Sanctuary 1x01 : Sanctuary for All
Finally getting around to working on my reviews for Season 1 with a little help from my new community sanctuary_cafe.
SPOILERS for "Sanctuary for All" and Season 3
Since this is the first episode, I guess I will give a little background of how I came to watch this show: I remember that my brother used to watch the show, and he tried to get me into it as well, but at that time it didn't interest me (mostly because my brother watched really weird things on the SyFy channel and I thought this was just another one of those shows). Also, this show is almost entirely done on green screen, which in my mind meant that it was going to look very cheap, and I have a hard time getting past bad graphics. So, I put off watching it.
However, quite a while after all of that, I got really bored one day and decided to get on Netflix and see what new shows they were recommending to me. Ironically, this show popped right up!! When I realized that Amanda Tapping was in it, I thought I should give it a try, though being a huge Stargate fan, I wondered if Amanda Tapping could be anyone other than Samantha Carter. I don't know why I doubted her acting ability! Right now I am in the process of rewatching Stargate SG-1 and am still amazed at Amanda's ability to separate herself from the character of Carter, whom she played for so long and create another strong female lead. Although I am sure that the hair color change and the accent helped, I see Helen Magnus as completely different actress. At the time, even though I watched Stargate SG-1 and Star Wars, I wouldn't have said that I was a Sci-Fi fan, so I stayed away from shows that my brother suggested. But, as Amanda has said many times, this show is different and it changed my mind about the genre.
I give this double episode an 8.5 rating. The first episode was slightly slow in development, but it was certainly interesting enough to catch my attention. The second part was an incredible introduction to Jack the Ripper (even though I didn’t know that was who he was at first - I didn’t watch the Webisodes). These two episodes had me asking so many questions that I couldn’t help but keep watching! And I think that this is what Amanda was talking about in the quote in this quote. “I don’t wanna to be spoonfed the answers! I don’t want somebody … going ‘Here, this is what we mean by that!’ I wanna wonder, I wanna ask some weird questions and not get answers, and go ‘I guess I’ll have to watch next week’s and find out what the hell they were talking about.’” I love that we didn’t get all the information right away, and that even once we learned that Helen was 157 years old we still didn’t really know what was going on. This may frustrate people, but it just makes me happy.
I have never really been a fan of shows/movies that have a lot of special effects (at least that is what I say, but when I really think about it there are a lot more than I originally thought). Mostly because they stand out too much and are distracting. The fact that this show relies so much on green screen hasn't bothered me yet!! Believe me, I’m shocked at how much I DON'T notice it. Of course, it stands out once in a while, but the storylines and characters are so well created, that it doesn't matter.
Since these episodes are very much an introduction to the characters and what they do, I thought I would gear this review toward them. To help myself look at this episode from the view point of seeing it for the first time, I got a friend (who has never seen the show before) to do the rewatch with me. It worked like a charm!
Helen Magnus
Dr. Helen Magnus, M.D. D.T.C.X.B. (Doctor of Teratology, Cryptozoology, and Xenogenic Biology)
It is crazy to look back at this episode and think of everything we have learned about Helen Magnus, yet still how much we don't know. We have a very interesting introduction to Helen Magnus. I was little confused by her at first. Her run-in with Will in the alley had me laughing and scratching my head at the same time. It would have been one thing if she didn’t know who he was, but she had been keeping an eye on him since he was eight years old. Everytime I think about it, I get stuck on it. So anyone who has any insight into this, I would love to hear it. Right away I loved her. She is bold and confident yet scared and loving. The time has come for her to recruit Will to the Sanctuary Team and she is very bold in her approach.
Will: “What do you want?” / Helen: “You.”
Will: "Wait … You ran me over." / Helen: "You got in the way."
Also, she is confident in his curiosity. When he leaves her at the hospital, there is a knowing look on her face that says, “He’ll be back.” This is whom we are introduced to her as. She is an intelligent, educated woman, who does what she has to do to get the job done. So, when we start to see that wall penetrated by the news that a working woman was stabbed to death in an alley, we start to see this other side of her. I love that her reaction is a slow progression, from when Henry tells her the news, to when she watches the video, up to when she asks Ashley to remain home for the night due to some “fluctuations in the EM shield.” This all builds to the moment when Ashley tells her that they brought in “some superfast psychopathic dude” who had “pretty hot moves for a tall guy” and “had a great accent.” We have seen from the tour that Will was given, that Helen deals with scary abnormals all the time, so when she starts freaking out about this guy, we know that this is not going to end well. Of course, we should have picked up on that already, but you get what I am saying. On top of that, Ashley is obviously concerned and wondering why her mother is acting this way.
"Let's just say I'm someone who's chosen to embrace the full spectrum of our reality.
There are things in this city - in this world - that no one wants to admit are real."
Then we have my favorite part in this episode. When I found out that Ashley was her daughter, it added a whole other level to the character. It is the part of her that we can relate to. We aren’t 157 years old, we don’t hunt abnormals, but we do know what it is like to be/have a mother. Once we find out that she had the embryo frozen “until [she] could bare the loneliness no longer” it makes her character more real to us and we now have a connection with her. We care about her. There is so much about her character that we don’t know, but we know that she cares about her family and those she brings into her team.
