Warehouse 13: Beyond Our Control
An artifact arrives in Warehouse 13’s home town.
We may not have seen our big bad villain, H.G. Wells, again this week but it seems as though the second season of “Warehouse 13” is settling into its groove.
The team finds their Farnsworths malfunctioning which Artie claims to be because Claudia attempted to reconfigure hers. Pete and Myka notice that the Farnsworths are activating just before strange events occur in the town. One person claims to have seen marines from WWII while Pete and Myka find themselves in the middle of a Wild West gun fight. Pete realizes the man they keep seeing is an actor, played by Philip Winchester, and his movies are being played in real life. The last of his movies features the explosion of a small town, not unlike their own Univille. Artie and Claudia realize that one of Farnsworth’s other inventions is the problem; the warehouse contains his projector but not his camera. It turns out that the woman running the post office has been tuning into a movie marathon and broadcasting it into real life. By broadcasting Artie instead the town is saved.
Sometimes with “Warehouse 13” it can be all too easy to guess what object might be causing the phenomenon or at least see the connection between the people affected. In “Beyond Our Control” seemingly random historical events are showing up all over town somehow always featuring the same man. I know, before Pete determines who the mysterious man is, I was completely baffled as to how that could be happening. But it all comes together when we find that movies are being broadcast into the streets from someone’s television set. Everyone fantasizes a little about what it would be like if their favourite show or movie was real and in “Beyond Our Control” it’s almost like they are. Farnsworth’s projector and camera are certainly an interesting set of artifacts and it gives the characters an excuse to talk more about the communication devices we all take for granted in the show. The prospect that the camera spent years sitting in the post office all because the shipping label had been ripped leads me to wonder just what else might never have arrived at the warehouse.
Univille houses the warehouse but in general we’ve seen very little of it. Artie mentions that there are precautions put in place to make sure that there are no artifacts in the towns chosen to host warehouses and thus there hasn’t been much to put it on the map for us as viewers. We learned recently that the townspeople all seem to dislike Pete and Myka but the reasons why were unclear. Now it’s all revealed though; the people believe they’re IRS agents. No surprise they don’t like Myka and Pete now.
Some strange feelings from Leena last week led her to call in Mrs. Frederic for help. I’m still not sure about this Leena storyline. I’ve mentioned already that it would have been more interesting if she got to act as a bad guy on the inside this season (after helping MacPherson at the end of last season) but we know now that she was being controlled. In “Beyond Our Control” the regents decide that they want to try and get information out of Leena by putting the pearl back in to see if there is any trace of MacPherson left. “Beyond Our Control” is a great episode but Leena’s scenes just take away from the feel of the rest of the story. I’m not sure what I was expecting from Leena’s headaches but it certainly wasn’t a crystal ball.
“Beyond Our Control” doesn’t take the characters far from home but still manages to be an exciting and funny episode. All the things “Warehouse 13” strives to be. The only thing holding it back is the secondary plot involving Leena. I can only hope the writers can find something better to do with her soon.
Andrea
