24: Season Five (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)"24" is quite simply the greatest show to appear on television in a good long while and season five is its finest hour. Five seasons in, series creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran continue to spring one unpredictable surprise after another, sending super agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, by equal turns lethally charismatic and emotionally bruised) against his most formidable foes yet that include everyone and anyone from Russian Separatists, authoritarian double agents to high ranking members of the government. Fans of the season will know exactly who these baddies are, but for those unitiated, the head-spinning surprises are best left unsaid. What can be said, is that for this fifth season the crack writing staff took a good hard look at the state of geopolitics and the authoritarian neo-conservatism championed by the Bush administration and worked in a cautionary tale about oil-lust and hubris taken to extremes. Besides Sutherland, special recognition has to go to Gregory Itzin as the weak-kneed President Logan, Jean Smart as the harried first lady and Mary Lynn Rajskub as the nerdy Chole O'Brien. For the show, this season presented a tricky balancing act between the shows' signature slam-bang action scenes (there are still spectacular) and the sobering political commentary, but Surnow and Cochran nail it, making "24" a thinking man's thriller that is far smarter and far more relevant than anything else on television.

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Eighteen months after faking his own death, Jack Bauer is forced to return to Los Angeles when it becomes apparent that the only four people who know he is still alive are being systemically targeted for assassination.The assassinations coincide with the signing of an anti-terrorism treaty between Russia and the U.S., leading Jack to suspect a link between the assassinations, the treaty, and a group of Russian terrorists.But as events slowly unfold it becomes apparent that the day's horrific events were originally set in motion by someone within our country's own administration – an individual with the power and resources to thwart Jack's every move.

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Warehouse 13: Season One (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Combine "The X-Files" with Indiana Jones and add a dash of "Sanctuary," and voila -- you have "Warehouse 13."
Yeah, Sci-fi/SyFy's latest series isn't exactly the most original or unique show out there, but it is strangely endearing. After a round of rather generic standalone episodes, this series bounces off once it introduces a main villain and a plot arc -- and while there's little romantic chemistry, the lead characters are a likable bunch with some nicely handled character development.
After a weird incident involving an assassin and an Aztec bloodstone, Secret Service agents Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) and Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) are summoned to a run-down warehouse in the South Dakota badlands. An eccentric agent called Artie (Saul Rubinek) informs them that this is Warehouse 13, which holds dangerous and bizarre "artifacts" -- and their new assignment is to collect and neutralize new artifacts.
Among the problems they encounter: a young man possessed by a strange Italian power, bank robberies using music, a teleportation experiment gone wrong, a device that channels enough energy to fry people to a crisp, a katana that can slice through light, a mirror that switches Myka with a malevolent creature, and a prison whose occupants are driven to madness by the ghosts of their pasts. But the most dangerous problem is a former agent of the Warehouse, who is now determined to grab the artifacts for his own purposes -- and destroy Artie and the others as well.
Despite being pretty derivative of "The X-Files" at times (skeptical strict female agent paired with quirky wild card), "Warehouse 13" has a pretty brilliant concept -- basically it's about a place that seals away any dangerous historical artifacts. Among the artifacts: Poe's pen, Lewis Carroll's mirror, a Studio 54 disco ball (which plays "I Will Survive" when disturbed) the Tesla gun, a giant steampunky computer and a wishing kettle that produces ferrets.
The stories are a solid blend of action, grimy sci-fi (the warehouse is a pretty bleak-looking place), and a bit of comedy on the side (one of the Important Artifact-Seeking Questions is, "Do you smell fudge?"). While the first few episodes are rather generic one-offs, the plots become tighter and more intense about halfway through -- and the addition of the sociopathic MacPherson and the Regents adds a new level of potential to the arc storyline.
Downsides? The dialogue can be painfully cool-kiddish at times, especially when Claudia is being annoyingly self-referential ("Couldn't any genius whiz-kid?"). And the romantic chemistry between Kelly and McClintock is almost nil.
But Kelly and McClintock make a solid supernatural-detective duo -- he's a quirky pop-culture-loving weirdo (although I just can't see him as a Secret Service agent) with a weakness for cookies, while her almost-fanatical devotion to rules/plans is explained by a tragic personal loss. Allison Scagliotti does a good job as the erratic "whiz-kid," although her character can be annoying. But Saul Rubinek is the ruling force in this series -- a quirky, gruff, antisocial man who is haunted by the many agents lost in pursuit of artifacts. He's absolutely brilliant.
"Warehouse 13 Season 1" is pretty derivative at times, but it's also strangely endearing and quite fun. The best part is, it seems to be getting better with time.

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After saving the life of the President, two top Secret Service agents find themselves abruptly transferred to Warehouse 13 — a massive, top-secret storage facility in the badlands of South Dakota that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. Now the pair — off-the-cuff Agent Pete Lattimer and by-the-book Agent Myka Bering — must chase down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects for their eccentric new boss, Artie Nielsen, to safeguard at the Warehouse. It’s a wildly entertaining adventure full of inventive gadgetry and thrilling action, and with all twelve Warehouse 13: Season One episodes cataloged and archived in this collectible three-disc set, now’s your chance to snag it, bag it and tag it!

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