Sanctuary

1. season 1. 2008
2. season 2. 2009

Dr Helen Magnus [Amanda Tapping] heads the Sanctuary, a refuge for Abnormals, creatures who aren't quite human. Magnus herself isn't quite normal, being over 150 years old, thanks to some Victorian experiments. She is aided in this enormous venture by a minuscule staff: her daughter Ashley [Emilie Ullerup], forensic psychiatrist, profiler and possibly psychic Dr Will Zimmerman [Robin Dunne], tech guy Henry [Ryan Robbins] and factotum Bigfoot [Christopher Heyerdahl]. Other recurring characters include Ashley's father John Druitt [also Christopher Heyerdahl], and vampire (yes, really!) Nikola Tesla [Jonathon Young].

In the usual way, we have the "monster of the week" episodes. But there is also a lot of continuity and backstory, including the others who knew Magnus previously, and yet are still around. And there is also the obligatory sinister conspiracy, the Cabal, out to destroy, or exploit, all Abnormals. Much of the scenery is CGI allowing for some spectacular Gothic sets, which the cast spend a lot of time walking around. There is enough action to compensate: although Magnus spends most of the time being deadly reasonable, she spends the rest just being deadly.

It's mind candy, but fun mind candy. We end with a massive end-of-season cliffhanger. So I'm pleased there is to be another season!

Rating: 4
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 6 January 2009

!!! SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 !!!

The massive end-of-season-1 cliffhanger gets resolved in a way I wasn't expecting: it's not usual to kill off a major character in that way (nor, for an SFnal series, for them to stay dead!) The second season has also taken this opportunity for the evil conspiracy plot arc to be terminated. Good -- I find conspiracy plot arcs often result in unimaginative episodes (except for Alias, of course, which managed to keep the conspiracy theme at a suitably bonkers high level all the way through).

To replace the killed cast member, we get new-bad-girl-turned-good Faith Kate. And we get a season of relatively individual episodes, allowing quite a wide range of tone, and some more background of the Sanctuary (it's becoming clear that the Sanctuary itself is actually a shadowy worldwide conspiracy, but that's okay, because it's on the side of good. Isn't it?). Some episodes are funny (Next Tuesday, but not really Hero), some traumatic (Night of the Living Dead Pavor Nocturnus, and Penance), some contrasting the current kissy-vampire meme with good old fashioned proper vampires (Sleepers). And we get hints that the Sanctuary network is larger than we thought, and maybe not all its members are that keen on Magnus (Veritas, leading up to the even more massive Bollywood end-of-season-2 cliffhanger, Kali).

Rating: 4
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 23 January 2010