Warehouse13S04E11Syfy, 29 April 2013

With the ‘sweating sickness’ unleashed worldwide, Pete and Myka have to undo the effects of the orchid, while Steve and Claudia enter Artie’s subconscious to bring him out of a coma…

So, despite what you might have thought from the cliffhanger at the end of episode ten back in October, not everyone exposed to the ‘sweating sickness’ drops dead instantly. It’s a gradual process, allowing our heroes time to save themselves and everyone else…

Investigating how to bring plants back to life, Pete and Myka come across the Count St. Germain and turn to an eccentric history professor for help. In what initially appears to be a major piece of miscasting, the debauched academic is played by Buffy‘s James Marsters. Just when he’s getting annoying, however, it is revealed that he is the actual Count St. Germain making a virtue of Marsters seemingly strange casting (and even throwing in a lame vampire gag for good measure).

Also in the cast is Caprica‘s Polly Walker, as St. Germain’s academic sparring partner. Again, this seems like a waste of a good performer when she’s just in one scene, until the end of the episode comes around and her larger agenda is revealed, suggesting we’ll be seeing more of her…

Thankfully for the budget, the inside of Artie’s mind looks just like the Warehouse, and is populated with past characters, such as Dr Calder and James MacPherson—these are fun scenes, but for all the lightness of this stuff, it still serves to deal with the fact that Artie killed Leena, an event not undone by defeating the ‘sweating sickness’ virus.

Warehouse 13 continues to be a lot of fun, with the second half of this series perhaps ditching the overdone melodrama of the first half and returning to basics—there do seem to be a few great episodes coming up…

Verdict: A slow starter, but it all builds to a nicely satisfying ending.

Episode 11 ‘The Living and the Dead’: 8/10

Brian J. Robb

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