Television Review - Sanctuary

Sci Fi Channel, 9 PM EST, Fridays Rating (after five episodes): 3 out of 5 stars

Sanctuary tells the story of Dr. Helen Magnus who runs a vast refuge for “abnormals”, beings with special abilities who are the result of genetic mutations. Some of these creatures stay at her sanctuary voluntarily, while other, more vicious beings are kept there as prisoners because of the danger they present to the outside world. The show began life as a web-only series comprised of eight webisodes, but has now transitioned to a more customary format as a weekly series on the Sci Fi Channel. Both the web-series and television adaptation come from Stargate veterans Damian Kindler and Martin Wood (creators / executive producers) and Amanda Tapping (executive producer, Dr. Magnus).

The pilot episode follows the first four webisodes fairly closely though it makes a few changes to the characters and does not provide as much backstory on Dr. Magnus (some of that starts to show up in later episodes). Since then, it has followed the format of Magnus and her team, consisting of her daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup) a forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), investigating reports of abnormals. And while the series showed a lot of promise early on, it has since settled into formulaic “freak of the week” episodes.

My biggest complaint about the series is basically the same one I had about the Stargate shows. They have some interesting story ideas, but rarely do more than scrape the surface of their potential. The creative team fails to delve into the possibilities of the ideas presented and instead they present straightforward action/adventure peppered with some intriguing concepts. The most recent episode from Sanctuary (“Nubbins”) provides a perfect example of this. This story about man-eating tribbles (yes, I typed that correctly), had a ton of potential for the series to have a little fun, make a few jabs at the Science Fiction genre, and establish a cool new species of creatures. Instead, they took the fairly straight-forward hunt-the-monster approach and the cast seemed to just sleepwalk through the episode. When the episode ended, I just felt disappointed that they did not do more with the concept.

Not that I don’t like the series, I have actually rather enjoyed it so far. I just wish they would present more substantive episodes. I have also noticed a downward trend in the quality of the episodes from the premiere to the most recent episode. Hopefully they manage to turn this around in the coming weeks.

As far as the cast, they do a good enough job of carrying the series, even making up at times where the scripts are wanting. Amanda Tapping steps into a completely different role from her Stargate days as the mysterious Dr. Helen Magnus. Robin Dunne plays Will Zimmerman as the outsider that the audience can identify with stepping into this odd menagerie of characters. And Emilie Ullerup spices up the series as the rash daughter of Magnus and primary abnormal hunter (one could almost take her for a relative of Elle from Heroes in her appearance and manner).

Sanctuary has been a ratings hit for the Sci Fi Channel, pulling the largest numbers for the debut of an original series on the channel since Eureka bowed in 2006. It likely will secure a place as one of the flagship shows for that channel’s Friday night lineup.

Overall, I would say that the series shows promise and could develop into a strong performer for the genre. The creative team just needs to go beneath the surface and explore the full potential of their stories.

-John J. Joex

Watch Sanctuary Online at SciFi.com