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'Sanctuary' will get it's own thread just because Me and Sue are SCFI NUTS... Plus, I think Dark will like this one as well... smiles tick I posted an extend preview of this show only in the TV IN GENERAL THREAD for those that are interested... 'Sanctuary' Harbors Mixed Blessings for Amanda Tapping If blondes have more fun, then brunettes live longer -- or at least that's what sci fi veteran Amanda Tapping discovered on her latest show Sanctuary. On the Sci Fi Channel drama, premiering Friday, Oct. 3, Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus, the dark-haired, brilliant scientist who just happens to be 157-years-old. For Tapping, who played blonde Col. Samantha Carter for 11 years on Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, deciding to play Magnus required a big change, beginning with her hair color. "When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter, from her appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything," explains Tapping. "People that I've worked with for ten years don't recognize me. I just shot the final episode of Atlantis last week and I walked onto the set and half the crew didn't know who I was. And I was like, 'Sweet, I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish.'" Although Tapping changed from light to dark and from combat boots into stilettos, the physical changes are only clues to what's going on with the complex character. "It's centered around my character, Helen Magnus, who is a 157-year old doctor from Victorian England who runs a sanctuary for all manner of abnormal creatures," says Tapping. "She pulls into the fray a young forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman who has always sort of thought outside of the box and has therefore been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies but in fact now realizes that the things that he's sort of tried to investigate are now real." In the premiere, Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) is a mild-mannered intellectual whose life is thrown for a loop when he encounters a very unusual -- and dangerous -- boy, whom Magnus is interested in saving for the Sanctuary. When Zimmerman crosses paths with Magnus, he's reluctant to join her team even though her cause sounds noble because he finds her inscrutable. "Helen is this very sexual, mysterious being," says Tapping. "It was sort of trying to create this completely legitimate, dark, intense woman after playing somebody like Carter for so long. It was a huge challenge to find her and literally also just to find her voice. I wanted to make sure that because she's from Victorian-era England, it informs so much of who this woman is and how she thinks." The actress used a purely aristocratic accent as a jumping off point, but since Magnus had to evolve over 157 years, her speech had to lose a bit of the stilted propriety to make way for modern vernacular. Tapping found herself trying out different accents in her everyday life in order to hit upon the perfect "voice" for her character, which won't be the only historical element on the sci fi show. Tapping explains, "The episode of 'The Five' deals with these five characters from history who have come together, these forward-thinking scientists and how they've come to be who they are; Jack the Ripper being one of them, Helen being another one and a few other very cool characters from history. Also, Nikola Tesla is one of the characters that comes to light in the Sanctuary." Beyond this historical stunt casting, however, the show will focus mainly on the creatures brought to the Sanctuary. Since the show is shot in the manner of 300 or Sin City, that means most of the sets and fantastical creatures will be purely computer-generated. Coming from a theater background, Tapping was comfortable in the minimalist sets, even if she was talking to "tennis balls on little grip stands" that would stand in for creatures to be filled in later. Some of the creatures include mermaids, fire-breathers, winged humanoids and other beings inspired by mythology. Others though, appeared to be perfectly normal humans, except for some special quirk. Tapping reveals, "We have a beautiful episode called 'Edward' where it's a young boy who is an autistic savant, and he's like a human camera. There's actually a person like this in the world, so it's based on sort of pseudo fact. "So we're pulling from sort of the 'things that go bump in the night' mythologies that we've all grown up with," she continues. "We pull from history and then we're also just taking really remarkable human beings and shedding a light on that idea." Tapping, who is intrigued by vampire lore, also reveals that the bloodsuckers will be addressed somewhere along the 13 episodes of the first season. She does not, however, say if they have anything to do with the secret of her character's longevity, which will be revealed in "The Five." Although Magnus still appears youthful, she has mixed feelings about her long life. "Ultimately she still sees that there's work to be done and that her quest is worthy, so she needs to be around for it," says Tapping. "But when you watch everyone you've ever known grow old and die -- all your lovers and your friends -- I think that her heart is very well protected now because if it wasn't, she would be heartbroken all the time." One of Magnus' most personal dilemmas is her grown daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), a weapons expert and martial artist who acts as the muscle for Sanctuary. "Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die, not knowing if Ashley has the longevity," says Tapping. "She'll fight to the ends of the earth to protect her daughter, but in the end of the day, it's often her daughter protecting her, which again turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head." Despite playing such a conflicted character and being a real-life mother to her 3-year-old daughter Olivia, Tapping finds those tasks relatively easy now that she's donned a new hat: executive producer. Taking a role behind the Sanctuary cameras involved casting approval, financial talks, editing, sound mixing, color correcting, endless meetings and conference calls. The increased workload has made Tapping a trifle nostalgic for her Stargate days. "I used to think, 'Oh my God, I've got ten pages of techno-babble today. I'm working so hard,'" Tapping muses. "And now I just laugh at that and go, 'Oh my God, there are days where I just want to be an actor again.'" |
