When Good Writing Goes Bad: Sanctuary

[If you haven’t seen seasons 1 & 2 of SANCTUARY, then this post will spoil like a mofo’.  Reader beware.]

Sanctuary was one of my favorite guilty pleasures on television.  Part X-Files, part monster hunters, the show follows a team that specializes in capturing and studying the monsters (known as Abnormals) hiding amongst humanity.   The show’s claim to fame is jumping from Internet only to television broadcasts and being filmed almost exclusively in front of a green screen. 

What drew me to the program was the cool concept and rich characters.  It could have gone the cheesy route relying solely on special effects to keep things interesting, but the plot was intriguing with its weaving of historical elements and strong dramatic moments.  Seriously, all I expected was watching monsters get tagged and bagged only to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of the storytelling.  Their pacing was good, revealing the world and its inhabitants carefully while building the metastory in the background. 

They had a fantastic bad guy in the form of a ruthless, shadow organization called the Cabal who were just as capable as the Sanctuary Network, but with three times the manpower.  By the time the first season had ended, the story had been brought to a roaring boil with betrayals, plot twists and one hell of a cliffhanger.  I was chomping at the bit to see season two which is exactly how fans of a good show should be. 

The second season started off with a bang.  We see Dr. Magnus frantically searching for her daughter while the Cabal transforms her into a mindless killing machine.  The Sanctuary team finally finds Ashley only to have their asses handed to them by her new, evil super powers.  Dr. Magnus is fantastically intense during the season opener, letting Amanda Tapping really shine though, honestly, she’s been good since day one. 

As awesome as the second season begins it also introduces one of its biggest flaws, Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi).  This poorly written character is acted with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.  Alternating between annoying and VERY annoying she feels ill conceived and executed when compared to the rest of the cast.  The writers also don’t give her much to work with besides tired, early 20′s, feisty chick clichés.

Then the second episode culminates with the death of Ashely.  Wow.  I was impressed the writers had the balls to do it yet surprised they pulled the trigger on only the second episode of the new season.  This leads into a "mourning" episode where the writing begins to get a little sloppy on the B story side (steeped in Freelander which always sucks).  The 4th episode feels like filler.  It’s far cry from the strong writing we’ve come to enjoy and the writers attempts at developing Freelander continue to fall flat.

Episode five saves itself with a cool "Days of Future Past" style plot letting the two best characters, Will and Magnus, rock the casbah.  In this season Henry finally has solid character development and Magnus gets to pull some seriously Machiavellian moves, but in general the show loses its focus with disjointed episodes that have little to tie them together, a luxury you can afford on a 20-26 episode show, but a mortal sin when only working with 13.

The final nail in the coffin was the season finale, a two part episode that  filled my bullshit quota over the limit.  With no big bad guy to leverage or overreaching story arc to wrap up, we’re left with a tale that has to rely on only two episodes of build up.  That pales in comparison to the tension gathered by the end of season one.  The setting of India I assume was supposed to be exotic, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was an excuse to flesh out Freelander a little more.  Lo and behold, the B story for this epic, earth shattering, season finale is… Freelander learning to be nice and accept more of her heritage.  I’m dead serious.  This is the best they could come up with.

To add insult to injury, there’s a TOTALLY POINTLESS Bollywood style dance number, led by Will himself, which defies logic or reason.  Its a poor showing overall.  Even Magnus gets out maneuvered by the new head of her New York Sanctuary. C’mon, she’s over a century old, pulled more complex plans than this and some punk wannabe pulls the rug out from under her?  It’s insulting to the character to say the least.

Instead of looking forward to the third season I’m feeling sorry for the show.  The momentum of the first season was completely lost, fans are upset over Ashley’s half-assed substitute Freelander and they jumped the shark hard with a musical number.  What could have been a new Sci-Fi favorite collapsed under the weight of its deteriorating stories.  No amount of special effects can cover up bad writing.

It’s a shame really.  I hold out hope they can salvage it in the new season perhaps with a stronger overall focus or at the minimum better storylines.  If not it will be thrown in the trunk with the other piss poor Sci-Fi shows and original films.

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