Been watching a lot of stuff lately, including various anime (but that's a conversation for a different thread):
Samurai Jack - Never got around to watching this show when it was new, but it's on BluRay now so I thought I'd try it since it's so revered. Unfortunately, while I really respect what this series does to go against the grain of then-traditional western animation, I can't ultimately say that I care much for it.
I think in a post-Avatar: TLA world, this show is a hard sell. There are no set rules. There are no set characters. There is no attempt whatsoever to establish a set world so the viewer can understand the various stakes & how anything anyone does actually matters. Most episodes have very little, if any story, outside of "Jack wanders into an area, and he gets attacked. Now here's the fight." Considering how the show ends, perhaps it's fitting that the show never attempts to make you feel like anything matters.
If I'm feeling particularly generous, I'd say you could cut out the entire 2nd & 4th seasons & most of the 1st, and you'd lose nothing. Seasons 3 & 5 were unusually good, mostly because they made an effort at actual storytelling and the art style toned down a bit on the color saturation. The animation itself is consistently great and occasionally still mesmerizing (Jack vs. the Shinobi, Jack & the Haunted House). I just wish it was put to better use than just fight scenes.
Eureka - I've seen the show previously, but hadn't watched it in the better part of a decade and it just hit BluRay so I thought I'd rewatch it. Overall, I'd say the show holds up, but its reliance on formula makes it a very hard sit at times. The show is noticeably running out of ideas by the 3rd season, which is probably why the show had a soft reboot in Season 4 to bring it into continuity with Warehouse 13. The BluRay transfer also isn't that great, particularly in scenes with low lighting. I watched the show up to the end of Season 3 to switch over to...
Warehouse 13 - Still in the 1st season of my rewatch of this, but I gotta say this season holds up way better than I remembered it. I remembered the 1st season being pretty rough & bland, but in rewatching it I'd say the show stuck the landing pretty firmly early on. It helps, of course, that Claudia (hallowed be her name) gets introduced very early into the season to inject some much needed energy & quirkiness to the series. There's a concerted effort into building up the series' lore early on that I've always appreciated.
One amusing thing about Warehouse 13's 1st season is that I don't think the show's writers were confident in whether they were going to go down Eureka's pseudo-science route or a purely magical route in regards to how the artifacts work...so they try valiantly to try to come up with scientific explanations for how blatantly magical devices work. It's rather adorable considering later seasons will just throw their hands up in the air and go " **** it, it's magic."
I'd also like to note that Universal's official BluRays for Warehouse 13 (so far) are pretty stunning from a picture standpoint. This is noticeable upgrade from Eureka's transfer. More than that, though, Warehouse 13 just looks like it had much stronger production values than Eureka did. Eureka's shot like a sitcom, whereas Warehouse 13 is shot like a drama. This leads to much more interesting cinematography and WAY better lighting, even in night shots.
Where Eureka has Warehouse 13 firmly beat is in the special effects. Warehouse 13's CG always looked especially cheesy (like a PS3 launch cutscene), and HD doesn't do it any favors. There are also some Season 1 artifacts, most noticeably the Electrical Spine artifact, that rank among the least-convincing in the show's history.
Overall, the show is just pure comfort food, and I still enjoy it as much now as I did back when it first aired, which is rare, really. I'll be going back to Eureka once Warehouse 13 does its first crossover episodes with Eureka in Season 2.
I've also really missed the original Warehouse 13 intro, you know...back when TV shows still did those. Universal, unfortunately, is currently blocking un-garbled versions of the intro...because...but here's a version of it.
BMM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm3HO68Iy4EThe song itself:
BMM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboZV8yi9gE