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Sanctuary totally redeemed itself last night with the best episode of its short run on the SciFi Channel. Dispensing with character development and CGI overload for the time being, the show focused on plot, spinning a noir-ish tale of men who can make themselves small enough to fit through any opening. You can fill in your own punchline for that set-up - We'll see if we can convince you to give the show another try. Sanctuary's fascination with monsters can makes for good fun if you're watching in high definition, but this week, I wasn't, making me all the more thankful that this episode, titled "Folding Man," oriented around a mystery with an exciting, if predictable, finish instead of chasing a special effect in circles. For those that were watching in high definition, there was the occasional visual to get excited about. A flying druglord soared over the fictional Old City setting, and an inspired trip to Austin, Texas gave rise to CGI that felt more like the dystopia of Strange Days than the show's usual monster movie. And the new title sequence that debuted shined as well. But those were garnishes on a meal with a noir-ish, The Usual Suspects feel. It's a promising direction for the show: Sanctuary's tiny cast is suited for noir, a gritty feel would counter the glitzy special effects nicely, and on a series like this not much can shift radically from episode to episode �?another noir convention. That's why the abrupt ending of "Folding Man" was on the disappointing side. Without spoiling anything, we'd welcome a return cameo for the main villain here, the elusive criminal genius Nomad. For the most part they stuck to the main cast in this ep, with little in the way of extraneous outside characters. Perhaps the biggest key to the show going forward is to dispense with the annoying skepticism of Robin Dunne's psychologist Dr. Will Zimmerman, and the show may have put that thread behind it for good in the last scene this week. He and the other three regulars are developing a charming chemistry. No one lacks appeal or is particularly hard on the eyes. Perhaps more importantly, one one seems ready to laugh at Amanda Tapping's Victorian accent. Inoffensive is a step up from actively bad...isn't it? |
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The following review contains spoilers. Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her team investigate a pawn shop robbery when one of the perpetrators manages to escape from police blocking the only exit from the basement he’d run into. It turns out that the perpetrator was a “folding man,�?someone with an unusual bone and connective tissue structure that allows him to squeeze down into seemingly impossible spaces. Magnus also discovers that a criminal named Nomad was building a criminal syndicate by contacting other folding men and getting them addicted to a designer drug that only he had. If the folding men want more of the drug, they have to do what Nomad says. The sanctuary team are then forced into a race against time to intercept a new shipment of the drug in order to prevent Nomad from further building his empire and destroying the lives of other folding men. This is the second show I watched tonight where the characters�?motivations made no sense. Why would folding men from around the country flock to Nomad for the opportunity to become drug-addicted slaves to his criminal empire? How do you addict someone to a drug who has no interest in becoming a drug addict? Even after the folding men become physically addicted to the drug, why don’t they just walk away when they clearly want to after seeing what a psycho nutjob Nomad is? Withdrawal from the drug was miserable, but not fatal. It also turns out that the sanctuary has a double standard for its residents. The ones that Dr. Magnus considers good are treated like guests, but the ones she considers bad are subject to sedation, examination, and experimentation without their consent. I really want to like this series, but the writing needs to sharpen up, and more focus needs to be placed on character development than on long scenes of infodump. The CGI effects are cool, but they can’t carry the show on their own. |
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A weak show last Friday. I know the series is better than this, so it's ok.. tick (Season 1, Episode 5) I’ll give credit where it’s due. What started off as a typical monster horror episode evolved into something slightly more interesting and sustained this for at least most of the episode. That’s not to say that we haven’t seen pretty much everything that happened in this hour about a hundred times or more, but at least they had me intrigued for about twenty minutes there in the middle. I think they forgot the strength of the show, which is the intrigue about the Sanctuary itself and the menagerie of creatures that make up this world. Sure, there was a monster in this episode (of course), but at the same time �?there wasn’t.
