Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sci-Fi Hoedown: Sanctuary Season 1

First, let me say that I refuse to use Sy-Fy instead of Sci-Fi. Sci-Fi = Science Fiction. Sy-Fy = dumb. To have an entire network "dumb it down" is ridonkulous.

David and I are "Stargate" fans; SG1, Atlantis and we're currently catching up on SGUniverse. David is a Stargate fan like I am a Whedonverse fan; slightly nutso. He can name you episode titles, what season, who acted them, etc. etc. And there were 10 seasons of SG1.

Having nothing better to watch, I decided to try "Sanctuary" because it has Stargate actors, Stargate writers, etc. etc.


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The premise is this: There are a group of people all over the world whose job it is to protect and give sanctuary to Abnormals (intelligent beings that are not human) on the Earth. The head of the group is Helen Magnus, a 150-something year old played by Amanda Tapping (Colonel Carter in the Stargate World.)



The whole look of the show is very...almost steampunk meets CG. My son complains about the CG being so very bad, but I personally think that's the point. Here are the opening credits so you can see what I mean.




There are monsters-of-the-week episodes, but who doesn't have those, and also running themes of Helen's 150+ year life, including the fact that she knows Nikolai Tesla, who is now a vampire and she once had a relationship with a man who became Jack the Ripper, as well an an eeeeevil cabal trying to destroy the Sanctuary network.

Helen has a daughter Ashley, who works with her, as well as several team members, and new recruit, cute blonde dude. Ok, his name is Dr. Will Zimmerman. I just call him "Replacement Daniel Jackson."

I had to get over Amanda's British accent. It's bad. I'm on Season 2 already, so I'm ignoring it for the most part. We do like seeing Stargate Atlantis and SG1 actors pop up from time to time.

As the show progresses, they hit their stride. I almost gave up on it ("Fata Morgana" - blech. "Nubbins?" ) but there are several episodes that saved it for me ("Requiem," "The Five," "Revelations Part 1 & 2") as well as my like of some characters, mainly the Big Guy (who David immediately identified as the same actor who played Wraith Todd from SG Atlantis just by his voice) and Henry, who I have a crush on. :)

It's visually weird, but in a quirky way that I'm getting used to and liking.




On to Season 2!

2 comments:

Coffee Beans said...

Hey, I started watching this show recently too. I agree that some of the episodes can be a bit too cheesy (totally agree about those Nubbins! :P), but overall the show is growing on me. There's been some interesting character developments in season 2 so far -- I won't get into any details, but I just finished watching "Sleepers" and wow, I admit I was surprised at the ending with Tesla -- I wonder how that's going to influence his character now. But anyway, I was just amused to see your blog post about this show since it sounds like we're watching it at about the same pace. :)

Anonymous said...

I liked some of the older-original Stargate series. The ones with Amanda Tapping, and the Daniel that was good & well know (don't remember his real name, but it was when he stayed back and married the girl...etc)...the the guy from McGiver too (at least I think that's where he was from).