Season 4 of Warehouse 13 is starting to heat up with Brother Adrian’s (Brent Spiner) discovery that it was indeed Artie (Saul Rubinek) who used the Astrolabe, though I wonder if this storyline can last throughout the season. I think it will probably be resolved by the season hiatus after episode 10. In the meantime the storyline of Steve Jinks’s (Aaron Ashmore) resurrection will now center on the downsides as well, that is, when he gets injured than so does Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti).
As for ‘No Pain, No Gain’, here is the synopsis…
While Artie and Steve investigate the theft of artifacts from the warehouse, Mrs. Frederic invites Claudia to lunch and Pete and Myka investigate a miraculously healed athlete.
No sign as yet of Jaime Murray reprising he role of H.G. Wells.
Here is the video promo for ‘No Pain, No Gain’…
Here are the preview photos for ‘No Pain, No Gain’…
An Evil Within is the second episode of the fourth season of Warehouse 13 and it unfortunately continues the creative slowdown that seeped into the third season.
The plot of An Evil Within…
This episode has two main storylines. The first follows Myka (Joanne Kelly) and Pete (Eddie McClintock) as they try to find out why people are behaving in an hysteric way and claim to see monster with tentacles. Eventually Pete and Myka uncover that somebody is avenging the death of his fiancé by using an artifact in such a way that everybody things the victim is a monster and should be killed.
The second storyline follows Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) and Artie (Saul Rubinek) as they each try to undue past mistakes. Claudia gains access to the morgue where Steve’s bodies is being held and attempts to resurrect him with an artifact. Jane Lattimer (Kate Mulgrew) appears but against Artie’s protestations seems to approve of Claudia’s plan, later she even helps Claudia to perform the procedure. After Steve is resurrected Claudia attempts to make him understand what has happened and it takes Steve a while to come to accepts he has been dead. Meanwhile regent Kosan appears at the Warehouse 13 and makes his displeasure known about Jane Lattimer’s approval. He vows that if there are negative side effects to Steve’s resurrection he will disable the artifact that was used.
Artie meanwhile is approached by Brother Adrian who asks his help to find Magellan’s astrolabe. Brother Adrian states that a person who uses it will cause evil to spread throughout the world. Artie doesn’t tell him he has used it to save the warehouse and H.G. Wells but Brother Adrian seems to suspect something is a amiss. Artie ponders whether Claudia’s attempt at resurrecting Steve has anything to do with Adrian’s warning. This storyline ends without any dénouement and it seems to remain the main plot line for the foreseeable future of Warehouse 13.
Review…
I personally felt that this episode was a letdown, none of the events that took place in this made me care much for the characters. On the one hand there was Pete and Myka’s chase of the culprit that tries to avenge the death of his fiancé which though introduced drama also violated the suspense of disbelief when artifacts were openly discussed with members of the public. Myka’s comment on how she understood why a person might avenge the death of a loved one was an allusion to the trials of H.G. Wells. This made Jaime Murray’s absence from the episode all the more felt.
Claudia’s and Artie’s story remained throughout most of the episode interesting but after Claudia had resurrected Steve and Artie had his gazillion coffee and scones with Brent Spiner’s character I stopped caring. Though Steve Jinks broke a wall with him being openly gay he brought too few other traits to really merit coming back on the show. His character gets in the way of Artie and Claudia working together which was one of the highlights of the earlier seasons. This episode already seems to foreshadow Steve second death as the other regents don’t approve of what regent Lattimer has done. Claudia’s attempts at gaining access to the morgue are the main highlight of this episode as they are quite funny.
Kate Mulgrew’s guest appearance was poorly used and her behavior as a regent was out of character, Brent Spiner’s character was reasonably effective and makes for an interesting character for this show.
If Jaime Murray doesn’t return to the show as a regular than I can only hope that her rumored spinoff series gets off the ground quick because Warehouse 13 seems to have run out of ideas.
