Sanctuary

Have to say I was excit d to see Amanda Tapping after Stargate ended. This series grew on me over time and and like many other sci-fi that gets cancelled was sad to see it go. I was introduced to Actor Ian Tracey in this series and he does an amazing and very memorable job in the role of Adam Worth.

Interesting way to release this new series - webisodes every couple of weeks that are about 15 minutes long. Put them all together and you potentially have a pilot of just over two hours.

For Amanda Tapping, this is a good move - she's not Sam Carter anymore, playing the enigmatic and potentially very sexy Helen Magnus, aided by her slightly stereotypical teen-angst-ed daughter Ashley, some gentle-monster beast and a newly inducted fish out of water type, Will.

The concept is nice, 'Sanctuary for all' - being 'all' are non-humans, (but it does come across that they're all sort of imprisoned anyway). There's a sort of 'Gothic Buffy' feel about the scenario and the circumstances, but minus the classic Whedon Buffy humour.

The production values aren't superior and it's obviously CGI, there are some sub-par blue/green screens going on in places...but you can forgive this for a decent enough premise and storyline. Knowing that this hasn't been funded by a studio and Tapping herself is an executive producer, one should actually give the production some credit.

Tapping is fairly good in this role - we see her move out of the clever and cute Samantha Carter and flex her acting muscles somewhat in the portrayal of an 18th century English woman. Her accent isn't flawless, but you can forgive this - I'm sure it would be explained away that Magnus has been living in the USA for some time. There is no explanation as to why she's in the USA - or if she even is in the USA - the location is not revealed, but one assumes it's in North America.

Other actors put in decent enough performances, but there's nothing outstanding. Character wise the weak link here is the character of Ashley. Far too stereotypical, hard and cold. One supposes that she is in some way meant to contrast her mother, but we've seen characters like this far too many times before...she needs some depth.

This will be compared to Buffy - the characters aren't immediately associated with the former series - but it's there in the design of the monsters - the characters are also somewhat similar - the blonde fighting machine(Ashley/Buffy), the clever researcher (Magnus/Will/Giles) and monsters that work for the 'good guys'.

This 'pilot' doesn't go that far and we need a whole season of this to make a judgement call really. Based on this pilot though, I am intrigued and would like to see more.

I cannot seem to figure out what this show is missing. It has a great cast, Amanda Tapping at her best. The premise of the show....excellent, offer sanctuary to those that might be "different" than the "normal" humans. the storyline is great....

Now, the show just seems to be missing something. Maybe, as another reviewer put it, the show needs to pick up the pace a bit. It is certainly thought provoking. I cannot say the show is bad, nor can I say that it is great. I'll close by saying that it is certainly worth a watch, probably need to view a few episodes before making any kind of decision either way.

I just can't get into it for some unknown reason.

What else can a Sci Fi fan ask for? This show has the potential to be one of the best original shows on SciFi channel. I can't wait for the new episodes to start.

I especially enjoy the acting. Amanda Tapping, Christopher Heyerdahl, and Robin Dunne give great performances. I wouldn't be surprised if they were nominated for several acting awards.

Some of the episodes standout more than the others. "Edward", "The Five", "Requiem", and "Revelations" are episodes that capture the soul of the series. The stories are compelling. Besides being well planned and acted, these episodes give important background and pushed the story arch further.

This is a review of the first season on TV, which should really be known as season 1 on IMDb, and the webisodes season 0.

Essentially there are three main characters, all of which believable, even Tapping's accent, and I'm saying that as a Brit. She's great as Magnus, not overdone, but sensitive, slightly badass and played right. She has a daughter, Ashley. She's instantly likable and Emelie Ullerup doesn't fall into the trap of making her the typical blond 'Yeah, uhuh I like totally, like, kick- ass. Isn't that cool!' character. Instead she's much better and thankfully without a teenage crisis. I'll get onto Robin Dunne's excellent Will in a sec.

Sanctuary is more than just the sum of its parts. It has a great grittiness to it, a real world, almost familiar environment. It's slightly dark, but optimistic at the same part. 30 minutes into the pilot and I really liked it. Will was believable, I even liked and sympathised with him. the way it was done felt like a feature, not really like an hour long weekly show. The whole actual Sanctuary concept wasn't done too fantastically. However I felt it wasn't perfect but it's taken me 2 more episodes to think that actually it's worth continuing to watch.

For Brits, its on ITV 4, mondays at 9. Or 8. Pretty sure it's 9, but check. if you don't have ITV 4, it's on their catch up thing on the site. For Americans it's on Hulu and Sci Fi's Rewind.

Have fun getting into it, looking forward to see where it goes.