Review - Warehouse 13 Season 1 Episode 4 Claudia

Before I review the episode, I have to express what may be a psychological problem of mine or an actual problem in the editing room. There have been a few instances in all the episodes where the sound effects or the music overpowered the voices and I had to rewatch the scene. I'm not entirely sure where the problem lies because the actors seem to be doing a good job projecting in other instances. The other thing I noticed is that there is occasionally a very shaky camera. I distinctly remember one scene in this episode when Pete and Myka are talking in Claudia's apartment and I really noticed the camera moving around like crazy. There was another scene in last weeks episode that seemed to have the same problem but I assumed it was just a fluke. Maybe it's in my mind, maybe it isn't. I don't look specifically for these kind of things, but I guess something caught my attention so I assume there is something.

I liked how the writers switched things up this episode and focused a lot on Artie instead of Myka and Pete finding an artifact. Claudia, the title character of this episode, is in fact the hacker and knew Artie from a long time ago. Her brother Joshua was being supervised by Artie had been in a lab accident and died when she was young. We see this in a series of vague flashbacks showing the events leading up to the accident.

Claudia is kind of crazy, kidnaps Artie and brings him to the same warehouse her brother's accident occurred. Apparently he is still alive, but stuck in another plane or something. We see him in intervals yelling from behind a cloudy thing. I'll admit the show does a poor job of explaining things, so stuff just happens, and Claudia is getting worse psychically from being there.

Pete and Myka come back to the warehouse and discover using a cool artifact that Artie is kidnapped. Under orders of Mrs. Frederick and start investigating, leading them to Claudia's apartment (not her orders), and finding out that Joshua's experiment had been teleportation aided by Rheticus's compass.

I think I know why the procedural element of the show is so lacking. They go through very few steps, simplifying the whole thing, but at one point, someone takes a huge step forward in the case without any deduction or induction. Myka or Pete just comes up with something and then runs with it. There doesn't seem to be any build-up. In this episode, it was pretty clear. Pete randomly thinks Rheticus put puzzles in his artifacts so he thinks the compass has a hidden panel with other rules.

The team gets to Artie and Claudia and tell Artie their discovery. Artie and Claudia touch Joshua and get sucked into his realm. Artie grabs the compass, finds the panel, follows the instructions, and saves Joshua. Mrs. Frederick expresses deep concern over the information Claudia knows and has to deal with it.

I liked the characterization of Claudia. She wasn't too crazy, still wanted to get her brother back after so many years, and wasn't too stiff. One thing I like about the scifi-lite genre, even in the most dire situations, the dialogue can still be funny.

The shows needs some serious cleaning up to do, but I think the dynamic between Myka and Pete, the mysteriousness of Mrs. Frederick and Leena, and Artie and definitely the strong points of the show. Now only if they could make a coherent storyline...

Score: 8.7/10 (same as last week's)