Sanctuary

I just watched the Sci-Fi Channel's new show, Sanctuary. It's got some of the same creative team that's been behind Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (which has been canceled so they can start making DVD movies for it, like they've been doing for SG-1.) It also stars Amanda Tapping, who of course was Samantha Carter on Stargate.

I want this show to do well for Sci-Fi, mainly because my reasons for watching them have been dwindling for some time. I remember when I used to watch Stargate, Farscape, and Lexx on Friday nights back in the day, and then, of course, there is Battlestar Galactica. But after seeing what happened to the Dresden Files TV show (which I really liked), I'm not sure that I can trust the Sci-Fi channel any more.

In any event, Sanctuary is about a mysterious woman named Dr. Helen Magnus (played by Tapping), her daughter Ashley (played by Emilie Ullerup), and Dr. Will Zimmerman (played by Robin Dunne) are, basically, monster hunters. They seek out "abnormals" and take them back to the Sanctuary for study and to either keep the monsters safe from humans... or humans safe from the monsters.

Sanctuary began as a series of webisodes, and despite the creators' original intentions to keep it soley on the web, they've moved to Sci-Fi because of the expense of making the show. Its gimmick lies in a great deal of green screen work, like the movies Sin City and 300. They use it to even "build" some of the major sets of the show and to create interesting looking "location" shots.

It's a nice idea, but I don't think the technology is quite there yet. At least on my TV, it's obvious when the green screen is being used, which can be a bit jarring. They've gone for a stylized look (probably to make the green screen work look better) but I can't help but feel that a more realistic setting might have served them better for this story. When you can create any fantastic location for your stories that you want with a computer, you sometimes stop thinking of what fits in your story and just throw things in for the heck of it.

That said, the technique does give them the freedom to add all sorts of interesting shots into the show that you'd normally never see on a cable channel. Also, Amanda Tapping is doing good work in her role, and Christopher Heyerdahl is a very menacing villain from her past that makes me want to see more of him. Ullerup and Dunne aren't as good, but Dunne definitely improved in the second episode, and Ullerup does very well in the fight scenes (she's played as the brawn to her mother's brains, in many ways.)

They've only shown two episodes, and they're doing a lot of teasing. The show and world has potential, but they need to show more of it. The premiere episode was slowed down by a lot of expository dialogue (a necessary evil of pilots, I'll admit), and the second episode threw in a lot of almost extraneous bits (an invisible "chameleon" like monster that is found and killed in one scene, an informant that eats bugs) that they are using to make us more interested in the world of Sanctuary, but they've only gotten a 13-episode order from Sci-Fi. I think they should step it up a notch, give us more solid story and less filler.

This show reminds me of the Dresden Files TV show a lot. Both shows had good premises, and they both are off to a kind of shaky start. Dresden got a LOT better toward the end, but obviously it was a little too late to save the show. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to Sanctuary. With Battlestar and Stargate Atlantis ending next year, Sci-Fi needs a solid block of real sci-fi shows, not third-rate horror movies and "reality" shows, to keep me watching.

Good luck, Sanctuary.

Sanctuary -- Show's Website

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