Magical undies anyone?

Every week on Warehouse 13, Pete, Myka, and Arty have to deal with the fall-out from some bizarre magical item loose in the world. The recent reveal that Sean Maher’s superhero-speedo was enchanted in the “Mild Mannered” episode was surely one of the show’s most hilariously inspired artifacts.

But this got us thinking: how do they keep coming up with ideas for fresh new artifacts?

“The staff and I sit around in a room for November, December, and January, and we just spitball ideas,” says the Warehouse 13’s showrunner and executive producer Jack Kenny. “Sometimes it starts with what’s an interesting artifact … and we build an episode around it.”

As an example of an episode that began with the idea for the artifact itself, Kenny cites an upcoming one featuring the telegraph from Telegraph Island, the source of the expression “around the bend.”

But, Kenny points out, “We don’t like to start with an artifact and build a story around that. We like to look at what’s going on in our [characters] lives and how can the story be informed by that. Make it more of an emotional fun ride for the viewer, rather than just an artifact. We want to make it personal.”

Often, he says, the setting for the episode precedes the artifact itself. “We set one episode in a college wrestling team,” he says, “because we thought it would be fun to send our girls there…. We sent Claudia and Myka to the team [in the episode "For the Team"], so they would deal with all these college wrestlers, guys in the lockerroom. So sometimes it starts with the place [and then we come up with the idea for the artifact].”

Other artifacts from the upcoming season include a cane that causes earthquakes when tapped against the ground; a statue of a griffin, which results in a body-switching episode for Pete and Myka; Mata Hari’s’ silk stockings, which cause men to do whatever the wearer tells them do; and the chains of Torquemada, the torturing priest from the Spanish Inquisition.

Pete and Myka may also have to deal with Artifact Zero — “The first artifact collected for the first warehouse, the most dangerous artifact, the most powerful that’s ever been and that started the idea of putting these things away,” Kenny says.

One artifact that might pop up in a future season is Hitler’s microphone.

“I’ve been pitching it for two seasons,” Kenny says. “You come up with a cool artifact, you just have to find the right story. In the future, I want to do a story where some talk-radio guy gets a hold of Hitler’s microphone.”

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

I confess I was surprised when Warehouse 13 turned out to be the biggest hit in the history of the SyFy channel, but I probably shouldn’t have been: the show’s first season was broad, accessible, funny fantasy — a marked contrast from most of the angst-filled genre programming that debuted last year, shows like Flash Forward and Caprica.

But in addition to the humor, the first season of Warehouse 13 also had something a “low budget” innocence about it: the graphics were cheesy, the plotlines were over-the-top, and the acting style was rougher and looser, like you were watching friends cut it up in their new webseries.

At its best, it seemed like the people involved with the show were having a hell of a lot of fun. As a result, the audience did too.

At least in first two episodes of Season 2, made available by the network for preview, that cheesy, innocent quality is perfectly intact, but the scripts are also a little tighter now.

The premiere episode, “Time Will Tell,” picks up where last season’s finale left off and has McPherson “debronzing” Warehouse 13’s H.G. Wells (shades of The Empire Strikes Back’s carbonite freezing chamber, of course).

Soon Pete and Myke (and Arty, Claudia, Leena, and Mrs. Frederic) are unraveling the mystery of an artifact stolen by Wells, with a great twist involving the true identity of the writer, and another appropriately creepy revelation about the bronzing process itself. Dexter’s Jamie Murray very effectively guest-stars.

Best of all, Mrs. Frederic takes Arty (and the viewer) deep into the warehouse’s Escher Vault, in a sequence that is an instant camp classic.

The second entry of the season, “Mild-Mannered,” reunites Firefly’s Jewel Staite and Sean Maher in an episode that asks the question: what would a comic book geek do if he found one of Warehouse 13’s magical artifacts?

He’d become a superhero, of course!

But Warehouse 13 artifacts being what they are, things don’t go exactly as planned.

Sadly, Staite is basically wasted with not much to do, but Maher gets off a good riff on his geeky Firefly image — and the episode itself manages a pretty funny twist on exactly which artifact of his is magical.

Mostly, this episode, like the one before it, showcases everything this show does best: cheesy plots, lots of often surprisingly funny jokes, and the affectionately bickering relationship between Pete and Myka.

And speaking of Myka, it must be said: when Joanne Kelly’s Myka dresses up as a superhero of her own, she looks sensational.

The second season of Warehouse 13 debuts Wednesday, July 6th at 9 PM (8 C) on SyFy.

Warning: The following article contains information and vague spoilers about the second season of Warehouse 13.

What can we expect in the second season of SyFy’s hit show Warehouse 13, the second season of which debuts July 6th? We talked to Jack Kenny, an executive producer and the showrunner of the show, to get the scoop right from the horse’s mouth!

(As always, episode numbers are subject to change as networks sometimes juggle when various episodes are aired.)

• The season premiere, which picks up seconds after last season’s finale left off, resolves a lot of the strings left hanging at the end of last season: whether or not Leena is a traitor, where Claudia went, whether Arty’s dead. And keep your eyes on McPherson: he did something in the finale (and continues to do it in the premiere) that will impact the characters lives all through the upcoming season, and possibly the third season (if there is one). “It all culminates in a relatively surprising two-episode [season] finale where we will actually visit Warehouse 2 in Egypt,” Jack Kenny says.

• What’s this about Warehouse 2? “Warehouse 13 isn’t the first warehouse,” Kenny says. “They’ve existed for centuries, moving from country to country, based on where the safest place in the world is at the time.” Warehouse 2 has a similar feel to Warehouse 13, Kenny says. “It’s the second warehouse they built after the first one, built by Alexander the Great. This had been buried.”  For Kenny’s history of the different warehouses, they’re all listed on the SyFy website.

• Expect to get to know more about the characters’ personal lives this season. “I wanted to explore the emotional lives of our characters a little more deeply,” Kenny says. “I wanted to explore their family dynamic little bit more, and one of the things that comes into play in families is who they’re dating, who they see, what their social lives are like outside the family and how it reverberates into the family. There’s somebody for Pete to see a few times, Claudia’s going to meet somebody in town. We discover that Arty has a crush on somebody. And even Myka develops an unlikely friendship with someone.”

• But while the characters and their relationships deepen, don’t expect Pete and Myka to get together. “Whether it’s true or not, everyone always says that once [the main characters] sleep together, that’s the end of the series,” Kenny says. “Maybe it’s something we’ll do eventually — they’ll develop a relationship. [But] to me, they’re more brother and sister. They annoy each other like brothers and sisters do. They have that dynamic. I’m not really interested in that happening yet. There’s always going to be a little sexual tension there, but they’re not going to sleep together.”

• There’s a new “big bad.”

• The season’s guest stars include Firefly’s Jewel Staite and Sean Maher who appear in a superhero/comic book-themed episode as unrequited lovers. “We knew them both from Firefly and we knew they had great chemistry together and were good friends, so we thought it would be fun to do,” Kenny says.

• Philip Winchester appears in an episode. “He plays an old movie actor who gets projected into the town in various of his old movies,” Kenny says. “He played a noir detective, a cowboy, a gladiator.”

• Heroes‘ Tawny Cypress plays a high-end fashion model — something Myka impersonates to hunt down an artifact.

• Tia Carrere will play the same character, a former flame of Pete’s, in two different episodes. “She’s great — I could have her back every week,” Kenny says. And will they write in Relic Hunter references? “We haven’t yet, but maybe we’ll throw one in! She brings her own cheekiness.”

• Rene Auberjonois (Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) plays older and younger versions of the same guy. “He’s a guy who created the first warehouse computer system and then got lost in it,” Kenny says.


Jack Kenny

• Nolan Gerard Funk plays Claudia’s new boyfriend, a guy who works at the hardware store in the town next to Warehouse 13.

