A decade after the conclusion of its five-season broadcast run, Warehouse 13 has finally been compiled into one complete Blu-ray box set. Originally aired on Syfy, debuting on the exact day that the network changed names from Sci Fi, the series follows the adventures of a government team tasked with tracking down unexplained artifacts and archiving them at a massive black site warehouse in South Dakota. Sounds serious, but the show succeeded in garnering a passionate fandom largely because it keeps things light-hearted, with easy banter between the cast members and plots that never get too dramatic.
Buy Warehouse 13: The Complete Series Blu-rayThe cast is anchored by veteran character actor Saul Rubinek as the frumpy and all-knowing caretaker of the warehouse, Artie Nielsen. He’s assisted by a young computer hacker named Claudia (Allison Scaliotti), and he’s the wise sensei to the two new hires brought in to assist him in the field, young Secret Service agents Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) and Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly). Lattimer is easy going, Bering is uptight, so of course they’ll generate romantic sparks that will eventually lead to something, but that’s about the extent of any ongoing plot thread. Instead, the series is largely comprised of standalone episodes focused on the artifact-of-the-week, as the gang try to figure out what and where it is, what it does, and how they can contain it before the general population learns of its existence.
In later seasons, there’s an arc with a crafty time-traveling nemesis named H.G. Wells, no relation to the author, played with arch conviction by Jaime Murray. There’s also a later cast addition of Aaron Ashmore (Killjoys) as Steve Jinks, another agent helping the team, but the core cast remains in place from start to finish, keeping welcome consistency as the stories change from episode to episode. While it’s clearly a Syfy show, not a prestige series, it’s just plain fun and remains so years after its broadcast run.
The series is presented in 1080p hi-def at its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound. While the video presentation is fully competent, viewers will quickly recognize that the series was produced prior to the 4K HDR revolution. Fashion and lighting choices aside, the show just has that dated “basic cable series” look to it that is never going to quite measure up to current UHD standards. Sound is crisp and clear, with decent use of the surround features during action scenes.
The new box set doesn’t mess with any new packaging concepts, it just compiles the previously released individual season sets into a slipcase. This means that the discs are well protected, housed in standard and easily accessible Blu-ray cases. This also means that there are no new bonus features, hence there’s no discernible reason for hardcore fans to pick up the set if they already have the original single-season Blu-ray releases. However, it’s an excellent package for the casual or lapsed fan who wants to own the complete series at an attractive price point.
The bonus features are fairly extensive and archive some content that isn’t easily found anymore. Remember when shows were intent on providing web-only content to engage with their fans using the power of the internet? For this series, that resulted in the production of two different series of animated webisodes that have been included here. The first follows most of the gang on a wacky half-hour tale that finds them whisked from the live-action warehouse exterior to the animated panels of a comic book as they try to figure out how to get home, with the actors providing the voices for their animated avatars. I didn’t sample the second one, but it’s included along with two holiday bonus episodes of the series and a crossover episode with another entertaining Syfy staple of its era, Eureka.
Other bonus features include typical deleted and extended scenes for most seasons, select episode commentaries with cast and crew, a look behind the scenes in the making of the show, and other assorted featurettes. It’s clear that the far-ranging scope of the bonus features was made possible by the power of DVD and Blu-ray sales during its original run, a reminder of a golden time when studios were driven to add value to compete on crowded store shelves, even on second-tier shows. Now that physical sales are a mere flicker of their previous strength, it’s great that reissues like this are able to tap into the original content vaults to share the wealth with new audiences.
