Warehouse 13

[tablesaw]

Warehouse 13 is the new original show on the channel formerly known as SciFi, although "original" might be a bit of a stretch. The whole premise is cribbed together from other places: the warehouse is from Indiana Jones, and the partners are a cross between X-Files and Bones. Speaking of Bones, the male lead is David Boreanaz lite, and the female lead looks like she's been cribbed from Fringe. And every week, I guess, they're going to go out and grab some crazy thing that's making crazy things happen.

And yet, there's enough actual originality to make the whole thing worthwhile. Saul Rubinek does an incredible job as Artie, who goes the extra mile in salesmanship. Whenever he's on screen, I actually start to believe what's going on, which is pretty amazing. And CCH Pounder's brief appearances as Frederick are fantastic too.

The art design is trying to show off the idea that this has been going on for over a hundred years, so there's some steampunk design is highlighted, even though it goes right alongside tech from more recent times as well.

There's some weird Americentrism going on (why does an "Aztec blood stone" (really?) belong in "America's Attic"?) and the interaction between the two leads still doesn't mesh well. Overall, I wouldn't particularly recommend it, but as a TV junkie, I'm probably going to keep enjoying it.

Comments

[elusis]

X-Files had a warehouse too, remember.

[tablesaw]

I've always assumed it was the same one from Indiana Jones.

[tahnan]

Even the number in the title is a little unfortunate, insofar as it evokes Friday the 13th—the TV series, not the movies, where the premise is, per the IMDb, "two young antique store owners must recover cursed antiques".

But I had much the same reactions—on the one hand, cobbled together from various sources, and on the other hand, kind of fun.