Sanctuary is a show that borrows from The X-Files, CSI, Firefly, and many other superior shows with strong fan followings. There is a lot for science-fiction fans to love about the premise of Sanctuary from the dark gothic cathedral setting to re-imaginings of classic mythical creatures and overarching themes of misunderstood outsiders finding a home. I wanted to like Sanctuary, but I feel that the show’s writers and producers do not understand what works and does not work on their own show.
For those unfamiliar with the show, Sanctuary is about a world-wide network that provides a safe home for monsters, mythical creatures, and other “abnormals.” The Sanctuary Network is headed up by Dr. Helen Magnus, a brilliant scientist who injected herself with untainted vampire blood years ago and ages at a very slow rate. Aided by a band of scientists, former criminals, and abnormals, Helen Magnus tracks abnormal activity around the world and works to protect human and abnormal life forms.
Sanctuary is a low-budget production which relies heavily on CGI to create the world of the show. To a certain extent, I understand their limitations as far as visuals go, but what I don’t understand is why the writers produce scripts that demand more special effects. When a show does not have the resources to create realistic monsters, the writers usually compensate with humor, compelling storylines, strong dialogue, and more character development as seen with shows such as Firefly and Doctor Who. As I finished up season two, I wondered how much time the writers spent on their core characters and how much time they spent designing the next monster-of-the-week.
At the beginning of season two, the writers kill off Helen Magnus’ daughter Ashley. The fans were severely divided on Ashley with opinions ranging from tolerance to down-right hatred and annoyance. Instead of working on making Ashley more likeable, the writers replaced her with Kate, a wholly unnecessary character who is almost universally hated by the fans. As someone outside of the fan community, I have to agree that Kate is poorly written, and Agam Darshi’s pouting expressions and smug overacting makes her character even more unbearable.
Character problems do not begin and end with Ashley and Kate. Christopher Heyerdahl is an actor with wonderfully expressive face, and he shines as John Druitt, the man better known as Jack the Ripper. His on-going love story with Helen Magnus makes both Druitt and Magnus more complicated and interesting. Heyerdahl also plays the character Bigfoot, Helen Magnus’ assistant, and his face is covered in a laughably bad Bigfoot mask. Somehow, the show’s writers thought that Heyerdahl was better used from week to week as Bigfoot, a character whose dialogue consists of, “Grunt, grunt, over here, sniff, sniff,” instead of as John Druitt, a dark soul who has an uncontrollable desire to kill. This is a sure sign of writers who don’t know a good thing when it is staring them in the face and snapping the neck of yet another hooker.
My biggest complaint with the writing on Sanctuary can be summed up in two words: “Next Tuesday.” This was one of the worst episodes of the season in my opinion from the clichéd “We-have-difficult-lives-and-can’t-afford-to-get-too-close-to-people” conversation to the utterly ridiculous fight to the death between a vampire squid (not nearly as cool as it sounds) and a Southern Hemispheric sea scorpion. Under the special features, there was a featurette about filming the episode. I thought that if I watched the featurette, I might gain some insight into the writers’ intentions for the episode, but I was greatly disappointed. Instead, I found out just how little thought they put into story structure. At one point, one of the writers said, “We wrote up on a board all the different things that could happen. ‘Helicopter falls into the water,’ ‘Scorpion attacks squid,’ ‘Squid attacks Will,’ and then we found a way to string them all together.” Do the writers take pride in their creative process? Do they realize that instead of writing the plotline to fit the characters, they are writing the actions and then trying to fit the characters irregardless of how they behaved in previous episodes? The writers of Sanctuary need to take a hard look at where their priorities are when they write an episode, and they should put aside cheap thrills and focus their attentions on giving their stories substance.
On a final note, I have heard that Sanctuary will be picked up for a third season. If this is true, I would like to give the show’s writers and stars a last piece of advice. After seeing the season two finale, I can tell you without a doubt in my mind that no character on Sanctuary should ever do a Bollywood-style dance number ever again. I can’t really figure out what the writers were thinking, but I guess that is a sentiment that sums up my feelings on most of season two of Sanctuary.
"Sanctuary: The Complete Second Season" is on sale June 15, 2010 and is not rated. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, Television. Directed by Brenton Spencer, Martin Wood, Peter DeLuise, Steven A Adelson. Written by Alan McCullough, Damian Kindler, James Thorpe, Sara B. Cooper. Starring Agam Darshi, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Heyerdahl, Emilie Ullerup, Robin Dunne, Ryan Robbins.
