'Warehouse 13': Saul Rubinek dishes on the new season

Any tried-and-true "Indiana Jones" fan would love a chance to go digging through the warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Thankfully, we have the Syfy Channel series "Warehouse 13" - which has its own unique artifact depository - to help satisfy that desire. The show, beginning its third season Monday night, mixes the procedural and fantasy adventure genres in following a covert organization that gathers and protects the population from mysterious and potential deadly artifacts.

amNY spoke with Saul Rubinek, 63, who plays the eccentric Artie Nielson, the man in charge of the warehouse.

What do you like about Artie?
Probably the unpredictability of the guy. He's a road not traveled by me, because I have a family, I have kids in college - which is one of the things that make me grateful for being on a hit show. Artie doesn't have family; he got taken out of the world and put into this world and has become obsessed to the point of a love/hate relationship with it.

Do you like that he's not the typical boss role?
A boss role can be really predictable. They send people out and, once in every eight episodes or so, you find the guy has a drinking problem, an ex-wife or he's in AA or whatever it is. Not Artie. It's not just a boss role - he really is in the field a lot. He's got a dark past, he's eccentric, and he's not altogether normal. I think that's kind of fun.

What does the third season bring for the show?
It's an interesting place to get. First season, you're in the dark, you don't know what's going on. Then, in the second season, we already knew the series was a hit, which is an amazing place to be. And we wanted to keep the fans happy, and one of the ways to do that is to keep surprising them. Third season, [we] wanted to go deep. The great thing is that the show is built on quite an intricate and well-thought-out historical mythology. We know our fans are as fascinated as the writers are with that history.

How does a cable show get such a polished look?
We have a huge audience for cable, but not in network terms. As a result, we have an unsung hero - our production designer, Franco De Cotiis. [He] is extraordinary and a genius. He has an art department that's second to none. We wander around like kids in our own set, seeing things that we've never seen before.

Any news on the H.G. Wells spinoff series?
I'm not really sure what direction they're going, but it's not going to be just a retread in a top hat and Victorian clothes. They've got a whole concept that does involve Warehouse 12, but it's not the same show as ours except set in Victorian London.

'Warehouse' history lesson
Want to know about all 13 of the warehouses? Head over to syfy.com/warehouse13/history, where you can learn about their history - dating all the way back to Warehouse 1 in 336 BC.

On TV: The third season of "Warehouse 13" debuts Monday night on Syfy Channel at 9.