• Lindsey “Bionic Woman” Wagner guest stars in an episode.

• The much-publicized Eureka cross-over includes Neil Grayston appearing as Fargo who comes to update the Warehouse 13 computer system. “Our two shows cross-over really well,” Kenny says. “We don’t know a lot about each other’s towns, but we’re both kind of in the same universe. It’s hard to cross-over with certain [SyFy] shows, because the dynamics are different — it’d be impossible for us to cross-over with Caprica.  But this seemed like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, we had Joe Morton on our show as a different character, so we can’t have him come over and play his Eureka character!”

• Artifacts from the upcoming season include a cane that causes earthquakes when tapped against the ground; the telegraph from Telegraph Island (the source of the expression “around the bend”); a statue of a griffin, which results in a body-switching episode for Pete and Myka; Mata Hari’s’ silk stockings, which cause men to do whatever she tells them do; and the chains of Torquemada, the torturing priest from the Spanish Inquisition.

• In episode nine, we learn the real reason Arty was arrested for treason, which is how he ended up assigned to the warehouse in the first place. Suffice to say, he had some pretty good reasons! We also learn a lot about his past and where he came from.

• Pete and Myka may deal with Artifact Zero — “The first artifact collected for the first warehouse, the most dangerous artifact, the most powerful that’s ever been and that started the idea of putting these things away,” Kenny says.

• “In episode eleven, we learn a tremendous amount about Mrs. Frederick in connection to the warehouse and how it operates, and how she operates,” Kenny says. “You don’t want to learn too much about her, or she’ll lose her mystery. But we learn some really cool stuff about her that I think in a way makes her more mysterious.”

• CCH Pounder, who plays Mrs. Frederick, will appear in five (out of twelve) episodes this year, including the season premiere on July 6th.

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The mysterious Mrs. Frederick on "Warehouse 13"

Q: So are we finally going to learn what’s the deal with Mrs. Frederick on the upcoming season of Warehouse 13? — Ava, Green Bay, WI

A: Sorta.

“In episode eleven, we learn a tremendous amount about her connection to the warehouse and how it operates, and how she operates,” Jack Kenny, Warehouse 13’s executive producer (and showrunner) tells The Oracle.

“You don’t want to learn too much about her, or she’ll lose her mystery,” he adds. “But we learn some really cool stuff about her that I think in a way makes her more mysterious.”

CCH Pounder, who plays Mrs. Frederick, will appear in five (out of twelve) episodes this year, including the season premiere on July 6th.

Q: So this is a fantasy question, right? I know the story of Icarus is a myth, but is there any evidence that the ancient Greeks actually tried to build human wings? — Mark, Brooklyn, NY

A: There is no known evidence, but it seems pretty likely, doesn’t it? The legend of Icarus dates from at least 1400 B.C., and surely there were boundary-pushing scholars (and drunken college idiots) even back then!

The first known attempt at such heavier-than-air flight was by the Arab scholar Abbas Ibn Firnas in the 9th century, who attached wings and feathers to himself and reportedly flew some distance, and then returned to where he’d started (and seriously injured himself while landing).

Another man (or possibly the same man with a different spelling of his name — accounts differ), Armen Firman, may have made a similar attempt 20 years earlier, jumping from a tower with a cloak with wooden struts. He too was injured, though the cloak supposedly slowed his fall enough that it was not serious.

And keep in mind that while Icarus flew too close to the sun, his father, Daedalus, who built the wings and warned his son about the dangers of the sun, made it just fine in his flight off the island where they were both imprisoned.

In other words, the moral of the story isn’t what it’s often interpreted to be: “Don’t try bold, new things.” No, it’s, “Go ahead and try ‘em — just don’t be an arrogant jackass about it.”

