Round Two: Warehouse 13

Warehouse 13: Season 1, Episode 2 “Resonance” (B-)

This is the first real test of the durability of “Warehouse 13” since its pilot last week mainly served to put the characters in the correct place. In its second installment, Syfy’s new show certainly has some things going for it. The character of Artie (Saul Rubinek), beloved in the pilot by some reviewers, has become far less annoying and much more crucial to the whole story. His interaction with Dickinson was pretty terrific, and their back-and-forth banter is exactly what this tone-starved show needs. I must confess that the old-fashioned camera that Artie used to freeze Dickinson in the middle of his sentence was super-cool, and that kind of thing will keep me watching this show. The investigative duo of Pete and Myka still isn’t doing it for me, but it’s good that guest stars like the always-fantastic Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) will pop up. I’m very grateful that Helfer’s character wasn’t corrupt since that always seems to be the way things end up when agencies interact. In this case, she was slightly obnoxious, but not too detrimental to the solving of the case. That’s how things should go down, and hopefully this show, which is not hell-bent on government conspiracy theories, will continue to portray interagency relations. The most intriguing part of this decent second effort is an improvement of the “vessel” (still can’t get “Reaper” out of my mind), or rather the mysteriously powerful object. The haunting effect of the speakers was pretty incredible, and despite that its effect was to make people woozy and laugh, I was awed by the scene where Myka is trying to not be affected by it and it’s just overtaking everyone. It reminded me, if only slighty, of “Threshold,” which would have been a perfect, perfect, perfect fit for Syfy. Hopefully this show will get there.