Every time there’s a movie or a show where there’s a wreck of some sort, there’s always a fat guy or girl right off the bat who starts bitching and complaining until everyone tells him to shut up. Tonight, it was “Good for you!�?guy. In his defense, the wreck was Helen and Team Sanctuary’s fault �?completely! Of course, then he spiraled into “conspiracy theory guy.�?/P> Exotic Specimens - You knew something was going to happen with the regular rescue that would force Ashley to get involved personally. Because she loves her mommy.
- It’s kind of a waste of time to threaten people who don’t speak the language. Sure, they may get the tone of what you’re saying, but you’d do just as well to growl at them. Less effort.
- Poor Ashley was too late to do anything. At least she got to stage a hallucination rescue so she could do something in the episode.
The whole thing became a lot more interesting when Helen and Will realized they saw different wounds on the same arm. It quickly became a greater problem than night visions. Suddenly everything they, and subsequently we, were seeing was subject to doubt. That’s interesting! So then why trust what they see when their little blood test comes back and fingers Braun as the monster? Of course the monster, who can control what people perceive, would point the blame off of himself. It was nice to get a bit more on the depth of the feelings Helen and John had for one another. It’s too bad he’s such a monster. I thought, though, that we’d get more than we did but I guess it makes sense to keep as much of her past as mysterious as possible. It was a little forced when Will was talking to his mother, all the time knowing she wasn’t real and he really needed to be saving Helen’s life. Oh, and in the end, it fell right back to horror movie cliche by having only the two main characters survive the monster’s attacks. |
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The following review contains spoilers. Dr. Helen Magnus and Dr. Will Zimmerman are returning from a Himalayan expedition with the creature they captured when their plane crashes in the remote mountains of Pakistan. The pilot is killed, but the passengers survive. The creature is missing from its cage after the crash and there’s some question as to whether or not it survived…until it starts picking off passengers one by one. Apparently, the creature has some sort of telepathic ability and can make anyone see anything it wants, which makes it all the harder for the survivors to determine what’s real and what isn’t. With a blizzard delaying rescue operations, the remaining passengers must try to survive long enough for rescuers to get to them. I finally figured out what’s been bothering me about this show. Dr. Helen Magnus has been working with abnormals for over one hundred years, so she’s pretty much seen everything once. It’s also in her nature to maintain calm and determination in the face of adversity. She’s raised her daughter to be the same way, and Ashley has spent her whole life around abnormals, so she too is largely unsurprised by anything. Dr. Will Zimmerman is a trained psychologist who has seen the worst human nature has to offer, so even though he’s new to dealing with abnormals, he’s highly trained in the coping skills necessary to remain calm in a crisis, and he’s especially suited to calming others who are upset. While all this calm professionalism is understandable and admirable, the ultimate problem with it is that it sucks all of the tension right out of each episode. Magnus and Zimmerman were trapped in a downed plane in freezing temperatures with a creature who was stalking and killing members of their party one by one with no rescue possible for days at least, and they were acting like they had a flat tire on the interstate and were waiting for AAA to show up. They never deviated from their quiet, deliberate manner of speaking, and each time another passenger freaked out about the danger of the current situation, Zimmerman would just calm him down again. What should’ve been a frightening, suspenseful episode was reduced to just another day at the office. I understand that the show wants Magnus to be wise and experienced and unflappable and professional. In fact, I applaud it because the lack of professionalism among team members is one of the knocks I have against Torchwood. But if the show is going to go that route then it needs to find some other way to generate tension in the episodes, because there’s no way life-and-death situations should be this boring to watch. |
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Not the best episode I have seen..I just didnt connect with anything that was happening I suggest they stay closer to home |
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Sanctuary:
What's ahead for the Amanda Tapping show that doesn't have "gate" in the title? Producer Damian Kindler tells Sci FI Magazine:
We're going to lots of places and meeting lots of different types of abnormals," says creator and executive producer Damian Kindler. "We're going to go capture witches in Scotland. We're going to try to transport a deadly creature across the Himalayas in a plane, and that's not going to work out so well [laughs]. We're going to bring some stuff back from the Amazon that grows in our Sanctuary out of control. We're going to go the catacombs underneath Rome and deal with vampires. In upcoming episdes, "Magnus and Will's relationship evolves from episode to episode. That they really do challenge each other, support each other, have moments of doubt with each other, but they really are meant to work together. He really is the protege she's been waiting for 100 years, and I think every episode he proves why." ... As for Magnus' daugher, Ashley, "she does go through hell," he says. 'Her relationship with her mother is completely rocked to the core because very, very sensitive and powerful information comes to light that Magnus has been hiding from her ... She does get some really juicy stuff to play, but she also does a lot of cool ass-kicking, she shoots stuff, blows stuff up, and fights and gets quippy." |
