I really liked this episode, it was visually interesting with witty dialog, good supporting cast, light hearted, wacky plot line - it all adds up to delightful entertainment. Excerpts from actor Raymond St. James movies start happening throughout the town of Univille. St. James appears in his movie roles as a WWII soldier, a cowboy, a gladiator, a private eye and most deadly of all, the mad scientist Dr. Doomsday. The Farnsworth projector may well destroy the whole town but fortunately Myka has a photographic memory (a heretofore unknown gift) and saves the day. Really liked the side bits about why the Univille townspeople were giving Pete and Myka the brush off, the cranky post office worker, the hardware store employee, and the "cute meet" between Pete and the local vet. This episode also got me to look up Philo Farnsworth - a scientist instrumental in the development of television. The only downside to the episode was the pearl of wisdom bit with Leena - it was boring filler - unfortunately, we'll probably get more of this particular plot line. Other than that, this show was a winner.
3 Reviews
Trouble in Univille
Tweekums26 September 2018
Despite being the town nearest Warehouse 13 Univille has so far escaped the effects of any artefacts; that is about to change. Shortly after Claudia tinkers with her Farnsworth Device strange things start to happen in town. First the vet sees a group of marines moving past her window. Later Myka sees a man riding a horse down the pavement and both Pete and Myka see a group of cowboys engaged in a shootout. Before the latter to events their Farnsworth devices act strangely... this leads Artie to blame Claudia but she is convinced that her actions couldn't have caused the events. As they witness further events it is noticed that one person in each event looks the same... Pete makes a connection and if he is right the town is in real danger if they can't find a solution. In a secondary story Mrs Frederic tries to help Leena with the aftereffects of MacPherson's activities.
This episode was a lot of fun; the cause of the strange events in Univille wasn't too obvious; although it was linked to the prologue where Farnsworth's lab exploded in 1944 it wasn't in the way I thought it would be. Having the story set in the team's hometown led to some amusing revelations about why they aren't too popular with many of the residents. On the downside the subplot involving Leena was a bit of a distraction; hopefully something more interesting will come of it later. The cast does a solid job with the fun material. The final resolution was well handled and nicely linked to things that we'd seen earlier in the story. Overall a good episode.
This episode was a lot of fun; the cause of the strange events in Univille wasn't too obvious; although it was linked to the prologue where Farnsworth's lab exploded in 1944 it wasn't in the way I thought it would be. Having the story set in the team's hometown led to some amusing revelations about why they aren't too popular with many of the residents. On the downside the subplot involving Leena was a bit of a distraction; hopefully something more interesting will come of it later. The cast does a solid job with the fun material. The final resolution was well handled and nicely linked to things that we'd seen earlier in the story. Overall a good episode.
Goofy character actions in this episode.
jwalt350821 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I just discovered this series recently so I decided to rent the first season episodes from Netflix. So far they seem pretty good, but this recent episode has me wondering. For one, Claudia's Farnsworth goes off, so she exits the store and sees a guy on a horse heading her way on the sidewalk. Other than the blue sparks, it is nothing so out of the ordinary that she freezes and waits till the last second to dive out of the way of being run over. The kid who works at the hardware store comes across a tiger in the store. As he hollers and runs heading for the front door, Claudia runs in and just nails the guy and floors him!!! When Pete, Myka, and Claudia come downstairs from the upstairs apartment of the store, they run into a gladiator welding a shield and a trident spear. Pete gets hit in the head when the gladiator throws the shield and then Pete and the girls just stand there as the gladiator comes at them with the spear. Pete tells the girls to run, but they just stand there with Myka directly behind him holding the zapping gun at the back of HIS head. Then instead of going to a doctor's office, Pete and the kid Claudia injured go to the vets office to get treated. When the Farnsworth that Claudia rigged to show the direction of the source and the danger area goes off, Pete immediately mentions and heads straight for Kelly's vet business despite the fact that they are on another block of town and the vet place is not even in sight. Later they discover that the postal woman has the projector. When it starts projecting a show on the woman's TV screen, Pete (a grown government agent) heads for the couch and hugs a throw pillow!!! At the end when Claudia is trying to get the camera to work, Myka mentions that she was looking at the Farnsworth blueprints that morning. I haven't checked carefully, but when in the series did we find out that Myka has a photographic memory and has she used it to help in any previous cases?
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