What started out as a series of webisodes created for an online
pay site has blossomed into a full-fledged TV series when the SyFy Channel gave
the green light for the first season of Sanctuary. Created by Damian Kindler, a
former writer on Stargate: SG-1, his new series deals with a place called the
Sanctuary, which is a refuge for all sort of strange, otherworldly
creatures--the sort of bizarre and nightmarish monsters who would get a
crypto-zoologist all warm and fuzzy with excitement. Amanda Tapping, best known
as Sam Carter from SG-1, stars as the main heroine Helen Magnus and is
also a co-executive producer on the series. Magnus is a 157 year old woman--who
doesn’t look a day over thirty--who runs the Sanctuary, a huge mansion located
in an unspecified city somewhere in North America.
Shot mainly on green-screen stages, with the CG-created sets added in later,
this process gives Sanctuary a larger, more epic look than its budget can
afford--which is a plus for the series, since they also use the CGI to great
effect by creating an interesting visual style that’s a nice blend of film noir
with the gothic-inspired cityscape from the Underworld films. The CG process
also populates this world with all manner of creatures, and the effects team
deserves kudos for letting their imaginations run wild. The overall result is a
rich, vibrant world that feels like a darker alternate version of out
own--except here, magic and technology, as well as horror and science fiction,
blend seamlessly. It's an interesting place, filled with equally absorbing characters,
that's very inviting for a viewer who's open to the darker side of fantasy.
Tapping is very good as Magnus, who’s a far more darker and mysterious character
than her Sam Carter ever was, but is still a scientist who’s handy with a gun.
Even though she basically traded one set of clichés for another (science fiction
for horror/fantasy) it’s still good to see the talented Tapping play something
different than her Carter persona for a change. And she’s smartly surrounded
herself with a great cast, which includes Robin Dunne as her protégé, Dr. Will
Zimmerman; the superb Christopher Heyerdahl as her one-time lover and present day
adversary, and Emilie Ullerup, who plays Ashley Magnus, Magnus' only daughter--and a
blatant Buffy The Vampire Slayer clone. But thanks to Ullerup’s engaging and
sympathetic performance, I was easily able to overlook her poorly conceived character.
Unfortunately, the series is very uneven, script-wise--a prime example is the extremely dull The
Folding Man. Another lame episode,
Instinct, is yet another tired reworking of the shaky-camera POV format seen in
the Blair Witch Project, [REC] and Cloverfield. But the writing improves mightily
about a third of the way into the season, with the marvelous Kush, which has
Magnus and Will trapped aboard a crashed airplane with a potential killer on the
loose. The good outweighs the bad on all accounts here. And while Sanctuary may
lack the story-telling sophistication of The X-Files or
Fringe (the Cabal, the main villains of
Sanctuary, are clearly and unsubtly shown to be evil bad guys from the
moment they first appear on screen), it still more than makes up for it in sheer
fun and imagination. Sanctuary is a series with great potential, and with the
exemplary creative team it has both in front of and behind the camera, it has no
where to go but up.
--SF
Main Review Page | TV Reviews |Buy Sanctuary on DVD Right Here!