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by Another Sandy Dr. Magnus and her team headed out to a ship to meet an old friend who was bringing her a type of abnormal that had never been captured before. Instead, the team finds the entire crew dead and at least partially eaten. All the creatures on the ship had escaped from containment, and they included one large, fierce-looking predator and a number of adorable little puffballs that Ashley immediately named Nubbins, all of which had camouflage abilities that rendered them virtually invisible. Back at the sanctuary, everyone was concerned with keeping the predator under wraps, while Ashley wanted one of the Nubbins for a pet. What harm could a cute little ball of fluff do? Apparently, none of them had ever seen “The Trouble With Tribbles�?episode of Star Trek, because it didn’t take long for the Nubbins to chew their way out of containment and start breeding at a frightening rate. By the time Dr. Magnus figured out that the predator helped control their growth in the wild, it was too late. The Nubbins overwhelmed the predator through sheer numbers and ate it, along with the wiring for many critical systems in the sanctuary and all of the food stores. This might have been a decent episode if the focus had stayed on the Nubbins and the chaos they caused at the sanctuary. With all the critical systems the Nubbins were damaging, I was surprised that no one said anything about the security containing some of the really dangerous abnormals. Why wasn’t anyone worried about them getting loose? Instead, there was a subplot involving a hormone secreted by the Nubbins that acted as something of an aphrodisiac, which led to some longing looks, uncomfortable sexual tension, and unfunny double entendres, but fortunately no sex. There was also another useless subplot involving the granddaughter of a man who thought he was an abnormal who turned out to be an abnormal herself. She had an ability to relate empathically to animals, which sounds like it would be useful in rounding up escaped invisible Nubbins, but even she had to admit that Henry’s allergies were a better Nubbins detector than her ability, so this plot didn’t really connect to anything or go anywhere. Once again, all of the characters were being so calm and professional that there was absolutely no sense of tension or urgency about containing the Nubbins, despite the threat they were obviously meant to pose. The threat was further mitigated by the comic asides involving Henry’s allergies and the device he designed to capture the Nubbins, which looked like Wallace & Gromit’s bunny vacuum from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The only thing this show really has going for it is strong, intelligent female characters. Both Helen and Ashley Magnus lead the way into any dangerous situation, carefully keeping Will behind them where it’s safer. Plus, there’s just something cool about one butt-kicking, gun-toting action heroine calling another ‘mom.�?/P> |
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Sanctuary returned this week with another episode that was light on character development and heavy on the CG. And this week’s monsters are a set of deceptively cute, computer-generated puffballs that reproduce like super-powered rabbits and make everyone around them long to do the same. It sounds like a recipe for sexy, Star Trek-inspired fun. But the serious scientists of the Sanctuary are far too busy being rational to bother with getting it on. This week’s episode, “Nubbins,�?opens on our core team of cryptozoologists inside a cargo ship. The ship belongs to one of Dr. Helen Magnus�?monster hunters for hire who was supposed to deliver his latest find to the Sanctuary, but never checked in, so it comes as little shock when the team finds the entire crew has become monster chow. They quickly discover two culprits: some fuzzy little critters that look like a chinchilla swallowed a Furby, and a gigantic, snarling dog. Both animals have sharp teeth and the ability to become nearly invisible, but because the fuzzkins are so adorable and the dog leaps at them on sight, the blame falls on the pooch. Naturally, there’s more to the furry creatures, nicknamed Tribbles Nubbins, than meets the eye. Once in the Sanctuary’s replicated habitat, they start breeding, quickly escape, and start clogging the Sanctuary’s tubes with semi-invisible fuzzballs. There’s also something in their biochemistry that makes people develop amorous feelings for one another. The main target of their super pheromones is Will Zimmerman. First, the young scientist shares a tense, fireside moment with eternally youthful Helen. Then, when visiting Helen’s daughter Ashley, Will gets squirted on by Ashley’s pet Nubbin, and the younger Miss Magnus starts wiping Will down as if Nubbin pee were Spanish Fly. This episode exposes some of the key problems with Sanctuary. The Nubbin aphrodisiac provides a missed opportunity for some much-needed character development among the central cast. Leaving Will and the Magnus women uninhibited could have offered an insight into who they are, what they desire, and how they behave after realizing their normal boundaries have been crossed. Instead, they act generically lusty toward one another, breathing heavily and lingering too close. And, because the writers seem congenitally allergic to conflict among their major characters, highly rational Will and highly rational Helen realize that the Nubbins are to blame for their sudden bouts of “randiness�?before any faux-pas can be made. The creature-induced lust doesn’t even distract the trio from hunting