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I can’t stand TV Teens. You know what I’m talking about — those mouthy, rebellious, always-knows-what-to-say teens that only TV writers can think off because it’s the most creative (i.e. most unrealistic) version of a teen they can come up with. The daughter character in the new Sci Fi Channel “Eureka” is — tada — the consummate TV Teen. Mouthy, rebellious, and disrepectful to her father. If you don’t want to slap this little bitch’s teeth out of her mouth after an hour of the “Eureka” pilot, then you’re the writers who dreamt her up in the first place. Either that, or you’re a teen yourself, and you wish you could be as annoying and always-ready-with-a-comeback like her.

The TV Teen notwithstanding, the 2-hour premiere of “Eureka” is rather entertaining. The show stars Colin Ferguson as Jack Carter, a U.S. Marshal transporting that mouthy brat he calls a daughter (of course we don’t know this until almost the end of the first hour) back to her mother (she’s a habitual runaway), when their car crashes in the town of Eureka. As it so happens, Eureka is a secret U.S. Government town, built for the brightest and the best scientists to ply their trade under the Government’s watchful eye. After the town’s Sheriff gets his legs vaporized by a mysterious, crackling energy ball thingie (again, this happens around the end of the firs thour), Eureka’s Government liaison, Allison Blakely (Salli Richardson) decides to bring Jack into things in order to help out temporarily. The rest of the episode involves Jack and Allison investigating and trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious energy ball appearances.

There’s a lot of sexual tension between Allison and Jack, and the two actors do a pretty great job at developing a chemistry without getting naked. The Deputy Jo Lupa character, a butch ex-Navy SEALs commando turned bored small-town babysitter, gets a little tiresome after a while, and as I said, I really wanted to smack the shit out of the Zoe girl everytime she opened her mouth. Seriously, folks, it’s not that I’m naturally violent, but when presented with such an irritating character, my primal side comes to the fore.

Other than that, it’s a decent pilot, and I wouldn’t mine tuning back in every now and then. Not regularly, of course. The show isn’t that good. It’s decent, I’ll give it that, but it’s biggest problem might also be that it’s too “gimmicky”. After all, how many “experiments gone awry” storyline can you put up with week after week?