I have a backlog of TV stuff I want to talk about (Sons of Anarchy), but the fourth season opener for SyFy’s Eureka just pulled out into the fast lane and demands immediate attention.

Disclaimer. I’m friends with (and a huge fan of) Amy Berg who joined the show after Leverage and so I was expecting the show to kick my ass. I have a couple of Amy’s scripts on my desk that I refer to from time to time as she’s got this down cold. If you want someone to avenge the death of your idiot family at the hands of corrupt cop Gary Oldman then you talk to Leon. If you want the same kind of professionalism when it comes to breaking a story… you go to Berg.

It’s also worth noting that up until now I’ve not been a regular visitor to Eureka. I watched some of the first season, but figured I knew where it was heading and it dropped off my radar. I’ve dipped into each season and did catch the third season finale, but again it didn’t really pull me in. All change.

I’m guessing the safe route would have been to pile on more of the same, but ‘Founder’s Day’ manages to stick to the core conceit and pull off a smart as hell reboot that should keep the old fans happy, usher in a new audience and still leave room for a Terminator gag and Erica Cerra taking down a platoon of grunts. That they also brought James Callis from BSG into the mix is a) a crowd-pleaser and b) sets up a staggering amount of story possibilities. But here’s what I really liked about the episode.

It wasn’t about the gadgets, the remarkable situation the cast found themselves in or just throwing stuff at the audience. It was character lead all the way and there were some brilliant quiet moments in the script that immediately locked me in for the season.

I’m a sucker for people holding hands.

So yeah, I was expecting Berg to kick my ass – she’s actually been doing that for years before I met her – but this was a pummeling. It sometimes seems that the very process that gets a show onto television is constructed in such a way to suck some of the elemental fun out of the finished product. That I was grinning from start to finish shows that Eureka pulled off something special last night.

Oh, and if you really need another reason to get on board they’ve got a 28 Day’s Later inspired zombie episode on the way… with Wil freakin’ Wheaton.