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 Leena - Genelle Williams 
OTHER WAREHOUSE 13 SEASONS
Season 1 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 OTHER PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS Eleventh Hour Millennium Fringe The Lost Room
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TIME WILL TELLArtie is saved from the destruction in the Warehouse by an ancient artefact and heads off to prove that Claudia was not the mole who helped MacPherson. Myka and Pete realise that MacPherson's main aim was to release HG Wells from imprisonment within the Warehouse and, following a trip to London, that Wells is not only a woman, but a very, very bad woman. The first episode of the new season tries to tie up the ends that were left by the cliffhanger of the last one in one go where perhaps a double episode would have given the plot more room to breathe and allowed for more character development or witty banter. Still, the introduction of the new nemesis is a surprising and welcome turn of events and moments such as Myka and Pete stuck on a ceiling and bickering about it have the requisite lightness of touch. The Escher Vault with its shifting walls and stairs is fun, but some of the special effects here and with Myka and Pete sailing across the warehouse on a rope are fairly poor. TopMILD-MANNEREDWhilst Artie is haunted by the ghost of his old friend and enemy MacPherson, Myka and Pete travel to Detroit to look into some strange vigilante acts that put them on the trail of a real life superhero. The inherent absurdity of superheroes gives the show plenty to have fun with, though in an affectionate manner. Joanna Kelly gets to look amazing in her supergirl outfit and it's a shame that she doesn't get to do a bit more with it. The emotional fallout from the events of last week back at the warehouse gives the episode a bit more gravity and for the fanboys there is the stunt casting of FIREFLY alumnii Jewel Staite and Sean Maher. TopBEYOND OUR CONTROLWhilst Mrs Frederic and the elders responsible for the warehouse try to find out more about MacPherson's plans from the mind of the woman he possessed, the team go to the nearby town to track down what appears to be an artefact capable of resurrecting B-movies. The next one will see the entire town wiped out. This episode feels more like a run through for a real episode rather than the episode itself. It has an OK plot and the characters run around and spout jargon at each other, but there's not a lot of real fun to be had. It's not all that funny and only the revelation that the townspeople hate them because the cover story of the warehouse is that it holds all the tax returns for the entire US raises a smile. The light-hearted banter between the agents is AWOL and the plot itself isn't strong enough for this to work as a drama. The emotional fallout from the events of last week back at the warehouse gives the episode a bit more gravity and for the fanboys there is the stunt casting of FIREFLY alumnii Jewel Staite and Sean Maher. TopAGE BEFORE BEAUTYFashion models are being rapidly aged and dying through supernatural means. The only way to find out who is responsible is for Myka to go undercover as a model, but whilst she is freaking out over whether her bum looks big in that, the team have their task made more urgent as she is attacked and ends up close to death in the hospital geriatrics ward. The fashion industry is an easy target for jokes and satire, so it is somewhat surprising that WAREHOUSE 13 goes pretty easy on the subject, using the story instead as a chance to glam Joanna Kelly up to the nines and display what a good looking woman she is, as well as giving her uptight character something to be even more uptight about. The make up effects of the aged Myka are pretty excellent. The side story of Artie trying to coax Claudia into dating a local boy is minor in comparison. Top13.1Douglas Fargo of Global Dynamics is in the warehouse installing a new computer system when a hidden failsafe declares a catastrophic failure and locks half of the team inside with killer robot spiders. Myka and Pete are on the outside with the failsafe's inventor, a man whose brain has half shut down. This crossover with EUREKA has to be seen before that show's crossover episode Crossing Over otherwise the relationship between Fargo and Claudia doesn't make any sense. Inevitably, this was not the order of transmission in the UK. STAR TREK:DEEP SPACE NINE's Rene Auberjonois guest stars as both the failsafe's inventor and its hologrammatic image, but the truth is that this is a story that has been done before and has elements that have been done before in this very show (locked in warehouse, catastrophic events, threat from artefact blah, blah, blah). Fortunately, there is enough of the fun banter between the cast to make it work, which is more than can be said for the very poorly rendered robot spiders which never look like being in contact with anything that they are supposed to be standing on. TopAROUND THE BENDWhilst visiting a British Museum in Illinois (!) Myka and Pete are on the track of a walking stick that can generate small earthquakes. Mrs Frederic turns up and tells him to back off because someone has been selling artefacts for money and he should use this as an opportunity to find out who the traitor in the pack is. When it turns out to be one of the controlling Regents, Pete's life is put in terrible danger. The plot around the selling of artefacts from within the Warehouse 13 team is a tight and clever one that builds up through tense action and sudden death as Peter is left stranded and alone fighting an enemy that he cannot see, but who appears to be everywhere and to know everything. It's more of an action episode than the usual, but once the truth about what is going on is finally revealed some of the light-hearted fun resurfaces. It all moves with a fast pace and is especially believable thanks to the presence of Mark Sheppard doing his usual sterling job as the supporting villain of the piece. Tia Carrere also guest stars for no apparent reason since she is on screen for barely a few minutes. TopFOR THE TEAMA recovering Pete is forced to stay at the warehouse and help Artie, whose appendix has grown back again whilst Myka takes Claudia on a mission involving spontaneously