In the last ever episode of Eureka tonight, the Department of Defense’s closure of this charming, eccentric town — inhabited by brilliant scientists working on top-secret projects for the American government – is delayed by random wormhole materializations or in other words, ”Just Another Day” in Eureka. I saw one of these materializations being filmed in Chilliwack last August, with a Sheriff Jack Carter stunt double falling through a wormhole from above the Archimedes statue onto the grass outside the Sheriff’s Office facade. Colin Ferguson told us he was too banged up from other stunts to do this one himself but he gladly took over for the lying-on-the-grass-being-lifted-to-his-feet-by-Joe Morton’s-Dr.-Henry-Deacon part. You can see Carter’s wedding ring on Ferguson’s ring finger, which I didn’t notice at the time and so posted an inadvertent spoiler of Carter’s marriage to Dr. Allison Blake this season.

Here are the happy married couple — Colin Ferguson’s everyman Sheriff Carter and Salli Richarson-Whitfield’s brilliant scientist Dr. Allison Blake — sitting on a bench oustide the Sheriff’s Office facade for a scene and posing for a producer’s camera in a beautifully-staged shot which was photobombed by the director Matt Hastings, who couldn’t resist messing it up.

Laughter and tears for a much-loved series. Locals who’d been watching Eureka film for up to seven years dropped in that day to say a final goodbye, as cast and crew hugged it out between scenes and takes.

Everything about the last shoot in Chilliwack seemed bittersweet. Syfy had renewed and then cancelled Eureka that month, coughing up enough money to film this wrap-up episode.

Eureka is one of those series that ended before its time, so I was happy to see the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles honour it a week ago with a special event, An Evening with Eureka. After a screening and a preview of tonight’s series finale, showrunner and co-creator Jaime Paglia and cast Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Joe Morton, Neil Grayston (Dr. Douglas Fargo) and Felicia Day (Dr. Holly Marten) talked about what Eureka meant to them. I will miss it, too.

Update: Now that I’ve seen the finale I realize this post had more spoilers than I thought even though I didn’t include my photos of Henry’s reunion with Tembi Locke’s Grace or of the mysterious benefactor (it turns out I photographed a body double for James Callis in Chilliwack so seeing Callis on screen was a nice surprise tonight). Here’s a link to my flickr set of the last shoot in Chilliwack.