Q: I have this memory of an exploitative, anti-D&D TV movie that came out in the 80s. What was it called and was it as bad as I remember? — Bruce, Colorado Springs, CO

A: CBS’ 1982 TV movie, Mazes and Monsters, starring none other than a 26-year-old Tom Hanks, is absolutely as bad as you remember: an anti-RPG screed that came at the height of the D&D hysteria that broke out in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Scenes from "Mazes and Monsters"

It was based on a 1981 novel that was itself based on news reports about a boy, James Dallas Egbert III, who attempted suicide in the utility tunnels under Michigan State University, then hid out with some friends for a month.

A private investigator hired by the parents speculated that James, who played D&D, had gone into the tunnels to play a “real-life” version of D&D and gotten lost. This was falsely reported by the media as true — and author Rona Jaffe irresponsibly rushed out a thinly disguised novel to capitalize on the notoriety of the story.

Even if the story had been true, it doesn’t, in any way, implicate D&D. Has no football player ever committed suicide?

Sadly, James successfully committed suicide the following year, and the private investigator, William Dear, wrote a 1984 book, The Dungeon Master, acknowledging that James’ death had to do with family dynamics and nothing to do with D&D.

Anyway, in the movie, Tom Hanks plays Robbie, a troubled college student who has previously become so obsessed with the fantasy role-playing game Mazes and Monsters that he had flunked out of school. He meets a group of equally troubled other students who encourage him to play the game again.

One of his friends decides to commit suicide in some local caves, but he changes his mind and decides to lead the others in a new game of Mazes and Monsters — a campaign that eventually causes Robbie to lose all touch with reality and want to jump off the World Trade Center.

The movie ends with him permanently lost his fantasy world — all due to the EVIL DANGERS of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS!

Wait, I mean Mazes and Monsters.

The movie, like the whole, ridiculous anti-RPG hysteria, did real damage to good people at the time.

But in a twist befitting the most expert DM, the film (available on DVD) is now considered a ridiculous camp classic, and none of the principles (except for Hanks) went on to do anything of note. Meanwhile, role-playing games and the genre of fantasy are more popular than ever.

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It’s that time of the year again, when TV fans either set their faces to smug because their favorite shows have already been renewed, or they chew on their fingers and rock back-and-forth in a corner like Gollum because NBC handed out a renewal for the asinine Marriage Ref, but there is still no word on Chuck. (Maybe that second thing is just me. Maybe I’m the only one in clutching a picture of Yvonne Strahovski and whispering “Precious, my precious.”)

Here’s our quick run-down on what’s in, what’s out, and what’s on the bubble for fantasy TV next year.

ALREADY RENEWED

CW
Supernatural
Vampire Diaries
Smallville

Fox
Fringe

HBO
True Blood (Third season begins in June)

Starz
Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Syfy
Warehouse 13
Eureka
Stargate Universe

ON THE BUBBLE

NBC
Heroes (could go either way, according to Entertainment Weekly)
Chuck (could go either way, according to EW)

ABC
V (could go either way, according to EW)
FlashForward (a long shot, according to EW)

CBS
Medium (could go either way, according to EW)
Ghost Whisperer (a safe bet, according to EW)

Syfy
Caprica (could go either way, according to EW)

Syndicated
Legend of the Seeker (studio exploring options for third season)

ALREADY CANCELED

Fox
Past Life

Both Chuck and Heroes have made it into the final round of E! Online’s annual “Save One Show” competition.  So if you want to be proactive about bringing either one of them back, go vote! If your show is on the bubble and it didn’t make it to E!’s final round, I’ll make room for you in my corner — but don’t touch my photos of Agent Sarah Walker.

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SyFy’s Warehouse 13, which saw record ratings for the network in its first season, will return for a second season of thirteen new episodes on July 13th.

Regular cast members Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, Saul Rubinek, and Allison Scagliotti are returning, and CCH Pounder will continue to make “guest” appearances.

A new addition to the cast, in a four-episode storyline, is Todd, “a tech savvy local who takes a special romantic interest in Claudia” and whose “budding relationship is put to the test by the secrets they are forced to keep from one another.” Nickelodeon star, Nolan Gerard Funk (Spectacular, Drake & Josh) plays Todd.

