Morning Cuppa: 'Warehouse 13' (Plus Purple Goo) and a Little Sweet & Sour Music

Today's cuppa: decaf Irish breakfast tea

First up, click here for my latest eGuiders video pick, a pretty sweet music video by the Japanese band Sour.

Next, click here for a shortened version of my syndicated feature story on the new Syfy Channel (formerly known as Sci Fi Channel) series "Warehouse 13," which premieres Tuesday night.

Unfortunately, fitting the story for newspaper space cut out the quotes in it from series star Eddie McClintock, and that's unacceptable -- and not just because he's my Facebook friend and an all-around good guy (you can see him at right, with co-star Joanne Kelly).

So, I'm waiting on a proofed copy of the full text of the story from the home office, and as soon as it arrives, I'll drop it in here. And if you're very good, I just may toss in some bonus McClintock for good measure.

UPDATE: As promised, here is the full text of the "Warehouse 13" feature story. You have been very good indeed, but I'll save the new McClintock for a separate post later on ..

All sorts of new things in Syfy's 'Warehouse 13'

By Kate O'Hare

©Zap2it

On Tuesday, July 7, a popular cablenet gets a new name, along with opening the door to a passel of mysterious artifacts and enigmatic relics.

With the two-hour premiere of "Warehouse 13," Sci Fi Channel becomes Syfy and shakes up its on-screen image, hoping to expand its audience even further beyond science-fiction fans and guys who'd watch Tricia Helfer in anything.

Luckily for those guys, statuesque blonde Helfer is one of the guest stars in the self-proclaimed "thrilleromedy," which focuses on two Secret Service agents -- Peter Lattimer and Myka Bering (Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly) -- who save the life of the president and wind up transferred to a storage facility called Warehouse 13.

Located in South Dakota, the top-secret bunker houses a collection of bizarre objects, all under the care of long-time Secret Service agent Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek), who answers to Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder, "The Shield").

"Everybody is a closet conspiracist," says Jack Kenny ("The Book of Daniel," who executive produces with David Simkins ("The Dresden Files"). "We all want to think, 'Oooh, there is all this stuff going on that we don't know about.'

"And, you know, there probably is a bunch of stuff we don't know about and probably don't want to know about. We like the idea that there's a warehouse out there that houses everything the government doesn't know what to do with but needs to safeguard and protect."

According to Kenny, it's not just an American thing.

"We've gone beyond the U.S. government of it all," he says. "In the mythology, this is the 13th iteration of the warehouse. The first one was the library at Alexandria, maybe. All through the centuries, the warehouse has been moved to whatever empire was in power at the time that could protect it.

"It currently happens to be in the United States. Maybe, during the '40s, there was a slight chance that the warehouse was going to move to Germany. Fortunately, it didn't.

"There's a group called the Regents -- Frederic's bosses -- that controls the warehouse and deals with its relationships with various governments."

He also emphasizes that we're not talking about alien bodies from Roswell or anything of that sort.

"We don't want to go into alien stuff," Kenny says, "because it stretches the point of believability. Every one of these artifacts, we want to be absolutely viable."

"We had a very strong mandate," Simkins says, "to make sure the artifacts are not extraterrestrial, are not supernatural, are not mythological.

"The artifacts come from history; they come from science. They come from strong-willed individuals (like) Lucrezia Borgia. All the artifacts are based in reality.

"You could go to Wikipedia or Google and look this stuff up."

Luckily for science-fiction fans, while the artifacts may not be from outer space, a few of the guest stars have worked there.

Along with Helfer, there's her "Battlestar Galactica" co-star Michael Hogan, and "Stargate Atlantis" star Joe Flanigan.

Other guest stars include Ivan Sergei ("Charmed"), James Naughton ("Gossip Girl"), Roger Rees ("The West Wing") and Erica Cerra ("Eureka").

"Warehouse 13" also has some pretty impressive names from the science-fiction genre who worked on it during its development, including Jane Espenson ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Battlestar Galactica"), Ronald D. Moore ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Battlestar Galactica") and Rockne O'Bannon ("Alien Nation," "Farscape").

Along with these heavyweight credentials, the show also promises a sense of humor. For example, there's the purple goo.

"Generally," says McClintock, "I would say we work at least 12 to 13 hours a day, and we get to do a lot of running and stunts -- and then there's purple goo. We get purple goo squirted all over us.

"The purple goo is a big story point. It's called neutralizer, and when we put an artifact into the purple neutralizer, it takes all its power away and makes it easier to transport.

"The purple goo is a running theme throughout the episodes. It's made of purple dye and K-Y Jelly. We use it, shoot and then we have a kind of Roman orgy afterwards."

While McClintock is just kidding -- one assumes -- about the orgy, relationships are at the heart of the show.

"This is a dysfunctional family," Kenny says. "There are two opposites, brother and sister, with a kind of crazy, demanding dad that doesn't tell them everything they need to know, but they keep going anyway.

"It's that family dynamic, both dramatically and comedically, that makes this show different from most of the shows that Syfy has done."

Apparently the family dynamic carries through both on- and off-screen.

"I look at myself," McClintock says, "as the kid brother who's always pulling Joanne's pigtails, and she's always punching me in the arm and yelling for her mom.

"I'm constantly at her, and it's the same thing that Pete and Myka are going through now, these growing pains."