Monday, 19 May 2014, ushered in the series finale of Warehouse 13. Despite four successful seasons on the air, this great show wasn’t even granted a full final season. To add insult to injury, the little we were afforded was a little disappointing.
Back on 7 July 2009, a new series was birthed onto the Syfy channel that boasted “endless wonder.” Two Secret Service agents, Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) and Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock), are approached by Arthur “Artie” Nielsen to work in a highly specialized and secretive division called Warehouse 13.
Warehouse 13 is the thirteenth incarnation of a hidden building meant to collect harmful objects. The warehouse agents “snag, bag, and tag” said items, and they become housed away from the general public to ensure safety.
Warehouses 1 through 12 have moved from country to country over the last 2-3,000 years — from time to time, the balance of power shifts, and the location of the warehouse is better served elsewhere.
The Warehouse itself has many mystical properties, from self expansion, to forcefields, to ways to prevent detection. The numerous fantastical powers of the Warehouse are slowly revealed as the series goes on.
Objects, known as artifacts, are created when a very emotional or traumatic moment in a person’s life is focused on object, thereby granting it extraordinary properties (powers).
Examples:
Abe Lincoln’s top hat: The hat gives the wearer an overwhelming urge to free African-Americans.
Bruce Lee’s punching bag: This affects someone’s destiny
Charles Ponzi’s money clip: Causes poverty and despair to whoever possesses it.
Charles Dickens’ badminton racket: Whoever uses the racket believes they are an orphan.
Jack the Ripper’s lantern: Looking into the lantern’s light will transfix you.
Myka, Pete, Artie, Claudia (Allison Scagliotti), Steve Jinks (Aaron Ashmore), and Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder) take the viewers with them on their adventures, spanning four and a half seasons.
————-Series Finale Spoiler Alert—————————————-
Season 5, Episode 6 brought one of my favorite TV shows to an end, and unfortunately, it concluded in a rather unceremonious way.
I applaud the way they used the threat of moving the warehouse as a means for ending the story, but at the same time, I wish they had followed through with it, bringing a sense of finality to the finale Moreover, I found it interesting that the writers used a collection of scenes that never actually happened as the basis for each character’s all-important defining moment.
As the episode ended, I found myself unfulfilled. What happened with Myka and Pete, and their new relationship? What happened with Jinx and Artie? We glimpsed a future where Scagliotti’s bad acting showed us Claudia-the-caretaker several decades hence, but we have no idea how things got to that point.
I was disappointed with the writers; they knew well in advance that the series was ending, and this was the best they could come up with?
I appreciated some of the emotional moments when the characters felt anxious and exasperated at the prospect of their jobs and lives-as-they-know-them, ending. The overriding theme was this: that even though their lives were constantly in peril from artifact exposure, they wanted no other existence than one in the warehouse. To them, it was the best job in the world.
Again, the finale disappointed me, but it was nice to see an actual ending to one of my favorite stories. Such closure is far from guaranteed in the TV industry.
I’m curious to hear what other fans have to say. Please leave a comment!
Author: Christopher Daniels
Editor: Jeff Boehm