Warehouse 13 tells the story of two Secret Service agents, a straight-laced woman and bend-the-rules man, who are transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota which houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) are given weekly assignments by the Warehouse’s caretaker Artie (Saul Rubinek), who usually has them exploring paranormal activity in connection with the search for new object for the Warehouse.

Warehouse 13 proved to be a massive hit Syfy last year, becoming the most successful series in the network’s 17-year history.

In the new SyFy Channel show Warehouse 13, Eddie McClintock plays Pete, the looser, laid-back half of the show’s Secret Service agent duo assigned to protect the magical artifacts stored in South Dakota’s mysterious Warehouse 13.

But in reality, right before being cast in the show, the enormously appealing actor was coming to a cross-roads. The 42 year-old Ohio native had been kicking around Hollywood for more than a decade, consistently working in guest spots on shows such as Friends and Felicity, and even starring in four short-lived shows of his own.

But he’d never “broken out,” and with two young kids, he had mouths to feed.

To hear Eddie tell it, things were getting pretty dire toward the end — so much so that, in a nice bit of synchronicity, it took future Warehouse 13 co-star Joanne Kelly to talk him down enough that he could even finish the audition for the show.

And like the plot out of an actual TV show, it may have been that moment they shared in the audition waiting room that led to their both being cast on the show in the end.

But hey, it’s better to let Eddie tell it:

TheTorchOnline: Congratulations on the fact that the show’s a hit. Are you surprised?

Eddie McClintock: I’m not so surprised, but relieved. This is my fifth series in twelve years, and I’ve never had a hit. I’ve been going and going. I like to think of myself as one of the more successful anonymous guys in Hollywood. I’ve continued to work, but nothing has ever hit. So when people use that word “hit” with me, I’m, like, I don’t know, because I’m gun-shy.

TTO: The actors all have great chemistry. Was there right from the beginning?

EM: It was from the beginning. I was coming off my seventh test refusal. I’d gone through six or seven [rejections] in a row.

TTO: Ouch.

EM: But you can’t let that show [on your next audition], or they’ll read it right away. I had gone in a few times [for Warehouse 13], and there was  a mix and match — there were six Petes and six Mykas. Which was depressing, because you expect maybe two. You see that and you say to yourself, “Wow, they still don’t know what they’re looking for.”

So I had gone in and came out, and I came down to me and this other guy. And the other guy was standing there, and the director came out and put his arm around him and they walked down the hall together.

And I said, “That’s it! I can’t take it!” I took off my tie, I took off my jacket. And Joanne [Kelly, my future co-star] was sitting there, Indian style in the chair, relaxed, which is interesting, because her character is so different. And she’s, like, “Dude!”

And I said, “No! You don’t get it! I have these two little boys, they’re like baby chicks, and I’m supposed to fly in and spit up the worm, and I got no worm, you know? And I can’t deal with that anymore.”

And then the producers come back and say, “Eddie, you’re coming back in.” And I’d already taken off my tie and jacket, and Joanne and I had been talking, and she’d basically talked me down, off the clock-tower.

And we were standing there reading, and she blew a line. She was supposed to call me a “showboat,” and she called me a “shoi-boit.” And then I made it into a robot thing, started acting like a robot.

You know, actors are terrified of screwing up in those rooms. We ended up making a thing out of this gaffe. And apparently when we walked out of the room, they said, “There it is.”

TTO: So the chemistry really was there right from the very beginning!

EM: [laughs] Yeah.

TTO: So why do you think this was the show that finally connected?

EM: I think there’s a certain amount of luck and timing. A large portion goes to the fact that the writers have created something that is right for right now.  I think people want to escape — the economy is terrible, people are losing their jobs. Who wants to turn on the TV and watch people shoot other people, dead bodies? That’s what life is, man.

Our show, you get to escape into this world where there are these unexplained artifacts. It’s funny, it has a heart, it’s about family, it’s suspenseful.

