MaaBre

A Town Called Eureka: could you handle it?

The mere mention of this very bizarre TV show sends a shiver down my spine: Eureka, a secret town populated wholly—yes, I did indeed say wholly—by geniuses. It seems I’m not the only one to feel like this.

Yes, the concept behind Eureka is truly too terrifying to think about for most mere mortals. (Unless you’re not a mere mortal and extremely clever, of course, or a friend of Stephen Hawking or Stephen Fry, in which case you’ll probably have every single episode on tape and be longing for the day when this place—kind of like a clever version of new town Milton Keynes in England, I suppose—becomes a glorious reality.)

Just thinking about all this brings me right back to that disturbing day, many years ago, when I accidentally ended up in the top mathematics class attempting sums far above my capability. There were seventeen near geniuses in there and even that left me with nightmares for a long time after–

So, really, you do have to wonder how this show ever got commissioned, don’t you? Considering that many people have an average I.Q. and being a genius isn’t exactly top of the list of virtues when it comes to A list—or any other letter you might choose for that matter—celebrities. Four or five geniuses seems acceptable for a television show, maybe even seven or eight would be bearable; but a town—which must contain between 10,000 and 100,000 people by definition; something larger than a village but smaller than a city, according to the geniuses at Wikipedia—just wouldn’t.

What next? A town populated only by people of a less than average I.Q.? No, hang on, wait a minute, I’m sure that’s already happened, hasn’t it?