John Druitt
When John went to teleport into the Sanctuary was promptly kicked out, the look on his face was priceless. Of course, it is funnier after the fact, when you know that he knew she had it in place for him. Probably the scariest I have see him. We are shown why Helen was so freaked out when she found out that he was in the Sanctuary. When we are first introduced to him in the alley and we see him pull out the locket with a picture of a much different Helen, the fact that there was a relationship there at one point is obvious. Because of the look on his face showed such emotion, I knew that the locket belonged to him. This instantly piqued my interest. He didn’t know where the Sanctuary was, so this was the first time that he had been there. So it would be interesting to know how long she had been at the Old City Sanctuary. I don’t think I really thought of this before. In “Haunted”, Big Guy said he moved into the Sanctuary in 1951, so Helen has been there for longer. Even with what we know from Season 3, we don’t know the last time Helen and John saw each other. The most recent flashback that we have is from 1910 and that is still 100 years ago. Something else has of happened in the last say 60 years to have caused her reaction to his presence at the Sanctuary.
"You have no idea what it's been like... alone, wandering this godforsaken world,
wanting only peace. A fragment of what we had. What I lost."
John really became irate after Helen told him that Ashley thought her father was dead. So, not only has he lost Helen, he has lost his daughter. That realization only adds to the pain.
Helen and John
Since I am a huge H/J shipper, I can’t help but talk about the introduction to their relationship. Like I said before, it didn’t take much for me to be drawn into this relationship. The fact that we see John’s emotional attachment to Helen and then see him, without hesitation, kill that working girl makes for a very interesting storyline. When we find out that Ashley is John’s daughter, the depth of their relationship is seen all over Helen’s face. There is of course fear for her daughter’s life, but there is also pain. Pain that comes from being reminded yet again that you have lost someone who was so dear to you. I love how much their relationship has changed. In “Sanctuary For All” it is all hatred and fear. Yes, there is the pain, but that is trumped by the other two. Then at the end “The Five”, we can see that she is very shocked that he showed up to save her and instantly pulls away as soon as they arrive. Of course, in “Revelations” she is suspicious of him but lets him in. After the events of “Haunted” through “Eulogy” I think they begin to feel more comfortable with each other, and we know what happens in Season 3. It is great to see how far they have come. Can they ever be as happy as they were before Jack the Ripper.
Will Zimmerman
Seriously!? That was the first thought I had about Will. When he asked the waitress if it was the chef’s night off, because he noticed that the drizzle was ccw rather than cw. I had to laugh! I am totally like that sometimes. I didn’t dislike his character, but I wasn’t instantly drawn to him either. I kind of felt bad for him and sympathized with him. It must be hard going through life not being taken seriously. He is so smart and yet has gained no one’s respect. And when even your girlfriend thinks that “you invite the ridicule” it can’t be good for your self-confidence. I understand why Will doesn’t want to take Helen’s offer. First of all, he thinks she is talking crazy. At least that is what he thinks. But, there is also the fact that despite how much he wants to be taken seriously, it is not something he is familiar with. He seems to have become comfortable in his box, and having someone who doesn’t even know him (from what he knows so far) have that much faith in his abilities can be scary. But after he has been given a little time, and is reminded of how much his life is lacking, the whole idea becomes a possibility.
"If you're lookin' for resumes, why don't you try monster.com … I already have a job."
"What did you do, Google me?"
I am a huge Stargate SG-1 fan and I am currently rewatching it, so I can't help but make comparisons between these two shows. Helen is kind of like the Catherine Langford character who took Daniel Jackson from a place where he wasn't understood and brought him to a place where his unique talents were appreciated and needed. Of course, Will Zimmerman is like the Daniel Jackson character. Again, watching this episode and knowing how much their friendship deepens, makes me smile. He thinks she is crazy! His character is a great match for Magnus. He is confident in his skills, but hasn't had anyone who believed in him. I think he is a little overwhelmed with everything that Magnus has shown him, as well as her confidence in him. I love how she wanted to put him right to work! Also, I had forgotten all about Meg! (Just finished watching "Persons Unknown")
Kavanagh: "Guy's a forensic shrink, thinks he's Sherlock Holmes."
Ashley Magnus
When I think of Ashley, I think “bad ass on a motorcycle.” That’s it. I always thought she was kind of a shallow character. I think her main purpose is to help introduce us to what it is that they do and to help us see Helen as a real character. Also, she serves as a good connection between Helen and Druitt. Even Kate has a better storyline than Ashley, though it wasn’t really until “Bank Job” that I really liked Kate. She does have a few great lines in this episode though. I am pretty sure I read somewhere that someone thought that Ashley acted a little too casual as she and Henry were bringing John in. But, she has been brought up at the Sanctuary. John was just another abnormal. And yes, sometimes you forget that the things that you do every day are dangerous, because you are just so used to being around them. So, perhaps she should have been more careful, but that again is part of her character. Just like she didn’t heed her mother’s order to stay at home; she thinks she is bad-ass and will be fine. But, to her credit, she did realize that Druitt was dangerous, and therefore had him put in the SHU.
"Hate to bleed and run, but I gotta be on the eastside in twenty."
"Okay, Facebook it is."