Between the cancellation of Caprica, the addition of WWF (seriously, wrestling? On the Science Fiction channel? WTF?) to their lineup and the changing of the channel’s name to Scy Fy (WTF does that even stand for?), I had just about completely written off the Sci Fi channel as a noble but failed experiment. Then my father-in-law and brother-in-law had to go and show me Warehouse 13.
Now, at first I was extraordinarily skeptical as we tried to jump in at the end of season two- not a good place to begin. None of the show’s strengths were showcased and many of its shortcomings were at the fore.
During our last stay in Houston there was considerable dead time to fill and Michele’s brother and father convinced us to give the show another try with predictable results. It sucked us in. For those not familiar, the premise of Warehouse 13 is that certain brilliant individuals or particularly dramatic events in history imbued inanimate objects with supernatural qualities, some good, some bad. Our protagonists are Agents of the Warehouse, the organization that finds and secures these artifacts so as to avoid letting them harm innocents out in the world. The idea is neat enough and some of the historical references give you that warm and fuzzy I’m-so-smart feeling when you figure out what the magical artifact is right before they reveal it on the show. Add to that some reasonably likable characters; the pudgy, brilliant and oft-be bothered Arthur Nielson, mentor of the younger heroes, the neophyte cyber-nerd-cum-secret-agent Claudia Donovan, and the also-brilliant, responsible, earnest but vulenrable Secret Service Agent Myke (pronounced Micah) Bering and you’ve got a fairly entertaining yarn.
There are flaws… ohhhhh, are there flaws. First of all, Secret Service Agent Peter Lattimer, the male lead, gets only so much mileage with his, “look I’m such an immature slob, but I go with my gut and that’s supposed to make up for the fact that I can’t go five minutes without making a funny face or over-selling my slapstick to the point that it sucks all the oxygen out of a scene,” character. Don’t get me wrong, he’s entertaining about 40% of the time, but he eventually just starts grinding my nerves into dust. Also, they expressly set his background as a Marine, and imply through his choice of athletic wear that he went to Dartmouth. I’m calling BS on both counts as he displays no martial skill throughout the course of the first three seasons, nor does he display intellect that could be described as anything other than pedestrian.
Despite all of this, Pete is good for a gag and the writers (notably, Jane Espenson of BSG and Buffy fame) know how to play for laughs. So, after you drink enough of the Warehouse kool-aid, it’s not that hard to forgive Pete for being an idiot in hero’s clothing. The REAL burr under my saddle about this show is the way they handle the action.
Look, I know TV shows and movies in the past just accepted as axiom that villains would monologue and pass up on opportunities to kill the hero(s) and that the heroes would return the favor until the dramatic climax of the show. You know what? Too many people have bucked that trope and it DOES. NOT. WORK. ANYMORE. Not that heroes and villains can’t make mistakes, but when an obvious solution is staring the heroes (or villains) right in the face and authorial fiat insists they remain retarded- that’s EFFING ANNOYING. So often our intrepid heroes end up in the dramatic pointing their-gun-and-exchanging-dialogue scene with the villain of the week when the easiest thing in the world would be to stun the bastard (yeah, they’ve got ray guns with a reliable stun setting, they don’t even need to cap people most of the time) tie him up AND then question him. Does this ever occur to them? Nope, they point the gun indecisively at the bad guy until the baddie finds a way to smack the ray gun (called a Tesla, yes, after him) out of their hand and engage in a dramatic martial arts fight, or use an artifact to make a daring escape or, worse, somehow take control of one of the heroes. It’s MADDENING. It snaps my suspension of disbelief when, week after week, the heroes do stupid shit that anyone with an ounce of common sense, much less combat trained former-marine-former-secret-service-super-duper-secret-WH13 agents, wouldn’t do. Once or twice in a show is easy to get over, repeatedly and reliably at the end of every dramatic arc? Oh, no, that’s not a venial sin, that’s a mortal one. I actually got so mad at the season 3 finale I chucked the remote across the room.
Even given the sloppy resolution of the show’s action, it’s still a fun show with characters you can care about. And it does fall squarely in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy vein, so good on the network for actually airing it. It’s also fun to see a parade of guest appearances from veteran actors of great science fiction shows like Star Trek: Voyager, Battlestar Galactica (keep your eyes peeled for Caprica Six and Colonel Tigh), and Firefly (awww, Kaylee and the Doctor, finally together). I recommend it for any fan of the genre. It most certainly does not reach the level of greatness of BSG ’03, which I recommend without qualification to anyone of taste regardless of genre preferences, but it is a good way to kill 45 minutes for all of us nerds.
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