Written
and created by Jane Espenson and D. Brent Mote
Aired
on the Syfy network on 7th July 2009.
It
has produced 58 episodes and Four Seasons,
Season
five will be its last.
Reviewed
by DJ Forrest
Warehouse 13 stars Eddie
McClintock as Peter Lattimer, Joanne Kelly as Myka Bering, Saul Rubinek as
Artie Nielson, C.C.H. Pounder as Mrs Frederic, Allison Scagliotti as Claudia
and Genelle Williams as Leena.
The series is filmed in
Toronto, Ontario.
Warehouse 13 takes you
through various historical facts and tinges them with levels of fiction, takes
levels of fiction and tinges them with fact.
It’s a brilliant storyline every time.
The story begins with
two Secret Service Agents Peter Lattimer and Myka Bering.
Lattimer is a rule
breaker, often going off on a tangent, such as he did with the museum, removing
an Aztec head sculpture as it gave him a bad vibe. The life of the Mexican President’s daughter
was at risk of being sacrificed by a zombie worker at the museum who had the
misfortune of being cut by the crystals in the mouth of the artefact. Because of Lattimer’s actions and the fact he
couldn’t account for where the blood had gone from his shirt after he’d removed
the bloodied artefact from its designated spot in the museum, was suspended
from duty. When he returned to his
apartment he was greeted by Mrs Frederic, a mysterious black woman, very astute
and very much in charge of the secret warehouse in South Dakota, his new
destination.
Myka Bering was also
protecting the President and was surprised to discover that she too had been
sent to South Dakota on the same assignment as Lattimer. There had to be some mistake and after making
contact with her boss back with the secret service, Daniel Dickenson, she was
set to return to her job when the first episode kicked off and encouraged her
to stay.
Myka is a ‘by the book’
agent, there are no deviations. Although
towards the middle of the first series and after coming to terms with the loss
of her partner Sam Martino, Myka loosened up.
Artie Nielson is a
former cryptographer and code breaker for the NSA. He was also at the museum to collect the
artefact dropped by Lattimer and has worked for the mysterious Mrs Frederic for
nearly 40 years, which makes him possibly older than he really is. Then again Mrs Frederic has been involved
with Warehouse 13 since the 1950’s yet she looks no older than her late 40’s.
Artie is the walking encyclopaedia,
he knows everything there is to know about practically everything that is
contained within the warehouse and practically everything else that isn’t, that
is outside of the warehouse, ancient history, geology, physics, the works. He is the ideal guy to have at a pub quiz.
Artie trains up the two
agents, sends them to collect artefacts that are throwing up all kinds of negative
vibes, causing people to act out of character after coming into contact with an
artefact, whether it be a paperweight, a hair grip or a chair to name a few,
although he doesn’t give his reasons, it soon becomes evident towards the
middle of the first series that Artie hasn’t been completely truthful.
In the first episode the
pilot, the two agents are sent out to recover an artefact that is affecting
certain people, especially a young man by the name of Cody Thomas played by
Dillon Casey. Cody has attacked his
girlfriend and has been arrested for his violent behaviour. His godmother has some kind of hold over him,
and using Lucrezia Borgia's comb that somehow can transmit the mindset of the
Italian murderess through the crystals of the comb, is also able to use the
phrase in the Italian book in the lecturer’s bookshelf at the college, as a
phonetic trigger. The godmother wants
Cody and will do everything in her power to get him and the agents have to save
him and his girlfriend before it’s too late.
As with all programmes
there is a story arc and for season one the story is about Artie and his
partner James MacPherson played by Roger Rees, although we don’t really get to
know any of this until midway through the first series. It transpires that MacPherson is a rogue
agent. He used to work at the Warehouse
and having the knowledge of the artefacts and able to manipulate people around
him for his own means, and is able to access Warehouse 13 for artefacts that
will make him an incredibly rich and powerful man. Towards the end of Season One MacPherson is
captured but as with all devious baddies he escapes, aided by the same people
he manipulated to get into the warehouse and leaves season one on a cliff hanger.
I love the show. I love the quirkyness of it. I love Claudia,
the genius who knows how to cobble together pieces of equipment and make
something fantastic with it. Her story comes when she hacks into Warehouse 13
and wants Artie to pay for her brother, who had devised a way of teleportation,
unfortunately he hadn’t added the one key that would allow him to come back. He
can only come back by using Claudia as a portal, which is slowly killing
her. Setting up the device in the
original lab, locating the key that would bring Joshua back, Artie does so,
although it appeared a happy ending, Mrs Frederic was less than impressed that
Claudia, despite doing this for all the right reasons, had still managed to
bypass the firewall and break into the warehouse. So Artie took her on at the
warehouse, and she proved her worth time and again. Claudia also has all the best lines.
I love all the steampunk
equipment and would love to have an office like Artie’s. The keyboard and over large laptop and their
communication devices seem so archaic yet quirky that it doesn’t appear odd to
be talking into a metal pencil tin.
To me Warehouse 13 is a
mixture of X Files meets Ghostbusters meets Indiana Jones, it’s a blend of
history and humour and excitement and adventure, and it’s firing my imagination
into wanting to put pen to paper and create storylines with something similar,
purely to have a reason for my characters to get off their butts and go and
search for the lost scribes of something biblical, although that may require
more research than I can physically cope with.
One of the other things
I noticed about Warehouse 13 is the extensive cast list. There are many names I don’t know, and a fair
few I do. Mark Sheppard known to us in
the Whoniverse as Canton Delaware III in Doctor Who, plays Benedict Valda, one
of the Regents, whose sole purpose is to protect the artefacts from falling
into the wrong hands.
Anthony Head plays
Paracelsus who was a dangerous alchemist from the 16th Century and
who was bronzed by Warehouse 9. His
brother Bennett Sutton is played by James Marsters. Paracelsus was the caretaker of Warehouse 9
in Turkey, in the year 1517AD – 1566AD but had used part of the Philosopher’s
Stone with the Copper Bowls of Life and Death to make his brother and his
family Charlotte Dupres, and Nick Powell immortal at a terrible cost.
Gareth David-Lloyd
played Mr Wolcott in 2011 in the episode ‘3...2...1’. Mr Wolcott was involved in the HG Wells story
which told of Warehouse 12 in London, England, in 1830AD -1914 AD when the war
against Germany had begun and Vincent Crowley was planning on using the Rocket,
a weapon co-developed by HG Wells and powered by Joshua’s Trumpet a device that when blown had the
ability and power to reduce people to dust.
Interesting as it is, my mind was blown when in this series, H.G. Wells
is a woman, and Charles Wells, her brother, was the writer. I love writers!
Such fine writing by
such brilliant script writers, I have only praise for them. I am spellbound from the get go, I love this programme.
If you’re looking for
something easy to watch, with loveable characters and some you really want to
hate. If you want to learn a little
about ancient history and the artefacts that can be found, and add a little
spin to them, then you need to watch this show.
It’s Mulder and Scully, its Indiana Jones, its Ghostbusters, its
Warehouse 13, and it’s brilliant!
You can find the full Series up to Season 4 on
Netflix
Research:
No comments:
Post a Comment