down the escaped Nubbins, suggesting that the only purpose the subplot served was to introduce an eventual love triangle between Helen, her daughter, and Will. The show also keeps forgetting the other residents of the Sanctuary. In theory, dozens, if not hundreds of “abnormals�?reside openly throughout the building, and I kept hoping the Nubbin love would create an all-out orgy of lizard men and fish people. Instead, the abnormal residents were largely ignored, trotted out only to impress a rare human visitor to the Sanctuary. Perhaps budgetary constraints prevented us from seeing the full effects of the Nubbins�?pheromones, but when your show operates almost entirely on green screens and CGI, you have to work that much harder to make your world seem real. The episode also features a somewhat vestigial subplot about a young girl who has inherited her grandfather’s empathic ability. We’re meant to believe that her ability proves vitally useful to bringing down the obnoxious Nubbins, but she mostly just reinforces ideas the other characters already had. It’s meant to serve as a reminder that some abnormals are good and useful rather than dangerous and destructive. That may be a noble aim, but the fact is, dangerous and destructive make for better television. |
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(Season 1, Episode 6) Somewhere between mogwais, gremlins and tribbles you’ll find nubbins. I guess it’s inevitable that a science fiction show has to have an episode with adorable cute little furry critters running rampant that may turn out to be more dangerous than initially anticipated. Add to that the pheromone factor, and this had the potential to get really awkward really fast. It’s actually good that they’re doing this now because it’s just in time for Christmas. It’s too bad the show doesn’t have the same kind of marketing power, because I can see Nubbins: The Toy all over the shelves this year. They’re adorable, make delightful cooing noises when you get close to them and have amazing camouflage abilities. Shouldn’t every child have one to snuggle with in the middle of the night? Then come morning, they can be nestled in with about thirty of them.
That leaves a secondary market for “Predators.�?Nubbin population getting out of control? Friends allergic to the legions of Nubbins taking over your house? Unable to walk down the hall without getting tripped by hundreds of Nubbins and then devoured in a mass feeding frenzy? Then you need Nubbin Predator. Nubbin Predator hunts and kills Nubbins with deadly efficiency. Nubbin Predator can see Nubbins even when they are completely camouflaged, and comes with his own Camouflage Action mode. [Warning: Nubbin Predator only effective against small to moderate bands of Nubbins. Can be destroyed as if it had been thrown in with piranha by large packs of Nubbins. If large packs of Nubbins have infiltrated and taken over your home, recommend transporting home to colder climate. Or just moving there yourself.] It was nice to bring the action back to the Sanctuary, as well as giving us more of an idea as to just the scope of the place. But perhaps more importantly, Henry has really stepped up as a character. I know he’s been around, but for some reason his presence and importance really clicked this week. Not to mention the sheer entertainment value he brings to the show. In fact, I actually find him more fun to watch than most of the three main characters. I did appreciate Dr. Will losing the glasses so he wouldn’t look exactly like Tapping’s costar Dr. Jackson from Stargate: SG-1. The show is starting to find its own voice and is getting stronger by the week. And by having the abnormals wandering around the Sanctuary (loved the alligator-looking guy in the bathrobe this week), there’s always potential for new stories. I also enjoyed another look at some of Magnus�?operatives outside of the facility. There’s a great big concept at work here, and I’m actually getting excited about revealing more of this world. |
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Of course as soom as I saw the adorable little Nubbins I wanted one TILL THEY EATED THE CREATURE!! that's a bad, cute little moster |
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Sci Fi Seeks More Sanctuary Fear not, all forms of creatures, the "Sanctuary for all" will remain open for another season. TVGuide.com has learned exclusively that Sci Fi channel has greenlit production on a second season of Sanctuary, ordering 13 new hours of the series. "Sci Fi will continue to trail blaze the television landscape by further exploring the many worlds of Sanctuary through its unique green screen environments," said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming at Sci Fi. "Technology and great storytelling makes Sanctuary a fantastic addition to Sci Fi's 2009 lineup." Sanctuary was created by Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis scribe Damian Kindler and stars the first lady of sci fi, Amanda Tapping, who also serves as executive producer. The show shoots the majority of its content using green screen environments and technology much like films Sin City and 300. The show centers around Tapping's character �?the 157-year-old Dr. Helen Magnus �?a brilliant scientist who holds the secrets of a clandestine group of creatures known as "abnormals." Magnus works alongside forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), a techie Henry (Ryan Robbins) and her badass daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), to help protect these threatened creatures as well as investigate the science and mystery behind their existence. More than three million viewers tuned in to the premiere of Sanctuary on October 3, 2008 making it the highest rated original series premiere on Sci Fi since Eureka debuted in July 2006. Sanctuary is slated to begin production in Vancouver early next year for a 2009 premiere. |
