Secrets are uncovered in Syfy’s ‘Warehouse 13’
Published: July 05, 2009, 12:30 am
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At 9 p. m. Tuesday, a popular cablenet gets a new name, along with opening the door to a passel of mysterious artifacts and enigmatic relics.
With the two-hour premiere of “Warehouse 13,” Sci Fi Channel becomes Syfy and shakes up its on-screen image.
While it will continue to stay true to its fans (the network will air the “Battlestar Galactica” movie “The Plan” in November; the prequel series “Caprica” in January; and a new version of “Stargate”), it is hoping to expand its audience even further beyond science-fiction fans and guys who’d watch Tricia Helfer in anything.
Luckily for those guys, statuesque blonde Helfer is one of the guest stars in the self-proclaimed “thrilleromedy,” which focuses on two Secret Service agents—Peter Lattimer and Myka Bering (Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly)—who save the president’ life and are transferred to a storage facility called Warehouse 13.
Located in South Dakota, the top-secret bunker houses a collection of bizarre objects, all under the care of long-time Secret Service agent Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek), who answers to Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder, “The Shield”).
“Everybody is a closet conspiracist,” says Jack Kenny (“The Book of Daniel”), who executive produces with David Simkins (“The Dresden Files”). “We all want to think, ‘Oooh, there is all this stuff going on that we don’t know about.’
“And, you know, there probably is a bunch of stuff we don’t know about and probably don’t want to know about. We like the idea that there’s a warehouse out there that houses everything the government doesn’t know what to do with but needs to safeguard and protect.”
According to Kenny, it’s not just an American thing.
“We’ve gone beyond the U. S. government of it all,” he says. “In the mythology, this is the 13th iteration of the warehouse. The first one was the library at Alexandria, maybe. All through the centuries, the warehouse has been moved to whatever empire was in power at the time that could protect it.
“It currently happens to be in the United States. Maybe, during the ’40s, there was a slight chance that the warehouse was going to move to Germany. Fortunately, it didn’t.
“There’s a group called the Regents—Frederic’s bosses— that controls the warehouse and deals with its relationships with various governments.”
He also emphasizes that we’re not talking about alien bodies from Roswell or anything of that sort.
“We don’t want to go into alien stuff, because it stretches the point of believability. Every one of these artifacts, we want to be absolutely viable,” Kenny says.
“We had a very strong mandate,” Simkins says, “to make sure the artifacts are not extraterrestrial, are not supernatural, are not mythological. The artifacts come from history; they come from science. They come from strong-willed individuals [like] Lucrezia Borgia. All the artifacts are based in reality.
“You could go to Wikipedia or Google and look this stuff up.”
Luckily for science-fiction fans, while the artifacts may not be from outer space, a few of the guest stars have worked there.
Along with Helfer, there’s her “Battlestar Galactica” costar Michael Hogan, and “Stargate Atlantis” star Joe Flanigan.
Other guest stars include Ivan Sergei (“Charmed”), James Naughton (“Gossip Girl”), Roger Rees (“The West Wing”) and Erica Cerra (“Eureka”).
“Warehouse 13” also has some pretty impressive names from the science-fiction genre who worked on it during its development, including Jane Espenson (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Battlestar Galactica”), Ronald D. Moore (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Battlestar Galactica”) and Rockne O’Bannon (“Alien Nation,” “Farscape”).
On the cover: Eddie McClintock, left, Saul Rubinek, Joanne Kelly.
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