TTO: I think a big part of it is the humor. There’s been a lot of serious sci-fi fantasy, and there still is. I’m curious if you get self-conscious about the comedy on the set, if you were confident that everyone else was going to think it was funny?

EM: No! I had no idea. I usually do something, and if people laugh, that’s funny. They’ll say, “Keep doing that. Whatever it is, keep doing that.”

At the beginning, I don’t think we were sure, because you’re just finding the show. In the writing of the show, there’s not a whole lot of comedy that’s on the page. They don’t write the comedy, they just sort of let it come as we find it.

Jack Kenny, our executive producer, one of the producers on one my first show, [is] brilliant and really funny. David Simkins is the other side of it, he’s the sci-fi guy, he’s the gadget guy. So together they’ve been able to create this great blend of both.

But when Jack is on the set, and I’m working, he’ll come up to me and say, “Hey, try this.” Or I’ll come up to him and say, “Can I try this?” Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’ve think we’ve found a pretty nice balance.

TTO: So when do you go back to work?

EM: They haven’t picked us up yet.

TTO: But they will.

EM: I think so. But again, don’t get my hopes up!

TTO: Is there a particular moment you’re most proud of in these first thirteen episodes?

EM: The episode “Burnout” was probably the most challenging for me as an actor. I was faced with having to make a huge decision as a character, and then in doing so, having to make a huge decision as an actor. I would either fall on my face, or people would go, “Wow, that was really good.”

TTO: What was scene exactly?

EM: The artifact affects Pete in such a way that he makes a decision to take his own life. The scene leading up to that decision was very emotional and powerful for me as the actor and the character, and I’m pretty proud of just being able to trust [the moment]. It was  real milestone for me as an actor.

Warehouse 13 airs Tuesdays at 9 PM/8 C on the SyFy Channel.

Some actors make it look so easy, stealing every scene they’re in, generating laughs with gestures both big and small.

Of course, it helps if you’re as talented and experienced as Saul Rubinek, one of those long-time actors who everyone recognizes, but many people can’t quite name.

In Rubinek’s case, he’s appeared in everything from the movies Unforgiven and True Romance, to the television shows Star Trek: The Next Generation and Frasier (where he played Donny Douglas, Daphne’s fiance).

But more and more people are remembering his name these days, now that he’s been cast as Arthur “Artie” Nielsen, the hilarious, socially awkward caretaker on Warehouse 13, a break-out hit for the newly-renamed SyFy Network.

Recently, I got a chance to talk to the veteran character actor about whether he’s a geek in real life, how it might have been very embarrassing if the show had tanked, and the serious business of being funny:

TheTorchOnline: When did you realize that the show was going to be so funny?

Saul Rubinek: When they hired me. If they wanted the show to take itself seriously, they wouldn’t have hired me. Or Eddie McClintock, for that matter.

[The producers] always knew that they needed to have a grain of salt, they needed to walk a tightrope. If they take themselves too seriously, they fall over. If they don’t take themselves seriously enough there’s no tension in the show.

TTO: How much of the humor comes from the script, and how much do the actors contribute?

SR: The show’s are written, and the writers are wonderful, and they have a great sense of humor. And some of the jokes that look like they’re off-the-cuff are because the writers happen to be very funny, and we [the actors] try to make it look off-the-cuff.

That said, everybody’s been given an edict to let the actors loose a little. We’ve been hired to invest the roles with our own senses of humor, our own personalities, and our own dramas — we’re let loose on the serious side as well. Occasionally, if [we say] a funny line, if [executive producer] Jack Kenny is on the set, he’ll make it funnier, trust me.

TTO: Are you surprised that the show is such a big hit?

SR: I’m pleasantly surprised. I was hoping against hope that it would be, because I love doing it. If it’s a hit, that means we get to do more of them.

The executives are very happy. Look, it was their flagship show, rebranding an entire network, huge for them and for us.

TTO: In other words, it could’ve been very embarrassing if you’d tanked!

SR: Could’ve been, yeah!