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Blood-Sucking Nikola Tesla Reveals All of Amanda Tapping’s Secrets Last night, Sanctuary treated us to a bizarre blend of two speculative fiction favorites: vampires and Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. We find out what bloodsuckers can do with an encyclopedic understanding of electricity, but the episode’s biggest reveals are about the major characters. We learn how Helen Magnus became immortal, Ashley learns the truth about her father, and Will learns why Henry lives in the Sanctuary. After last week’s Nubbin invasion, this episode proved a welcome break from the CGI-overload. We open with Helen Magnus in Rome, delivering a lecture on abnormals. Once she is finished, she’s ambushed by Nikola Tesla, who looks as young as Helen does and greets her with a kiss. Warning her that the Cabal (the rival abnormal trackers from the second episode) is on her tail, he drags her into the building’s (computer generated) catacombs, where she spends most of the episode running from the Cabal’s gunmen and enduring Tesla’s incessant chatter. Meanwhile, John Druitt reappears to do what he does best: kidnapping Ashley. Despite handcuffing the blond monster hunter to a chair, Druitt appears rehabilitated, telling Ashley that her mother is in trouble and that he needs to know where Helen is so he can rescue her. Ashley, who was already fooled by Druitt once this season, isn’t having any of it, so Druitt tries to win her over, with surprisingly little urgency, by telling her about his past with Helen. Between Tesla and Druitt, we learn that Helen, Druitt, and Tesla were all part of a scientific research group known as “The Five.�?In a particularly mad scientist moment, Helen manages to distill a serum from the blood of vampires, a long-extinct race of abnormals, and the Five inject themselves with it. As a result, Helen became immortal, Druitt became a time-traveling, teleporting maniac, and Tesla became a bona fide vampire. And, as an added bonus, Tesla wants to revive that noble race and rule over all humanity. The show’s B-plot focuses on Will, Bigfoot, and Henry, who have been left behind to hold down the fort. Naturally, some abnormal is loose in the Sanctuary and has started messing with the wiring and attacking the residents. Since every single clue points a big neon arrow at Henry, who has come down with some mysterious fever, Will suspects that the Sanctuary’s technician is the culprit. When the actual monster (some random lizard that inexplicably knew to avoid the cameras and disable the motion sensors) appears and attacks Will, Henry saves the day and reveals himself as some sort of werewolfish abnormal, although I think the biggest surprise about Henry is that the dude has a lot of body piercings. There were little tidbits in this episode that I’d like to see more of throughout Sanctuary. Helen notes that the likes of Caesar and Alexander the Great were really vampires who held humanity beneath their thumbs, suggesting a whole alternate history of the world based around abnormals. We saw some of this earlier with the “Fata Morgana�?episode, and I hope the writers are able to weave these strands into a rich and cohesive universe. Tesla’s ability to make vampires from dead bodies using his own blood and an electrical charge was also a nice and unexpected blending of science and myth, and helped reduce the randomness of making Tesla a vampire in the first place. I had mixed feelings about Druitt’s return to sanity. Although it was weirdly plausible that Tesla’s electroshock torture would reboot Druitt’s brain, psychotic Druitt made for an interesting villain. Still, since he isn’t laying off the insanity-causing teleportation, I suspect we’ll see deadly Druitt again, and Helena and Ashley will likely face the dilemma of whether to destroy him or attempt to cure him again. Tesla, with his amoral tendencies and his obnoxious attempts at charm, could also make a comeback as either ally or antagonist. Although I don’t believe the writers did enough with him this episode (I found myself wanting the episode to end with him in an awesome lab conducting horrible experiments on his vampire creations), he possessed a stronger personality than many of the show’s main characters (read: Will) and actually managed to elicit an emotional response from the normally cool Helen. But Sanctuary continues to suffer from a lack of extras, and almost every scene has too much space and too few people to fill it. I got momentarily excited when Will suggested interviewing some of the abnormals, hoping for a stream of brief, funny, and weird interactions between Will and the Sanctuary’s residents, but those hopes were quickly dashed. Maybe now that the Sci Fi Channel has picked up Sanctuary for another season, they can hire a few actors and makeup artists to populate it. |
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Last night’s Sanctuary moved us from monster crises to supernatural murder mystery, one filled with dark secrets, family bondage, and a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome and a pair of impressive abilities. Plus, Henry becomes McGruff the Crime Dog and Will reveals a superpower of his own. So, we open on a scene that is suspiciously similar to the opening of the pilot. In a small, dark apartment, a woman walks in on a dead body and a creepy kid. This time, the man has a rather impressive hole in his chest, likely from the rifle by his side. A teenager sits on the bed, staring at the body and sketching a detailed portrait of the dead fellow as a demon. But we know this kid is an abnormal because he moves his hand from top to bottom like a printer. And he’s super fast. And his eyes sparkle. Will’s buddy from the police department asks for Will’s help in solving the case. The death appears to be