I'll say one thing about this new season so far: it certainly hasn't been boring. Warehouse 13 has found a formula for keeping the viewer's interest piqued throughout a whole hour of television and dropping big hints about the future storyline.
Right from the start, this episode had lots of callbacks to old elements of the series. There was a picture of the Civil War re-enactment Jinks and Claudia went to, and we had the return of the "dead agent" vault. I really like it when this series is self-referential because the writers have come up with an impressive amount of clever ideas over the years and many of them could deserve a little extra screen time. The premise of this story refers back to the huge cache of artifacts that Sykes had and what happened to it, which was one loose end from last season that is neatly tied up here.
This story gets into the warehouse agent action very quickly. Within the first five minutes we've already got Pete and Myka busting into Sykes' house to grab, bag, and tag Sykes' old artifacts only to find that someone else got there first. It turns out to be a dude named Jessie who is portrayed by this week's guest star, Brian J. Smith from SyFy's ill-fated Stargate Universe series. He was a good casting choice since he's got a fair amount of experience with sci-fi stories and acting with CG special effects. He also has this innocuous boy next door charm that's perfect for this role.
Brian's character has a typical background for a Warehouse 13 antagonist: he's not really a bad guy, just a desperate person trying to figure out a way out of a tragic situation when an artifact lands in their lap. Or in this case, a box full of artifacts that he quickly scatters across a North Dakota town via the local pawn shop. Then the crux of this episode becomes an artifact scavenger hunt. What's more interesting than chasing one artifact? Chasing a box of them!
This is a brilliant move on the part of the writers. We get a gaggle of varied artifacts, placing our man cast in a bunch of different situations that bring excitement and that unique Warehouse 13 humor. The best joke of the episode was Artie's, “A jew and a black woman walk into a country club...”. That was beautiful, and made even more perfect by the fact that it's usually not Artie that comes up with these quips. Then we have the lady at the country club with the 9-iron was a hoot too. Some of the jokes weren't such a hit though. When Jinks goes “I'm gay”, and the lingerie clerk girl is all “Oh my god, do you watch Revenge?” I just shook my head and tried to ignore the extreme levels of cheesiness. But that's Warehouse 13 for you -- it straddles that thin line between cute quirky fun and groan-inducing camp, but it's always at least trying.
In the midst of all this action are a couple of dropped hints about the overarching plot points that are going to drive this season. Artie accidentally almost spilled the beans about his trip through time, and it's becoming clear that Claudia and Jinks now share a voodoo kind of bond that makes any damage to Jinks happen to Claudia. This is surely a side effect of the use of the metronome, but it'll be interesting to see how this plays a part in Artie's strange visions of Claudia stabbing him with a dagger.
There's another aspect worth mentioning: the special effects. After a step back last week, this episode comes back strong in the CG department with a number of clean and challenging effects. Thunderstorm effects can be tricky to pull off with a low budget, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything came out nice and pretty here. The sets and props work well too. The aftermath of dropping an armored truck through a hole in the ceiling of a warehouse was nicely done.
The only area where I feel this story dropped the ball a bit was the emotional impact of the story behind Jessie's motivation. The "I've got a sick family member and need to pay the bills" idea has been used many, many times in Hollywood and it is beyond cliche at this point. Jessie's ultimate sacrifice is still touching, but one wonders if a donor's heart would still be useful after a lightning strike. Still, overall this is a fun episode with lots of great material, and the flaws don't really detract from an otherwise enjoyable hour of TV.
Source : feeds.ign.com
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