Ground Control to major streamers, we are a go. There’s no reason to cancel all of your Maypole parties this week, as this isn’t the most prolific time for streaming releases. Nothing wildly popular here, but we’ve got a few things that have particularly strong fanbases, so here’s hoping there’s something you guys like.

Alphas (Amazon Instant Prime)
When this Zak Penn and Michael Karnow-created superpowers drama first hit Syfy, it was discarded by many as just a rip-off of NBC’s Heroes, though the fact that it wasn’t Heroes should have brought viewers in droves. It didn’t take long for this show’s decent blending of character drama with powers and special effects to catch on, and the show avoided its predicted early cancellation…only to get cancelled later on, but still. Dr. Lee Rosen (David Straithaim) leads a team of five hero types with interesting abilities who fight crimes committed by Alphas of the villainous variety. The show also stars Ryan Cartwright, Warren Christie, Malik Yoba, Laura Mennell, Erin Way, and Azita Ghanizada. All 24 episodes are here for you to dive into, so get started. Don’t make me get Nina to tell you to do it.

One of the most beloved actors of Star Trek: The Next Generation is getting a new ongoing role with SYFY’s hit series Warehouse 13. Brent Spiner, whose most recent on screen credit is the comedy web series Fresh Hell, won’t be playing a lovable android though. This time around, he’s playing it a little more Lore than Data.

TV Guide says Spiner will play the villain on at least 6 episodes of Warehouse 13’s next season. There he’s set to play Brother Adrian, leader of the rather long-named Brotherhood of the Knights of the Black Diamond. Brother Adrian will be the nemesis of the Warehouse team as they try and find a way to recover from the climactic events of last season’s finale. According to the show’s executive producer Jack Kenny…

 The Brotherhood is descended from the Knights Templar and connected to the Vatican. It is charged with the protection of many powerful artifacts, one of which Artie desperately needs to make everything right again…The use of this object will unleash an incredible evil and Brother Adrian is not about to see that happen

SyFy’s Warehouse 13 may not be strictly science fiction per se, but it is one of the nerdiest shows on television.  It’s done time-travel, regularly resurrects and references great scientific, literary, and film stars, and brought us a badass female H.G. Wells.  It’s the only show (other than Futurama) to reference one of the pioneers of television technology and Nikola Tesla every week.  Warehouse 13‘s heroes are even a bookworm and a comic book fan who grew up to be Secret Service agents.  

In August, SyFy announced that it was renewing Warehouse 13 for a fourth season at the same 13-episode size the show has maintained since its premiere.  Last week, the network demonstrated increased confidence in the show by ordering an additional 7 episodes for next season.  That brings the total order up to 20 episodes, which is more in line with shows like Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, and Stargate Atlantis than what SyFy has been ordering from its original programming lately.

The SyFy channel completed its name change this week and yet, even though they seem to have gone “Poochie” with their network’s branding, they haven’t abandoned geek programming entirely. Along with the name change came the premiere of their latest original series Warehouse 13. They’re looking for another genre programming hit here, with Stargate aging and undergoing changes and Battlestar Galactica drifting off the air. This is just the first in a long series of new ideas on the channel, and surprisingly it’s unlikely to be the worst.

Warehouse 13 feels a lot like Eureka, one of SyFy’s few successful returning series. It has that same sense of restrained whimsy, it has a sense of humor, it seems to know what it is and goes about doing it anyway. That Eureka feel is melded with something akin to the X-Files as two Secret Service agents are put to work investigating the weird and possibly dangerous of the world. The twist here is that they’re more artifact hunters than alien finders.

In the two-hour season premiere, Agents Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering are ordered to a remote location in the desert where, they find a massive and mysterious warehouse. It’s manned by Artie, a man with nearly as many secrets as the treasure trove he protects. Inside Artie’s warehouse are the secrets of America, miles and miles of boxes and shelves stocked with things beyond man’s comprehension. They’re stored here, until we finally get around to comprehending them.

Today was the day. The Sci Fi Channel is dead, replaced by SyFy, whatever that is. The name change will probably be used to allow them to show more Ultimate Fighting, but there may still be a little science fiction programming left on the channel. For instance, there’s Warehouse 13.

It’s the SyFy channel’s latest original series, a solve the sci-fi problem of the week show in the mold of the X-Files with a touch of Eureka probably thrown in for good measure. We’ve got a sneak peek from Warehouse 13. Get a taste of what this newfangled SyFy channel is up to in the video after the jump: