Warehouse 13

1. season 1. 2009
2. season 2. 2010

There are mysterious artefacts Out There, that need to be bagged and tagged before they cause mayhem and havoc. Warehouse 13 is the super secret government storage for these. Agents Myka Bering and Pete Lattimer find themselves working for Artie Nielsen and the deeply mysterious Mrs. Frederic, being sent out with purple latex gloves to bring the artefacts back for safe storage.

Amusing, fun mind candy. The enormous Warehouse itself is a steam-punk cornucopia of the weird and the wonderful, and the individual episodes are mostly capers involving something going wrong with the retrieval. But there are darker moments, particularly about Artie's background and his relationship with treacherous former Agent MacPherson.

Despite having several premises in common with Fringe, I enjoyed this (in a pop-corn sort of way), but couldn't stick with Fringe. It's to do with the technobabble. Here it's done right: there's no (or only very little) attempt to have the babble be a meaningful part of the plot, no attempt for it to make sense. Because, of course, it doesn't. So it doesn't intrude, and disbelief can be willingly suspended. Fun nonsense.

Rating: 4
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 19 July 2010