Geekshow

Review: Sanctuary

So it’s Friday night during the fall of ’08 and what ever is there to watch on SciFi Channel? Battlestar Galactica doesn’t come back until January and Stargate: Atlantis is in its final episodes. Ladies and gentlemen to quote one of the main characters, Dr. Helen Magnus, “Welcome to the Sanctuary.”

WARNING: Very mild spoilers about the first season follow. You’ve been warned!

Sanctuary started out as 15-20 minute webisodes on SciFi.com in 2007. As the popularity of the show grew, SciFi green lit the show to move to broadcast television for 13 episodes in the fall of 2008. The success of premiere has been equal to another of SciFi’s popular shows, Eureka.  The network has already renewed the series for a second season.

The Sanctuary is an organization started by the main character of the show, Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) an 157 year old British scientist. Her focus is to offer safe haven, and to study, the world’s “abnormals,” creatures of non-human genetic make-up. Thus far the show has explored everything from mer-people, nubbins (think Tribbles from Star Trek:TOS), vampires, and werewolves. Bigfoot is the house butler and valet. The rest of the cast includes: Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) who is our view into the Sanctuary. Dr. Magnus has chosen him to be her protégé, and we get to see this exciting new world from his eyes. Dr. Magnus’ daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup) is the martial enforcer of the group who helps collect new abnormals and protect the Sanctuary. Henry Foss (Ryan Robbins) is our Xander or Wash – the geeky comedy relief with the everyman’s attitude towards these fantastical situations.

The beginning of the series is admittedly slow. It started very episodic, with little to connect the series’ regulars. But after the first half-dozen episodes, the series starts focusing on its origins and nemesis, and that is when the show takes off.

Dr. Magnus hints at her origins in the first few episodes. It is later revealed that she was part of a group called The Five. The Five consisted of some of the most brilliant scientific minds of their time: Dr. Helen Magnus, Dr. James Watson (yes, of Sherlock Holmes fame), Nigel Griffin (later the Invisible Man), Nikola Tesla (the real-life “father of physics”), and John Druitt (who later becomes Jack the Ripper). This is what The League of Extraordinary Gentleman should have been. The Five discovered a vial of untainted vampire blood which gave them all a variety of new abilities. Dr. Magnus has been granted extended life and immunity to disease, Watson’s intelligence and logistic reasoning grew to near above-human proportions, Griffin had invisibility, Tesla turned into a vampire, and Druitt gained teleportation.

Also hinted at in the first episodes are a rival “abnormal” research group called The Cabal. The Cabal is not nearly as altruistic in their intent towards abnormals. They study, transform, and even kill abnormals in pursuit of their goal: protect humanity from the supposed inherent danger of abnormals.

When these two storylines collide, The Five gather to fight the Cabal, and Sanctuary really takes off. By this time the regular cast chemistry has been established and the characters themselves have been more developed. The reunion of The Five is full of all of the wit and tension you would expect. And the season finale itself, though completely predictable, is set up in such a way that we still don’t know how The Cabal has managed to pull everything off, including the betrayal of one member of the Sanctuary.

Knowing SciFi channel, we won’t see the next season of Sanctuary until next fall, so you’ve got plenty of chance to catch up on this creative gem from the network. As I said, the first few episodes are a little slow and discombobulated, but hanging on is definitely worth it –  both to support web-to-series television and especially to see where they take Sanctuary next season.