combusting wrestlers. There are serious shades of Go Fish from http://www.scififreaksite.com/buffy.html">BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER about this story of a suddenly succesful college team that are being boosted artificially and paying the price as a result. There are no surprises and the sudden revelation of a whole new angle of investigation really should have been more surprising. HG Wells' sudden change of agenda is a surprise, but not one that we believe in. The Myka and Claudia storyline benefits from the actresses making more out of the script than it deserves and Pete's bored playing with the artefacts is fun, but when the highlight of the story is the fact that the object of Artie's affections is played by one time BIONIC WOMAN Lyndsey Wagner then you know that the show has to try harder. TopMERGE WITH CAUTIONPete and Myka are planning normal weekends, him with new girlfriend Kelly and she with her classmates at the reunion she dreads. Both are going well until the artefact they recently captured switches them between bodies. Artie can't help either since he and Claudia are on the trail of a woman who is making insurancemen donate millions to charity. WAREHOUSE 13 continues its habit of stunt casting by featuring the recurring Paula Garces (Pete's girlfriend) and Laura Harris, the pair having co-starred in the short-lived DEFYING GRAVITY, though the pair don't share any scenes. This is primarily the body swap story of Pete and Myka in each others' bodies. It's a tried and tested storyline and a good deal more fun could have been had with these situations, but the actors have fun pretending to be each other and their predicament does descend into a surprisingly serious bloodbath. Artie and Claudia's pursuit of what turns out to be Mata Hari's stockings proves to be equally familiar as Artie and the other men become obsessed stalkers against their wills, but also has some fun thanks to the characters being so likeable. WAREHOUSE 13 continues to be likeable, but lightweight. TopVENDETTASomeone is using artefacts to kill off people close to Pete, Myka and then Artie. It all goes back to Artie's illegal activities before he was taken into the warehouse and it is going to take the whole team, along with the previously disgraced HG Wells to sort it all out before Artie is killed. Despite the dark edges to it, this episode whizzes past lightly and fast and remains in the memory almost not at all. The various artefacts (Torquemada's rack chain, wood from the RMS Titanic, murderous croquet balls etc) are fun, but the connection with Artie's past is too vague to really engage. He has to explain the whys and wherefores like a lecture and so the audience is never really involved. Allison Scaglietti's Claudia has much more fun in much less screen time with her extremely unlikely tale of forbidden love and uses the whole range of Scooby Doo phrases along the way. TopWHEN AND WHEREIn 1961, an artefact was used in a series of murders, turning women to glass. The only way to find this artefact is for Myka and Pete to travel back to 1961 a relive a day in the life of two past agents. Fortunately, the newly reinstated HG Wells has a machine that might be able to help. The past is intractable. What happened, happened and you can't go back to change it, no matter how much you try. That's the tenet of this episode and it plays out quite nicely, deftly weaving the past and present together into a neat little time travel story that for once doesn't leave a trail of paradoxes behind in its wake. The period is nicely evoked and a blink or miss it cameo from Armin Shimerman (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, DEEP SPACE NINE) doesn't hurt any either. TopBURIEDWarehouse 2 was established in Ancient Egypt, but was lost under the sands. Now it has been rediscovered and Mrs Frederic is suffering a psychic overload as a result. Myka, Pete and Helena travel to the warehouse to try and shut it down before it kills her. There is a nice moment where Helena mistakes a Lara Croft outfit for the current fashion in female British archaeologist attire and that’s only appropriate since this is basically a TOMB RAIDER game with the warehouse trio playing it for real. There are tests and trials and eventually the target is achieved, but watching other people play video games is rarely that much fun and so it proves here. The saving grace is the last couple of minutes in which the not-unexpected twist in the tail takes place. TopRESETHG Wells has revealed her duplicity and left her fellow agents to die in Warehouse 2, but Artie comes to their rescue and they discover that the artefact that Helena went into Egypt for is capable of destroying the whole world. It's series finale time and the stakes are set high with the whole world under threat as Helena threatens to use the trident that destroyed Atlantis to rid the world of the plague that she calls humanity. The death of her daughter must be avenged, but it must be avenged on the whole human race and she has taken steps to make certain that the team can't kill her without killing themselves. This is a very plot-driven episode that ramps up the action as the climax approaches, but that action is underpinned by the characters involved. Pete makes goes through all kinds of emotional entanglements as he faces the possibility of true love whilst Helena rages at the world that killed her daughter and Myka is faced with the possibility that her mistaken belief in HG will actually destroy humanity. All of this means that the witty banter isn't quite as obvious, but it is there and the actors are so comfortable with the roles that they are effortlessly entertaining. TopSECRET SANTAPete and Myka are set on the trail of a property tycoon who is being terrorised by none other than Santa. Claudia, meanwhile, takes great steps to bring Artie and his estranged father back together. This is a Christmas special and makes no attempt to fit into the timeline of the end of Season 2. Instead, it settles for an intriguing plot set around a bad father and a trite, tedious plot set around Artie and his father. Still, it's the season of goodwill and there's enough there to let this episode slide past uncriticised, mainly due to the clever use of the World War I Christmas ceasefire as the origin of the artefact. Top |
