WAREHOUSE 13 |
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Pete Lattimer - Eddie McClintock Myka Bering - Joanna Kelly Artie Nelson - Saul Rubinek Mrs Frederic - CCH Pounder Claudia Donovan - Allison Scagliotti 
OTHER WAREHOUSE 13 SEASONS
Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 OTHER PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS Eleventh Hour Millennium Fringe The Lost Room
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PILOTPete Lattimer is a secret service operative on a detail in a museum who is faced with a problem when one of the artefacts possesses a worker and sends him out to kill the President. Myka is the agent who was running the operation and is suitably upset at Pete making a mess of it. Both of them, however, get even more upset when they are assigned to Warehouse 13, a place where every dangerous scientific and supernatural item is carefully stored, as the new field team. WAREHOUSE 13 is an original Sci Fi Channel show, which isn't that much of a recommendation, but it shows a lot more promise than some of its predecessors. It's based entirely on that last scene from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK where the Lost Ark of the Covenant is carefully boxed up and placed in a warehouse with thousands of other crates, but takes place in the modern day. The central duo are a bit bland and their characters as laid back bloke and tight-assed woman aren't exactly top of the originality list, but they are likeable enough and have every chance to grow on us as the show continues. They are joined by Saul Rubinek, whose Artie Nelson is more a collection of tics than a real performance. This first adventure covers the background and then throws them into a situation being fuelled by the spirit of Lucretia Borgia, which at least is a bit different. In a way, the style is a bit like FRINGE with warmth or Eleventh Hour played for laughs. The special effects are sparing and pretty good, making this a solid, if uninspiring start to the new show. TopRESONANCEBanks are being robbed without any one of the witnesses being able to remember anything at all. The cause would appear to be in some sort of sound weapon, but what kind of sound wipes a person's memory and why does it remind Pete of an avant garde jazz musician. After a supernaturally-tinged opening, this week's episode is more science-based, but it looks like setting the template for the show as the agents breeze into town and start looking for some sort of link between victims (in this case banks) that will lead them back to a specific artefact (in this case a record). That could get repetitive fairly quickly. Artie's trying to track down the person who is hacking his computer system is a side story that never really goes anywhere and certainly fails to excite. TopMAGNETISMThe inhabitants of a small town are slowly going insane. An old woman throws her dead husband's ashes at a hospital, a nun tries to fly, a musician smashes hell out of his violin. Pete and Myka go to investigate and find that people's inner frustrations are being released beyond their control and Myka's just been infected. This fairly standard tale is enlivened by the interplay between Eddie McClintock and Joanna Kelly's agents, mainly the parts where she is unable to keep from punching him in the face. The mystery's not all that hard to work out and the would-be tense stand-off in the church is more tense than it has any right to be. The story of Artie being plagued by electrical problems back at the Warehouse is just a rerun of the previous computer hacking. TopCLAUDIAThe person who has been making Artie's life a misery, technologically speaking, appears in the Warehouse and takes him hostage. They prove to have a history and it's his help in correcting a mistake is what she is really after rather than revenge. What starts off as an interesting twist with Artie's kidnapping and the hint of backstory slowly devolves into the much less interesting story of an experiment gone wrong. By focussing on Artie, the episode loses the banter and interplay between the agents, but remains fitfully entertaining, though hardly memorable. TopELEMENTSA statue is stolen by a robber who can move through walls. Pete and Myka are soon on the trail and learn that the statues have a significance in Native American folklore and could lead to the source of ultimate power. Not something that you would want to fall into the wrong hands. WAREHOUSE 13 is starting to fall into a groove, but in a good way. The actors are more comfortable with the characters, the scripts are getting wittier and stronger. The plotting isn't anything that we haven't seen before, so it's down to the cast to keep us interested and they are proving to be equal to the cast. TopBURNOUTBurned victims of a fire shouldn't be cause for interest from Warehouse 13, but there proves to be good reason as new victims are found with the only unburned part of the body being a handprint. WAREHOUSE 13 shows its darker side