a suicide, but the police have their doubts, and they feel the key might be the deceased’s autistic son, who draws incredible sketches of monstrous beings. And Will and Helen decide that the best thing for an autistic boy who has just suffered a terrible trauma is to take him out of his familiar setting and bring him into the freaky Sanctuary. And Will’s supposed to be psychiatrist. The boy turns out to be some sort of human abnormal detector, with an added bonus: he’s got Superman’s heat vision. The episode avoids attributing the boy’s abilities to his autism, and solving the death hinges on realizing his powers are genetic (and discovering the home dungeon his late father built beneath the floorboards). But as with last episode, the primary plot is less about telling a story than it is about revealing something about one of the primary characters, in this case Will. Will apparently has super detective powers where he notices things that other people don’t, and there’s a little flash effect every time he does it. He’s like the guy from Psych without the charm. The best thing about this episode: more Henry. Henry is wrestling with his burgeoning lycanthropy and we learn that Helen took Henry when he was a child, preventing him from being raised by his own werewolfy kind (It’s not clear why. Maybe she wanted a puppy). Anyway, after resolving to get his werewolf bits cut out of him, his canine nose saves the day, and he decides to roll with his transformation. I’m happy for anything that advances Henry’s story, although I’m less pleased with his CG counterpart. And while the episode was lacking in conflict, it does end on a nice note of intrigue. Will’s cop buddy tells him that the murder case has been pulled and that some shadowy figures in a van made off with the body. Is this the cabal? A rival research group? The government? Nikola Tesla? Perhaps the Sanctuary world is about to get a little deeper. |
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(Season 1, Episode 9 - “Requiem�? Who knew a two-man play could be compelling in the world of science fiction? No crazy special effects or zany aliens or creatures; just a man and a woman and a submarine. Kudos to the writers and actors involved for making this still compelling television. The relationship between Helen Magnus and Will Zimmerman has been something that’s been growing for awhile now. Too bad he had to go and kill her.
Earlier in the series, there were some lingering thoughts that there might be some sexual tension between the two, but then that shifted to Will and Ashley pretty quickly; about as quickly as Will lost the glasses so people like me would stop comparing the show to Stargate SG-1. Now we have a clear mentor-student dynamic and it was explored pretty well here. There was some needed give and take from both parties, as Helen agreed to allow Will to question her about her longevity and some of the things she’s done in her life (she’s pretty much been at every major historical event of the past century). And she got to try and kill him. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I liked that they opened the episode with Helen’s death, which was a real and true death, before showing us how we got there. It definitely grabbed you by your �?ahem �?well, you know �?and hooked you to your screen for the next 58 minutes or so. And when we did come back full circle to it, you bought it completely. Both Dunne and Tapping did an excellent job of selling their respective roles in her death scene. I wonder if they were able to keep the parasite for analysis. It’s a little annoying that in science fiction shows when a host body dies, the parasite always comes out the ear or mouth or something and crawls around for awhile. I’m not a doctor, but I doubt that happens in real hospitals. I don’t know, maybe it does. That would make for an exciting episode of Grey’s Anatomy. A lot was made of the idea that Helen sees Will as her successor in her work at the Sanctuary. I’m not sure if she’s sold this same line to all of her proteges, but if she hasn’t it makes you wonder if she has some idea about how much longer she might live. Maybe until the last episode of the series? It would make sense that with her unique physiology she might not even look old before she passes naturally of old age. And if she does pass away, then Will has free reign to bang her daughter, unless the sasquatch or werewolf were wanting to make a move. I don’t think Will could compete with them in the age old masculinity competitions that savage species adopt. Hell, he couldn’t compete with Ashley in a physical match-up. Still, once the Sanctuary is his he can just issue an edict: “Thou shalt not bang the Ashley until such time as I am no longer interested in continuing copulation.�? |
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(Season 1, Episode 12 - “Revelations, Part 1�? This two-part finale brought “The Five�?together, almost completely, and with this gang of nineteenth century legends working together to save the world, it reminded me a lot of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I know, there’s no patent on having famous literary and historical characters working together, and this is after all happening with these characters in the modern era, but still it happened. Particularly when we learned the identity of the fifth member and got to meet Mr. Watson. The show has done a nice job of setting up the Cabal as a true threat to abnormals and the work of the Sanctuary. Particularly dastardly is Ms. Whitcomb as the presumed head of this organization, which reminds me a lot of “The Company.�?It’s kind of funny, and appropriate, that giant evil corporations are all the rage now. Powerhouse private companies that seem to move above and beyond the law of the land. Of course, we all know there’s nothing going on like that in the real world, right?
