on [some future show]?" It's both a blessing and a curse, I guess. What does bug me is when people compare every character to Baltar like "Oh, this is EXACTLY like Baltar!" Which means that either James is a bad actor who's stuck in a rut, or he's doomed to repeat the same role for the rest of his life. I don't know. Maybe it's easy to make statements like that about stars you don't really follow.

So, this Friday then! I will be watching, and I may be blogging, or I may leave that til later when I've got my head cleared up. (Meanwhile, I may be discussing the fandom deconstruction at my LJ, so if you're interested in fan analysis, visit Deniselle's Droolateria.) I'm still here though, and will be updating the links in the margin and my Twitter.

I'm not a huge Eureka fan, but let's say I'm semi-excited over the premiere anyway. Eeek! James as someone new! We'll see how this turns out.