as one of the rogue artefacts infects Pete, leaving Myka with an impossible choice to make and an ex-member of the Warehouse 13 team warns Myka just how destructive the job can become. This is the first time that the shadowy side of the job has come out and hints at darker depths to be plumbed. Which is not to say that there isn't the usual amount of bantering, this time mainly around the presence of cookies, but it does give the central pairing something a bit more dramatic to grt their teeth into. TopIMPLOSIONA sword with the power to make its user invisible comes to the US, but before the Warehouse 13 team can get to it it is stolen by a rival from Artie's past. The sword is merely a mcguffin here as the episode is all about trust and the cost of not giving it. The whole rest of the story is merely padding around that central idea, though it reveals some interesting facts about Artie's past and introduces a new nemesis. TopDUPEDArtie sends Pete and Myka to Las Vegas to find a couple who are amassing a fortune with the use of an artefact that allows them to always win. Myka, however, is not acting herself. EUREKA's Erica Cerra and Niall Matter are stunt casting as the cheating couple (cheating at the tables), but since they are only window dressing for a plot that is all about Myka and not about the gambling artefact they prove to be a very a minor distraction. Joanna Kelly gets to play the vamp and does it well enough for us to wish that her character was more like this, but the scene where she confronts Artie with the truth of the problems between them is the emotional core of the story. TopREGRETSA series of convict suicides in a Florida prison sees Pete and Myka going behind bars to see what is going on. What they mainly see is images of their dead loved ones. One week after stunt casting from EUREKA, this episode sees Joe Morton from that show appear in what amounts to a cameo role as an inmate preacher who might know more than he's letting on. AS it happens, the story sidelines him so completely that you wonder why he took the gig in the first place, or why the show didn't pay someone less expensive. In the meantime, events back at the warehouse show how an amusing situation can suddenly turn nasty. TopBREAKDOWNArtie is summoned before a panel of higher authorities known as the Regents to answer for his actions in trying to deal with MacPherson, the ex-agent who has been a thorn in his side. Whilst he is away, there are problems within the warehouse that leave the triumvirate of Pete, Myka and Claudia minutes from utter destruction. The main team are held within the confines of the warehouse in this episode and it is all the better for it. Their experiences with the artefacts are funnier and livelier than anything that they have dealt with in the real world to date. The dodgeballs that multiply when they hit you are very funny, but Sylvia Plath's typewriter (you lose the will to live if you get too close) is a stroke of utter genius. This is the best, most fun episode to date and we could seriously ask for a few more like it. TopNEVERMOREMyka's father, a bookstore owner, receives Edgar Allen Poe's notebook, but the words come off the page and start to infect him. Having failed to capture Artie's nemesis MacPherson, Myka and Pete rush to the bookstore and discover the artefact, but are unable to do anything about it until they can locate the pen that goes with it. Following the hugely enjoyable Breakdown, this episode suffers in comparison, though it is on a par with most of the others. It benefits from having BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's Michael Hogan as Myka's father, but it's a cameo role that anyone might have handled as well. The real import of this episode comes in the closing minutes when it becomes clear just how far the whole team have been manipulated by their mysterious nemesis. TopMacPHERSONJames MacPherson, the nemesis of Artie and the Warehouse 13 team, is selling off artefacts that he has managed to obtain from the Warehouse to some very dangerous people indeed. Myka and Pete manage to capture him, but once he is taken back to the Warehouse to be dealt with it becomes clear that capture is exactly what he was trying to achieve and he is now free to take a cataclysmic revenge. It's the season finale of WAREHOUSE 13 and it certainly doesn't disappoint on the action front. It is a shame that Roger Rees' villain wasn't built up enough throughout the series to really resonate, but the opening scene reveals the source of the enmity between Artie and the ex-agent and the plot then goes on to make him equal, if not superior, to those trying to catch him. This being the finale, the story doesn't get to a conclusion, but rather to a cliffhanger that makes us glad that the show has been renewed for a second season in the US. The episode, like many of the episodes before it, is capable, slick and entertaining but never quite manages to hit the heights that it seems to have the potential for. Top |
