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There's some not-so-pleasant changes in store for the little town of Eureka.

"Eureka Season 3.0" (meaning the first half of the third season a la "Battlestar Galactica") provides plenty of those, which adds some new tension to geniustown (including some rather shocking cast changes and a new "love-to-hate" person). It's kind of disconcerting to only have eight episodes, but they have the signature mixture of warm comedy and intriguing sci-fi mystery.

Among the changes in store: Alison (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) and Nathan (Ed Quinn) contemplate remarriage, and Henry is in jail. And the DOD sends in a corporate "fixer" named Eva Thorne (Frances Fisher) arrives to cut the deadwood from Global Dynamics. But then an anti-missile VIPER drone goes AWOL during a flight test and starts threatening Eureka, while Thorne decides to embed herself in Global Dynamics as one of the new bosses.

And while Eva ruthlessly makes GD "profitable," the usual sci-fi disasters crop up. Carter has to deal with bizarre transformations in a sealed biosphere, a wedding-day timeloop, exploding biomemetic dogs, an impossible volcano brewing under Eureka (and which sprays gross fluids on people), an inept spandex-wearing "Captain Eureka," a mayoral election heated up by an artificial supernova, and a swarm of ancient Egyptian insects.

In the meantime, Thorne is snooping around Eureka in search of something. Her quest leads to the discovery of a vast military base, and some bodies dead since 1939 -- and a bizarre substance that threatens Zoe's life after she slips and falls in it.

Apparently the once all-important Artifact is yesterday's business, because the dark subplot of "Eureka Season 3.0" is the mystery prewar bunker and whatever Thorne wants destroyed. It adds a nice undercurrent of conspiracy and tension to this season, though the focus is always first and foremost on our Everyman Sheriff, and how he tries to deal with the Horrific World-Ending Scientific Crisis of the day.

That's a nice balance, because the rest of the season flows in a river of gentle humor and extreme scientific problems. Plenty of weird inventions (cloud sculpting, flying rabbits and robot pooches), fun tongue-in-cheek dialogue ("They killed the infected and burned the city to the ground." "Let's call that Plan B"), and hilarious comedic moments. And Carter's always in the middle of it, trying to unravel a way to fix things.

But it's worth noting that while the Disasters Du Jour and the bunker plots are dealt with by the eighth episode, the half season ends with a cliffhanger for one character. Just sayin'.

Ferguson does a brilliant job as Carter, the down-to-earth Everycop who just wants to do his job ("It's all fun and games until someone gets cursed"). But Carter has some new problems in this season -- his new-agey, pregnant sister moves in with him, and Zoe continues to spread her wings with a job and boyfriend. Erica Cerra's Jo experiences some relationship woes, while Richardson-Whitfield's Alison is put in the position of being pretty powerless. Sadly, a longtime cast member also exits the scene early on.

This season also sees the return of Henry, whose skills turn out to be too invaluable for him to rot in prison -- and he even gets a new job on top of his old one. And Fisher turns out to be a great addition: she initially makes a great steely-eyed corporate dictator, but the facade cracks as time goes on, and we get to see that she's haunted by something terrible in the past.

"Eureka Season 3.0" is way too short (new episodes coming in July), but it still has the fresh mix of out-there sci-fi and small-town comedy. Definitely still worth the seeing.