This episode of Warehouse 13 is a Christmas special, and as such it lampoons the
series just a bit (which in its own rights is often frivolous). Often this can
either be needlessly stupid or absolutely brilliant. This episode swings back
and forth between the two.
The episode begins with Pete and Myka having to retrieve Rudolph’s red nose which playing havoc to someone Christmas decorations. After they manage to do so Pete finds himself on Christmas watch in Warehouse 13, while fooling around he manages to get hit by a brush which erases his entire existence. After he casually strolls into Artie’s office he finds that MacPherson and two other agents are in charge of the warehouse. Pete for a while thinks this is a practical joke and rather irritatingly for the audience doesn’t make the connection with any artifact.
Pete finally suggests that Leena might recognize him and the two agents take
him to see her.
Of course she doesn’t and Pete still can’t figure what is happening. He does manage to escape from the two agents and Leena but not before he suggests that MacPherson is a thief who sells artifacts on the open market. He is overheard by Mrs. Frederic who is visibly startled.
Pete decides to find Myka who is still a Secret Service agent in Washington DC.
After initial disbelief he manages to persuade to see Artie who is in jail for
artifact theft. It is Artie who deduces that Pete is telling the truth and must
have touched the brush. In order to set things right they need to break into
the warehouse and the only person who can manage that is… you guessed it right… Claudia.
They bust Claudia out of the asylum with the promise of finding her brother, after
disabling the agents that had followed them they break into the warehouse.
Myka and Pete decide to find the artifact only to discover that MacPherson has
cleaned out the entire Christmas aisle. They finally manage to corner him
before he destroys the artifact. Pete manages to grab the artifact while
falling into the earth’s lava and this action sets everything right.
The last scene is about the gang celebrating Christmas at leena’s where to Pete’s horror they are going to watch ‘It’s a wonderful Life’
Conclusion; the episode is Ok, not brilliant. It suffers from familiar problems surrounding Warehouse 13. This show just isn’t serious enough and that alone causes the failure of suspense of disbelief.
Score; 7.5 / 10.
Viewer ratings; Not available.
Warehouse 13 will be back for a fourth season in 2012.
This is one of those strange episodes were Warehouse 13 tries to get all serious and against the odds it actually works. Season 2 also had such episodes though I have forgotten theor names it is nontheless a strange gambit as Warehouse 13 normally has to succeed with being goofy with its characters and clever with its artifacts. Certainly the show more often than I would like just ‘Jumps the shark’ but ehere is a thread of episodes right from the beginning of this show that are just spectacular and they almost seem like a show on their own. Warehouse 13 was often in the beginning often compared to the x-files,quickly we found out that this isn’t just right as the x-files at least use science to underline its plot. However, this episode would fall in the ‘x-files’ categorie and is definitely an example of how this show should proceed.
As for the plot…..
We find Myka and pete back in Denver where myka recognizes a man as the killer of her partner when she was stationed there with the Secret Service. Despite some skeptiscism from Pete they decide to pursue the case anew. This means they will have to bring in her old Secret Service buddies, which she is anxious off because they blame her relationship with her old partner Sam. however, they seem to revere her attention to detail and quickly agree to help her out. This takes our gang to several locations to find the killer, each time they are spurned on by an anonymous source which I personally thought already gave too much of the ploit away. The first time the killer manages to escape in such an unlikely manner that proofs he must have een using a artifact. the second time they manage to catch up to him he is gunned down after a firearm suddenly appears in his hands. Pete and Myka agree the killer must have been using a artifact that freezes time (which Artie later confirms comes from the Philadephia Project). However, the viewer would have already guessed how the above events tie into a larger plot but for a few minutes we have to Myka being complete dishevelled at events before Pete pulls her through. Myka figures out that it wasn’t the killer who used the time freezse device but one of her colleages at the Secret Service who works with the killer. It was the colleage who gave the tip-offs and who put the gun in the killer’s hand and later on shot him.
