But enough, already, of the green-screen fetish – muppets are innately more satisfying enemies for Ashley to kick around than the pixels that populate the series thus far, and there's no need to draw in unconvincing backgrounds when a few well-placed matte paintings will suffice. The olde world English accents are misguided and obnoxious; the characters desperately need to develop beyond the cut-out archetypes these webisodes present; and not everyone has to be clad head-to-toe in leather and PVC as a rule. This is not Underworld. Neither, without Beckinsale to ogle, is the second sequel to that film – but that’s another article entirely.
The producers haven't released numbers yet, and considering how late in the game it is, one can only assume that they weren’t great – otherwise, horns would surely have been trumpeted loud and clear. Sanctuary is, however, among the best of the flurry of direct-to-Internet dramas thus far; relatively speaking, it's the high water mark to which other such enterprises must aspire. Considering the underwhelming calibre of most such series, to say as much might well be to damn Sanctuary with faint praise, but it's true; on network television, Sanctuary would just be another genre show with a small, albeit vocal following. At the outmost it'd run for a season and the cult that it had spawned in that short while would be doomed to repeat ad infinitum the petitions and outcries that met the cancellations of The Dresden Files, Invasion, The 4400, Jericho, Farscape and so on. Which begs the question: can the Sci-Fi Channel season order be anything but detrimental to this series? Is the silver screen really a better fit for Sanctuary than the Internet, where it can at least stand out from the rest of the drek?
The hour-long format will certainly allow the series' characters and narrative to spread their wings somewhat. Druitt the Ripper seems an inevitable choice for the Big Bad of the first – and hopefully not the last – season. Perhaps, with a little room to breath, he can develop a few subtleties worth exploring; considering their family ties, Druitt’s terrorism of Emille Ullerup's ample buxom in the third webisode proved rather unsettling, but even that moment seemed like self-indulgent slash fan-fic.
Tapping's role, while she certainly looks to be enjoying it, needs to be less exposition-machine and more depth – the glimpses of her youth thus far have been promising, and her motherly side is begging to be tilled. Ashley, meanwhile, would benefit from some clothes. As is, she's a neo-Victorian Dark Angel in desperate need of some development beyond that already-tired character mold, or else Ullerup should resign herself to being the series' paper-thin attempt at sex appeal.
Article comments
1 - MIke
Sanctuary is an awesome TV show. I loved Outer limits and X-Files. Now i got what i looked for.