TELEVISION REVIEW: Missing Artifacts! A Traitor Within! A Killer Cliffhanger! Warehouse 13’s First Season Closes on an Explosive Note!

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Over the course of its first season, Warehouse 13 [Tuesday, Syfy, 9/8C] has become Syfy’s most watched series ever and it’s easy to see why. The oil and water personalities of Agents Pete Lattimer [Eddie McClintock] and Myka Bering [Joanne Kelly] and Warehouse 13 Supervisor/Curator/Cataloguer Artie Nielsen [Saul Rubinek] and kid computer wizard Claudia Donovan [Allison Scagliotti] produces a high ratio of clever banter per episode and allow for a sufficiently diverse group of personality types that pretty every viewer can identify with [or wish they were] one of the four. Add intriguing magical and/pr scientific artifacts that do weird and crazy stuff – and which must, therefore, be removed from easy access and/or nullified, and you have a premise that can go almost anywhere.

To that already intriguing mix, add a carefully built backstory that includes aura-reading Leena [Genelle Williams], the mysterious and dangerous Mrs. Frederic [CCH Pounder], and the ruthless former Warehouse agent, James MacPherson [Roger Rees] and you have the potential for an explosive first-season finale.

Entitled simply MacPherson, the season finale finds the team stumbling onto an apparent auction of artifacts – artifacts that are under lock and key in the Warehouse. And, just in case it might seem a bit too easy for Pete and Myka, there are tricks to be played; traps to be laid, and the revelation – by Mrs. Frederic, no less – of the reason MacPherson became a former Warehouse agent [and it’s a case of love overshadowing duty]. On top of everything else, the season-ending cliffhanger suggests the possibility that Warehouse 13 might not actually be the warehouse that we see in the middle of the Badlands of South Dakota!

Co-written by the series creators, D. Brent Mote and Jane Espenson, MacPherson is a fast-paced, smart hour of twists and turns – some you’ll see coming, and some you won’t. It’s the proportions of the two that make MacPherson one of the show’s best eps. Well, that and some frantic action, intense situations and expansion of character development.

Warehouse 13 closes its rookie season with a Big Finish. If you’ve been enjoying the series thus far, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!

Final Grade: A

1 Comment

  1. The show had a bad start, but the writers finally started getting it together near the end. The finale had some nice elements previously unseen which can be improved on dramatically for next season. I had a whole lot of complaints about the show, but now I take it for what it is: a fun show. I'll live with the inconsistencies and plotholes. Full review of the episode.

    http://th3tvobsessed.blogspot.com/2009/09/warehou

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