Pete and Myka confront two of her colleages in their office and quickly is transpires which off them is the true killer. This scene although has good special effects is a bit contrived, in the end time is frozen but Myka manages to kill the killer by pushing him into the path of a frozen bullet which resumes its trajectory when time resumes.
This episode is for a lack of a better word Myka centric, and I am glad to see actress Joanne Kelley being able to flex her acting muscles in this one as her character seems to be on a emotional rollercoaster.
This episode also has a side plot for Artie, Claudia and Steve. It is in essence a continuation of last weeks episode during which Artie and Steve were betrayed by agent Sally Stukowski. In this episode Claudia and Steve are sent to fetch a doorknob artifact after which they are stunned by unknown assaillants. However, a dog was a witness and is duly taken back to warehouse 13 were a a pair of fez’s (you know a hat) allows people to read a dogs mind. This way they uncover the licence plate number which confirms that Sally is also behind the latest attack. Next week will propably see a continuation of this side-plot.
Number of viewers; 2.25 million, a slight decrease over the previous weeks despite being much better.
Score; 8.5/10.
I finally managed to get round finding time to write a review for this weeks episodes of Warehouse 13 and Alphas. Unfortunately, one reason why I delayed writing a review was that both episodes were mediocre as best this week. That’s why both reviews won’t be as extensive as normally as I have already described both shows shortcomings before and now like a perfect storm they found their way into these episodes.
Warehouse 13 ‘Don’t hate the player’ , starts of quite well, a geeky friend of Fargo (Eureka) anxiously calls up saying he can’t wake him and a friend from virtual reality. Pete, Myka and Claudia investigate and quickly discover the VR effect is enhanced with the use of an artifact. Pete and Claudia also go into the VR game to Fargo and his friend out, along the way coming into contact with their fantasy clones which in the case of Claudia is dresses in a rather skimpy outfit with details that are described by Pete as freckles. Things take a turn for the worst when they find out they can die in VR, luckily they are later helped out by Myka who is also sporting a tight skimpy outfit in VR (probably an attempt by the producers to make up for HG wells’ absence). In the end they manage to defeat the monster who is no other than the girlfriend of Fargo’s friend (two otherwise completely forgettable characters).
In the meantime Steve and Artie are on a art-artifact hunt that seems only mildly more interesting because its sets the storyline for the coming episodes.
The special effects to create the VR in the beginning quite good but as the episode progresses they get worse and become quite distracting, the acting is apart from a few well delivered one-liners nothing to write home about. This show suffers from the fact it isn’t just serious enough, mostly because of the premise which doesn’t make much sense. The drama that has been added this season makes up a little but it needs the synergy of good special effects, good plots that viewers care about and character development. Most of the time we aren’t getting this synergy and the show is marching off to jump the shark. That it got renewed for another season is a mystery that might best be investigated as a premise for an episode.
Score; 7/10.
Alphas ‘Bill and Gary’s Excellent Adventure’ , has at first sight the ingredients for an excellent episode. Both Gary and Bill are the most interesting characters of Alphas, this episode also sports a guest star with an interesting background and the premise is a hunt of an non-Alpha villain. Nevertheless the episode suffers from being dull….. i just can’t say it in any other way, the episode is mostly centered around Bill who wishes to catch some drug dealers in order to get into the good books with the FBI, but it just doesn’t work. The show’s writers perhaps hoped foolishly that a character motivated beyond good and evil would be interesting for a character who only sees good and evil. It merely undermines what has been built up over the past few weeks. The special effects for this episode are mediocre, the plot development is unsurprising and in fact I’m still having trouble remembering the names of the characters on this show. The episode got this seasons lowest viewer rating of Alphas so far, just 1.83 million. I’m pretty sure there won’t be a second season of Alphas.
Score; 6/10.
Next weeks previews, lets hope both shows will try harder.
