It looks like Warehouse 13 is getting renewed and canceled at the same time: the Syfy show will be getting a fifth and final season for 2014, but that season will be severely abbreviated: six episodes to wrap everything up.
Entertainment Weekly calls it a cancel but The Wrap calls it a renewal. Sci Fi Stream goes a bit further in depth and examines the viewership, and the previous hopes that the series would be the one to break the five-season curse of the Syfy channel (No original scripted show has lasted more than five seasons on the network). Currently, the show just recently started the second half of season four.
I’ve been a fan of Warehouse 13 from the start – it’s a fantastic show with great characters and a cool world, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s also one of the few shows I’ve found recently that not only casts women in a majority of the main character roles (Myka, Claudia, Leena, Mrs. Frederick to Pete, Artie, and Jinx) but also shows all the characters as positive and competent but still human. While it started off as fairly light and it still maintains that bit of comedy, it also has gotten a bit more serious in the past season or two, with some major character drama. In the more recent seasons, they’ve brought on a cavalcade of well known sci-fi actors as guest stars (like Kate Mulgrew, James Marsters, and Lindsay Wagner), but the core of the show is “snag it, bag it and tag it” with wacky artifacts that wreak havoc (and sometimes global destruction) when in the wrong hands.
It’s sad that Warehouse 13 will be coming to an end, but at least it won’t be coming to an abrupt end – that the show’s creators will have a chance to give a somewhat proper ending for the enjoyable characters and the mythology of the show. Having Syfy produce six episodes to wrap it up is certainly better than say, unspecified (and not likely to be aired) ‘bonus content’ for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
I have to say that Warehouse 13 lost me, this season. I used to love it! But the Artie storyline. I was just so meh on it.
I’m hoping that now that that is resolving we can get back to the formula I liked.
And I think SyFy has learned its lesson about the anger it generates when a show isn’t allowed to close out its story.
Paula, i agree about the Artie storyline – it tried to add some sort of seriousness that the show really didn’t need to have. However, now that the evil Artie is over, i do like this notion of consequences: Artie living with the actions taken while he was not in control.
and this past week with Pete & Myka in a black and white noir detective manuscript? lots of fun.
This show never clicked for me, which I’ve always seen as being a shame considering how much I enjoy watching Joanne Kelly and Saul Rubinek. Maybe it’s McClintock, I can’t be sure…
I think the problem I had with the Artie story was…they killed the superfluous character. Everyone’s sad about Leena, but given they haven’t done anything interesting with her except the fake-mole business, it felt more like getting rid of the one who’s not that relevant anyway. It also felt like a distraction from the most important aspect of the “myth” so far, Claudia being tapped by Mrs. Frederick as her…successor? Replacement?
I think I also kind of have the opposite problem I had with Eureka, where I found a lot of the plot annoying (I reached a point where I figured the town was actually a plot to get all these geniuses ditzes in one place so when they inevitably blow themselves up they don’t take out any bystanders) but I liked the protagonist, Carter (even if I never really bought him and Allison as a couple)….I like the plot and idea of Warehouse 13, but neither Pete or Myka really grab me. The writers don’t seem to know what to do with Pete, and Myka just never comes across as smart and competent as they want her to. While I tend to yell at ALL the characters for being stupid, they in particular are the ones I’m most often going “How on Earth did such emotional, hysterical, DUMB people get to be Secret Service agents?” Steve ought to be giving *them* orders, as he was more stable when he only knew they were crazy people with purple gloves who were, crazy as it sounded, telling the truth. I’m more interested in watching him chase artifacts with Claudia and her potential journey than I am in the people who are supposed to be the leads.
Sad day. This was the only SyFy show that I still looked forward to with any regularity. Just the right mix of elements for fun weekly viewing.
I guess it’s good that they’ll have a chance to close everything out, but I do hope that they don’t feel the need to rush themselves and tie everything up into one big, clumsy bow like most of the shows that get this chance.