I liked the idea of at least one of the Five not being as long-lived as the other four apparently are. We’re down to the third generation of “The Invisible Man,�?and this time it’s his granddaughter, a hot young thing John Druitt had the pleasure of capture in the nude. Don’t you know you have to be naked to be effectively invisible? Now do you see why this became a nubile young woman instead of a middle-aged man? Ratings, baby! Tapping’s no dummy. I did find myself wondering, as we kept jumping back to The Cabal, how Whitcomb seemed to have up-to-the-minute information as to what was going on inside the Sanctuary. Bugs? An inside agent? Maybe something Magnus�?father did while he was there (yeah, there’s another guy who’s lived way longer than anyone should)? Sanctuary has put a nice bow on the whole season with this first part of the two-part finale. They’ve established a more complete world for these characters to inhabit, thus enhancing our sense of the threat here. Now that we’ve seen the abnormals and how many of them there are out there still, some dangerous and some just living life (like the poor walrus-faced guy), throwing in this new manufactured “rage virus�?that affects only them is quite the dandy. The Cabal wants to create massive chaos and make known the existence of the abnormals all at the same time. We’ve seen them breeding their own “rage army,�?but still unclear is their ultimate motive. Is it really as simple as decimating the world so they can rule over whatever remains? If you allow too much destruction, you can’t guarantee the continuation of civilization as we know it. And if you lose that you lose Cold Stone Creamery. And if you lose Cold Stone Creamery, well what’s the point anymore? Personally, I’ve never understood the desire to destroy the world and rule over what’s left, ushering in a new era of mankind under your thumb. There’s too much good stuff out there now that I’d hate to see disappear. If Watson has his way, though, that’s just what would happen. For a guy who’s lived two normal lifetimes, though I don’t really understand all the gadgets he uses to accomplish this, he’s quite the Debbie Downer. Even Druitt has more optimism, and he’s freaking Jack the Ripper. If Watson, who we learn was the true basis for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, is truly the greatest analytical mind in the history of the world, you’d think he’d go through life with at least a smidge of confidence. Don’t think you can figure out a way to accomplish your goals, Watson? Not clever enough, Holmesy? Posh! A plan is put into place to get a cure for the virus, which they need now that Bigfoot is infected as well. The Invisible Girl is recruited and almost everyone heads to India where the vial of pure blood used to create The Five is housed. Magnus is confident they can get it without Tesla, whom they suspect may be dead (but we know better than that! Even without the promos, this is television �?of course he’s alive!). But when they arrive and the labyrinth is collapsed and destroyed Watson throws in the towel. Woe is me! I’ve got a teleporter with me and we’re still a mile or more away but let’s just give up and leave now. If we head straight for Cold Stone we can get some ice cream before they’re all destroyed. So the stage is set for next week’s season finale. Ashley and Henry are in the hands of Whitcomb and The Cabal. What, did I not mention that? Yeah well they went in there totally unprepared so it was inevitable. Idiots. The test release went great and the actual release promises to be far worse. Can Magnus and the team get it together to save the world? Probably. I don’t think they’re going to end this first season on a cliffhanger. At least not a major one. Maybe they’ll come up with a little cliffhanger for us. Like Ashley ordering French Vanilla ice cream and the guy having to go in back to see if they have any�? [TO BE CONTINUED!] |
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