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Warehouse 13
Jul. 30th, 2009 12:55 pm"Warehouse 13" is a new TV program on the SyFy network in the States. I've now watched the first 4 episodes, and I can see I'm going to have a love/hate relationship with this show.
To start with, I have to admit to some bias, as the show is essentially a rip-off of my idea. My 15 minutes of fame came way back in the mid 80's when I managed to take over the entire Usenet with a project to compile The Contents of a Certain Government Warehouse1. For a number of months it was impossible to go on the Internet without coming across references to the project.
At one point I was even contacted by Steve Jackson Games to produce a Gurps module of the game, but as I was then engaged in starting up Strategy First, I didn't have any time. Not wanting to see the project just wither away (as I knew it would if someone didn't go ahead with it). I sent them all my notes and gave them my blessing to do what they wanted to with it, but I let them know that I wasn't giving up my rights, just letting them do what they want. A few years later, they came out with Warehouse 23 which is not what I would have written, but which is a heck of a lot closer to my vision than the show is.
So, now there's a TV show based on the idea. I have no idea if they negotiated with Steve Jackson for the TV rights, but I'm guessing they didn't. I'm not even sure if Steve Jackson is/was in a position to grant TV rights as our entire agreement was a few loosely worded emails; the sort of thing that lawyers can argue either way for months on end. I've been joking with my friends saying I should sue, since they certainly never contacted me for the rights. I suppose if I lived in the land of litigation, that might even seem like a good idea, but from my current perspective that's just crazy talk.
As far as I can see, the TV series uses roughly zero of my ideas, other than the existence of the warehouse itself, and one can easily argue that that part isn't even original to me, but to the unknown person who first proposed the ending scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Okay, history aside, what do I think of the show? Well, I (naturally) love the idea of the warehouse and where one can go with such an idea. I also like the characters they've introduced so far, and think that the whole thing could really grow on me. Some of their gadgets like the Tesla stunner and the Farnsworth communicator are clearly well thought out and nifty. The 'neutralizing liquid' that they came up with though is just dressed-up magic. Realistically, each episode's maguffin would need to be neutralized in a different way, rather than just having some unexplainable liquid that you can pour over a piece of technology to make it behave. The liquid is just an excuse for the writers not to think. Not happy about that.
In fact, the writers would do well to learn a little more science if they're gonna write an austensibly SF program. So far their 'scientific' explanations for how things work are even less convincing techno-babble than that on Star Trek, and that's saying something. In fact, the pilot and the third episode are far more fantasy than SF in their behaviour. The second episode 'Resonance' is far better and appears to be real SF. If they put in more episodes like that, I'll very much enjoy the series.
So, at this point I'm cautiously optimistic. Its early in the series yet, and so the writers may still be finding their legs. If they start going with interesting SF plots and conspiracy stuff, then I'll keep watching. If they fall over into the realm of magic and monsters of the week, I'll give it a miss.
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1:That link doesn't point to my final output, but to a file that was substantially altered and added to since I stopped work on the project. Still, its about as close to my original idea of the project as you can currently find on the Internet. I've been meaning to revisit the project for decades, but never got around to it.
To start with, I have to admit to some bias, as the show is essentially a rip-off of my idea. My 15 minutes of fame came way back in the mid 80's when I managed to take over the entire Usenet with a project to compile The Contents of a Certain Government Warehouse1. For a number of months it was impossible to go on the Internet without coming across references to the project.
At one point I was even contacted by Steve Jackson Games to produce a Gurps module of the game, but as I was then engaged in starting up Strategy First, I didn't have any time. Not wanting to see the project just wither away (as I knew it would if someone didn't go ahead with it). I sent them all my notes and gave them my blessing to do what they wanted to with it, but I let them know that I wasn't giving up my rights, just letting them do what they want. A few years later, they came out with Warehouse 23 which is not what I would have written, but which is a heck of a lot closer to my vision than the show is.
So, now there's a TV show based on the idea. I have no idea if they negotiated with Steve Jackson for the TV rights, but I'm guessing they didn't. I'm not even sure if Steve Jackson is/was in a position to grant TV rights as our entire agreement was a few loosely worded emails; the sort of thing that lawyers can argue either way for months on end. I've been joking with my friends saying I should sue, since they certainly never contacted me for the rights. I suppose if I lived in the land of litigation, that might even seem like a good idea, but from my current perspective that's just crazy talk.
As far as I can see, the TV series uses roughly zero of my ideas, other than the existence of the warehouse itself, and one can easily argue that that part isn't even original to me, but to the unknown person who first proposed the ending scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Okay, history aside, what do I think of the show? Well, I (naturally) love the idea of the warehouse and where one can go with such an idea. I also like the characters they've introduced so far, and think that the whole thing could really grow on me. Some of their gadgets like the Tesla stunner and the Farnsworth communicator are clearly well thought out and nifty. The 'neutralizing liquid' that they came up with though is just dressed-up magic. Realistically, each episode's maguffin would need to be neutralized in a different way, rather than just having some unexplainable liquid that you can pour over a piece of technology to make it behave. The liquid is just an excuse for the writers not to think. Not happy about that.
In fact, the writers would do well to learn a little more science if they're gonna write an austensibly SF program. So far their 'scientific' explanations for how things work are even less convincing techno-babble than that on Star Trek, and that's saying something. In fact, the pilot and the third episode are far more fantasy than SF in their behaviour. The second episode 'Resonance' is far better and appears to be real SF. If they put in more episodes like that, I'll very much enjoy the series.
So, at this point I'm cautiously optimistic. Its early in the series yet, and so the writers may still be finding their legs. If they start going with interesting SF plots and conspiracy stuff, then I'll keep watching. If they fall over into the realm of magic and monsters of the week, I'll give it a miss.
------
1:That link doesn't point to my final output, but to a file that was substantially altered and added to since I stopped work on the project. Still, its about as close to my original idea of the project as you can currently find on the Internet. I've been meaning to revisit the project for decades, but never got around to it.
