Somehow I was able to tell fairly quickly that this was a Jeffrey Bell episode. Bell's relatively shallow scripts, hackneyed plots, and unfortunate tendency to fall into what has been coined the "cool idea trap" that plagued Chris Carter in his early episodes "Space" and "Fire" all resonate right from the teaser. Last season's "The Goldberg Variation" was the exception that proved the rule.
If you view "Salvage" purely as an homage to the Terminator franchise, perhaps you will see greater value here. Even so, I spent most of these forty-something minutes thinking about how much I'd rather be watching Terminator than this. At least character breadth was to be found there.
Wade Anthony Williams is a talented actor, and I enjoyed his run as Captain Bellick on Prison Break, but his central character here is, quite literally, lifeless. It's hard to sympathize with a character who rarely has any non-tacit responses and murders innocent people. Like "Surekill" before it, this episode allots too much time for the monster-of-the-week and precious little for Scully and Doggett, whose relationship had been the driving force between the first third of this season. Furthermore, Scully's breakneck inclination to jump to paranormal explanations lacks any believability and, even at this point in the series, undermines her scientific sensibilities.
It is also unclear who is really to blame for the metal-man's predicament. If his co-workers can truly be exonerated it is rather silly that one would be so trigger-happy upon his arrival at the salvage yard. His final line doesn't help.
There are enough decent special effects and subtle in-jokes regarding Robert Patrick's role in Terminator 2 that make this worth a view. Like the previous episode, however, there's too much filler and not nearly enough killer to make it worth a second.