TTO: From my point-of-view as a non-actor, it seems to me you have the best role on the show, because you get to steal every scene you’re in, but you’re not in every scene. True?

SR: I only have the fun of having a character that doesn’t have to carry the weight of the action the way Eddie and Joanne do. Luckily, they’ve thrown Allison [Scagliotti] to play Claudia Donovan into the mix, and it gives me kind of a daughter. Artie had no life, he’s been married to the warehouse, his children are the artifacts, he has no life. And now he’s got an ethical responsibility to this very young person, who’s brilliant and a trouble-maker.

We all are scene-stealers in our own way [on the show]. They’ve given us that opportunity.

TTO: Are you a geek in real life?

SR: I like to play chess, I’ve always liked good story. I haven’t run after sci-fi. I like science fiction if it’s well-written. I like so many different genres that I wouldn’t call myself a geek. I’m a lover of great stories, and I’m even more a lover of acting them out.

Three Torches (Out of Five)

There are two kinds of programs on the Sci Fi Channel: those like Battlestar Galactica that are better and more sophisticated than almost anything you’re going to see on the traditional networks, and those like Sanctuary that, while they may have a certain campy charm, simply don’t hold a candle to the more established network shows in terms of acting, production values, and, especially, writing.

Now that I think about it, Battlestar Galactica might be the only Sci Fi Channel show to fall into the former category. But definitely put Warehouse 13 in the latter.

The show isn’t a disaster. But given that it’s Sci Fi’s Big New Show — the one they’re rolling out with much fanfare on the day they’re changing their name to “The SyFy Channel” — it’s also a bit of a disappointment.

Pete and Myka, two seemingly down-on-their-luck Secret Service agents, are assigned to work a secretive facility in South Dakota, a warehouse where mysterious magical items and inventions are stored by the government. Artie, an eccentric caretaker (veteran character actor Saul Rubinek), tries to make sense of them all.

“It’s an invitation to endless wonder,” says Mrs. Frederick (CCH Pounder), the enigmatic woman who oversees the project.

Awkward hyperbole aside, it’s a great premise — part X-Files, part Indiana Jones.

What works in the show?

The producers have definitely gone the “Ken and Barbie” route in casting oh-so-pretty Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly as Secret Service Agents Pete and Myka, but the two have a nice, easy-going chemistry together.

Rubinek steals almost every scene as Artie, and Pounder is terrific (as usual) in a small, but effective part.

Likewise, the show really embraces its humor, which is a nice change after decades of earnestness and angst in similarly paranormal-themed shows like The X-Files, Fringe, and Supernatural.

What works less well?

Well, too much of the humor falls flat. A “wishing pot” creates a ferret whenever the holder wishes for something impossible? And compared to shows like The X-Files and Supernatural, Warehouse 13 has very little subtly and doesn’t miss a chance to dumb things it down.

Many of the items in the warehouse combine lousy science and with outright hokiness. A car built by Thomas Edison runs on body electricity (to the show’s credit, it’s the slowest-moving car ever created — but, weirdly, this isn’t played for laughs).

Artie keeps in contact with the agents with something called a “Farnsworth” — an awkward, bulky video communicator built in 1929 by the inventor of the television. But wouldn’t a cell phone adapted for use in Warehouse 13 be a whole lot easier?

It’s not just the humor that’s broad; the plots and characterizations are too. The central mystery in the two-hour premiere episode involves an ancient Italian comb that turns the wearer in a power-hungry despot and … well, let’s just say the episode won’t be winning any Peabody Awards.

(And can I just say? It seems bizarre to me that the show pairs an ultra-competent, “by the books” woman with an easy-going, rakish guy — a dynamic that already a cliche way back when The X-Files did it. Why make The X-Files comparisons even more inevitable?)

But this isn’t a show that was made to be seriously pondered. It was made to be fun.

And for the most part, it is.

Warehouse 13’s two-hour premiere movie airs Tuesday, July 7th at 9 PM. Future installments will air on Wednesdays at 9 PM. Check out their genuinely clever website here.