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TV is the New Reading

POSTED:Sat, July 18, 2009 @ 10:27PM

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Syfy premieres better than its new name

Syfy premiered something other than an misspelling recently (the network is going by Syfy these days -- imagine different), and I’ve got to say they’re better than the new name.

First, a welcome back to “Eureka,” a small town stuffed full of geniuses who seem somehow bent on destroying it. In the third season return, Sheriff Carter is being dismissed for something or other and replaced by an android, who ultimately got discouraged and quit -- just as well, since Carter was never officially fired. Funny story -- you can watch it yourself (it gets a little tedious by the end).

However, this week’s episode picked things up a lot. The fun-name-to-say Erica Cerra as overachieving Deputy Jo Lupo largely sat out the android sheriff episode in preparation of taking on two roles in this past week’s episode “Your Face or Mine.” I’m not saying she knocked it out of the park, but any episode with Jo Lupo in a red dress singing “Makin’ Whoopie” is at least worth a look. I’m a little troubled by the story arc I think they’re trying to install -- radio signals coming in from farther out than anything we’ve got -- but it is syence fyction after all.

Synthesizing the premise of “The X-Files” with “The Lost Room,” we find ourselves in the nation’s attic, “Warehouse 13,” where objects imbued with mysterious powers are all stored in one place somewhere in South Dakota. Yep. We put all the anomalous objects we find and concentrate them all in one remote location where they’re maintained by a curator and an innkeeper who’s always hanging around for some reason and two federal agents selected for their … relative hotness, I guess. They seem a bit thrown together.

Actor Saul Rubinek has opened with a pretty good take on Artie, the conservator. He’s got an easy-going attitude that disguises a mind that’s constantly running a mile a minute in and around some hidden psychic trauma we got a peek at in this past week’s installment.

He’s also kind of a badass -- we meet him breaking in past the president’s security detail in the Smithsonian to recover a weird statue that’s making people kill people, and he gets around Warehouse 13 with a pulley-and-harness system that lets him fly to wherever he needs to go in the vast storehouse -- although wherever he lands he has to trudge back, so I don’t know that it’s a better option than a scooter.

And the warehouse itself -- what a concept! Mystical relics, statuary, books, wallets that let you talk to the dead, teakettles that grant wishes, hair accessories that turn people into psycho killers and 45 RPM records that bliss people out so much you can rob a bank -- it’s like a grungily magical flea market.

As Artie said, it’s where things go that no one can explain. If Thomas Jefferson had a radio, for instance, he would stick it away someplace until someone could explain or understand it because who knows what it might do.

Fair enough, but if the objects get too mysterious, don’t be surprised if Peter Krause from the Sci Fi miniseries “The Lost Room” shows up and tries to return them to a crappy 1950s-era hotel room.

Generally, I’d say this was a well-written production. It looks like it’s going to get into the heads of the characters a bit more than your standard object-of-the-week escapade. I enjoy some of the steampunk elements like Artie’s computer array and the Farnsworth communicators they use. I also enjoy “The Shield’s” CCH Pounder’s recurring role as a mysterious federal operative who oversees Warehouse 13. I’d have imagined a bit more of a military presence if only to provide a few obvious red-shirt cannon fodder but they’re all busy in Area 51, I suppose.

So again, overseeing our nation’s vast concentration in one place of objects with mysterious powers we’ve got Artie, the innkeeper (whose relationship to Warehouse 13 is mysterious to say the least), and two federal agents who haven’t been adequately briefed, have only the vaguest notion of what they’ve signed on for and have some personality conflicts as well.

I feel safer already.

“Warehouse 13” airs at 9/8c Tuesdays and “Eureka” airs at 9/8c Fridays on SyFy, and as for the name, next time, imagine harder.

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