TV Verdict

Sanctuary has taken the production style of films such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City to a weekly series. The idea of shooting a project completely in front of green screen seems more perfect for TV, especially for lower budget TV, than for film. With this technology, a story can go virtually anywhere without all of the ins and outs of traveling to these locations or places that resemble the locations. Now, with that said, it does take a lot of work to make these flat screens look like real locations. Sanctuary is fairly successful but honestly, in this episode in particular, there are times that show looks a little flat.

The Season Two premiere picks up right where the first left off: an evil group known as the Cabal are working on a sinister project that involves the use of the original blood that changed Helena into what she is today. Helen is chasing the Cabal in hopes of rescuing her daughter but Ashley has been turned and is now working for the Cabal. She steals data on six orphans that Mi6 had been experimented to in hopes of creating the perfect human. The Cabal gets five of the orphans and Helen rescues one.  When Helen finally meets Ashley, she learns that Ashley has been changed with the “source blood” and she now has a bevy of super abilities. It quickly becomes apparent that Ashley intends to kill Helen and the rest of the team so John teleports them all away. The Cabal’s ultimate plan gets revealed in the cliffhanger ending when the other five orphans now being copies of Ashley are sent to destroy the Sanctuary.

As always, a lot of what makes this show so watchable sits on the shoulders of Amanda Tapping and as usual, she carries it just fine. She is the charisma of the Sanctuary team along with Emilie Ullerup who plays Ashley. Unfortunately, Emily doesn’t get much to do this week due to being turned into a super powered zombie for the Cabal. The episode also feels a bit to connect the dots. There’s a lot of information to be covered in this episode so much of the character development is left out this week. There’s a little attention given to a side story with the “Big Foot” character but overall the episode just jumps around too much in order to hit the important beats for the story.

This isn’t the best episode of Sanctuary but this is a story that needs to be wrapped up. Once the show is beyond this story, things should get interesting. Also, I have to mention that the 24 style assembly with the picture in picture transitions seem a little forced and very unnecessary.