Posted on: March 13th, 2010 The Status Quo of WAREHOUSE 13
Warehouse 13 is currently shooting its second season in Toronto, and new episodes are slated to be released on Syfy on July 13.
The show’s premise surrounds the theory that historical artifacts and other oddities have some sort of energy that affects their owners and their surroundings. For instance, you can play ping pong with yourself using Lewis Carroll’s mirror. Writing with Poe’s pen can cause whatever you’ve written to come true. And Tesla, well you don’t want to mess with Tesla’s toys. The idea is that these artifacts have some weird electrical mojo that can only be counteracted by acquiring them and getting them contained at a secret government facility called Warehouse 13.
Myka and Pete are recruited from the Secret Service against their wills, to come work for Artie, a mad scientist-type who runs the warehouse. They grumble about their new assignment, but are soon sucked into the novelty and excitement of it all, as well as the mysteries surrounding just who is pulling the strings behind Warehouse 13.
It took me a little while to get into this show. I am sick to death of this formula of pairing a ballsy female cop-type with a charming goofy guy macho-type and then suffering through their sexual tension and innuendo for years on end. Myka and Pete are positively boring and hackneyed. Artie is mildly interesting as sort of an homage to Professor Arturo/Walter Bishop (not to mention a slew of other crazy old guys in sci-fi).
The ‘artifact of the week’ format is, well, as basic as a normal ‘monster of the week’ sci-fi series, and it does gets a little tiresome. Honestly, what hooked me was the introduction of Claudia into the show, a young hacker with funny colored hair and a wise cracking attitude. The father-daughter vibe between she and Artie is intriguing, and she lends a humor and a hipness to the cast that was really lacking. She tipped the scales for me, and I got hooked by about mid-season.
Season one ends with a cliffhanger, and we are left with a Torchwood-ian type question: what happened to Warehouses 1 through 12 and all the agents before Myka and Pete? How long exactly is the lifespan of a Warehouse 13 agent?
I don’t know how many actual answers we will get in season two, but it will bring us some super awesome guest stars!
Just for all you Browncoats out there, scifiwire.com has announced that two of Firefly’s stars, Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and Sean Maher (Simon), will be starring in a season two episode of Warehouse 13. Staite announced her role, and later Maher’s role, on her twitter account this past week. They will be in an episode called ‘Mild Mannered’, there will be a romantic element, and the date has yet to be announced.
So if you like pseudo-historical supernatural buddy procedural dramedies, maybe you should catch up on season one of Warehouse 13 before new episodes go to air! Warehouse 13 stars Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, and Saul Rubinek, and features Allison Scagliotti as Claudia.