Last week, I mentioned my sort of love hate relationship with this show,
how as much as I enjoy the project overall, individual week to week
episodes can sometimes be dragged down under the weight of boring
filler that gets in the way of what I find interesting about the
series. I recognize that it isn't entirely fair to come to like one
piece of a multifaceted show and then criticize it for not
emphasizing that piece over the other stuff I don't care about, but
being a fan with a daily review blog, I can't not see and talk about
the show from that frame of reference. This weeks episode is once
again illustrative of my back and forth regard for Warehouse 13.
Well,
for once I liked the Pete and Myka A story better than the B plot,
but that's only because the B plot was barely present to like, and as
much as it didn't add anything to the storyline I'm actually
interested in, the noir parody stuff was mostly funny. Its just that,
I don't know, if you're going to go with the cable model of shorter
seasons, it seems like you could do a lot more to jam pack them with
important stuff. Most sci fi/fantasy shows on major networks with the
typical 22+ episode count often need a few filler episodes in there,
but with a show like Warehouse 13 where we're limited to 10 or 12,
getting to the freaking point is a bit imperative.
The
Big Snag follows Pete and Myka trapped in an unfinished hard boiled
detective novel, forced to play the roles of a gumshoe and his gal
friday and solve the case of a missing artifact or be trapped in
black and white limbo forever. It's the kind of cute meta excursion
the show is usually very good at, and provides a lot of opportunities
for silly banter between the two leads that I gather a lot of fans
really like, but for me, it all just comes across as a bit of a
waste. More than that, the extended focus required to set up the
gimmick leaves the usually much better side stories with less time to
develop.
So...are
we gonna get any more with that immortal lady or James Marsters?
Nope. I know its only the third episode, but technically that
encompasses the first 30% of this whole season, and we still haven't
seen any indication of the main story progressing. And it wouldn't be
so bad if the whole Artie car stealing subplot had a little more
substance to it. When you only have so much time to get something
meaningful going in an episode that is otherwise a kitchy genre
pastiche, why waste it on magic gloves and reiterating the point that
Artie's got anger issues?
Even
so, the show does what its trying to do here very well, even if I
think the endeavor is a bit superfluous at this point. We've had
enough episodes like this in the past, and ever since the start of
this season with the destruction of the Warehouse, Jinx's brief
undead stint, Evil Artie, dead Leena, and the overall much darker
tone this show has taken (that I have loved), I just don't think we
needed another one, especially when we haven't even really gotten
into the main story for this second half yet. Then again, if only
based on how I sound to myself reading this back, I'm probably just
being a dick about it, so if you're a fan, you'll most likely have no
problem.
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