The SyFy channel began airing a show on their Tuesday line-ups called Warehouse 13. The show centers around a secret government branch that seeks out artifacts of history that have somehow been embued with a supernatural power.
The show seems to address the danger of these old, outdated paranormal objects. The Warehouse is a museum/storage locker of lost historical items, designed to contain them and prevent their exposure to the contemporary world. Warehouse 13 seems to contrast “new, digital” technologies with older artifacts and apparatus so through the representations of the two types of technology, it seems to me that the rhetoric is posed in opposition which essentially creates an internal argument. It strikes me that this conflict that is internal to the show presents a sort of moral dilemna to the audience about technology. It almost seems to challenge the audience to choose between the nostalgic artifacts of the past and the new technologies of the near future.
For example: Artie, the Warehouse manager, uses a keyboard that features typewriter keys rather than modern, popular keyboards
While note exacty the same keyboard from Warehouse 13, it's the same concept and design. Why bother using such a specialized keyboard? It's no different than a modern one, but for some reason, SyFy chose to use this nostalgic return to throw back technology over contemporary tech. Weird.
Through this sort of narrative framing of technology, each episode can contain its own rhetorical perspective, providing the audience with more anecodotes within this argument that provide a sort of informed persuasive writing tactic posed through a tv show.
This seems to be augmented even further by Claudia, the youngest “whiz-kid” member of the show. Her character (a wise-talking hacker/genius) is contrasted by Artie’s character (traditionalist kurmudgeon, genius of the archives). Through the dramas that occur within the Warehouse itself (Artie and Claudia’s territory), the battle between the old in the new seems mirrored.
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You’re a handsome lookin man, Will Walter