Sci Fi's 'Eureka' Strikes Ratings Gold

Zap2It.com | July 20, 2006

Colin Ferguson on 'Eureka'

Premiere logs more than 4 million viewers

The Sci Fi Channel's newest series is earthbound, but the ratings for its premiere still hit some pretty impressive heights.

The two-hour premiere of "Eureka" on Tuesday drew more than 4 million viewers, making it the most-watched episode of an original series in the channel's history. About 1.7 million of those viewers were in the key adults 18-49 demographic, and 1.9 million fell in the 25-54 age range.

By all those measures, "Eureka" was the top show on cable for the night. It also beat a few of its broadcast competitors, including the premiere of ABC's reality series "The One: Making a Music Star."

"Eureka" stars Colin Ferguson ("Coupling") as a U.S. marshal who stumbles on a small Pacific Northwest town that's actually a secret government research facility populated by the best minds in the nation. Their research, however, makes the town a place where a lot of odd things tend to occur.

The series, created by Andrew Cosby ("Haunted") and Jaime Paglia, also stars Joe Morton ("Terminator 2," "Stealth"), Salli Richardson-Whitfield ("CSI: Miami," "Antwone Fisher) and Debrah Farentino ("EZ Streets").

"Eureka" also adds to a cable hot streak this summer that has seen strong ratings for original series like USA's "Psych," TNT's "The Closer" and "Saved" and FX's "Rescue Me."