Syfy, 13 May 2013
Pete and Myka are trapped in an unfinished 1940s hard-boiled detective novel (shown in the style of film noir), while Steve, Claudia and Artie tackle an unusual car thief…
One of the best episodes of this entire series, ‘The Big Snag’ is partly in black-and-white as the show goes all out to represent Pete and Myka’s tumble into fiction as a brilliantly scripted and wonderfully realised film noir pastiche. It’s not only in the writing and photography that this come across, but in the superb acting, with both Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly rising magnificently to the occasion. As always, Kelly scrubs up rather well in some wonderfully 1940s dresses, while McClintock puts his self-depreciating humour to the fore as he impersonates a film noir private eye with an eye for the ladies…
The faux hard boiled novel stuff rather overshadows the magical car thief storyline, and this B-story makes the mistake of itself coming to resemble a 1970s car chase film in its closing stages. That’s an impression that should have been avoided, as one genre movie pastiche per episode works but two starts to look like the producers didn’t quite know how to handle the other storyline.
Despite that, this is the most thoroughly enjoyable episode of this show in a long time, so it is even more disappointing that The Powers That Be have decided to wrap it all up next season with a finale six-episodes mini-series. There’s clearly a lot more life left in Warehouse 13 yet…
Verdict: Brilliant stuff, with writing, direction and acting all coming together to entertain marvellously!
Episode 13 ‘The Big Snag’: 9/10
Brian J. Robb
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