Hello again, team! Well, good job catching more Abnormals for the centre this week- Will managed to nab a vampire; unfortunately its one of the TWILIGHT type, so we haven’t actually been able to get through the mob of screaming tweenage girls to do any research on him yet; Ashley claims to have caught an Invisible man, but I’m not so sure- the X-rays keep coming out blank and Henry brought us a lobster that was blue instead of red (someone needs to sit Henry down and explain the difference between ‘Abnormal’ and ‘kind of a bit odd’). It’s time to all get out our dissecting kits and have a look at the paranormal programming of our latest unnatural acquisition, SANCTUARY (Thursdays, Foxtel Sci-Fi Channel, 5:30pm).
SANCTUARY is a sci-fi/horror program from Canada about the titular shadowy government team, assigned to investigate strange creatures chomping down on the general populace- it’s like THE X Files, only colder and with more moose (plus there are Mounties running around instead of Fibbies). The ‘Sanctuary’ takes in ‘Abnormals’ (supernatural creatures, not Hollywood actresses who’ve chosen to age without Botox) to protect them from superstitious and bigoted humans who might otherwise form a flaming-torch wielding mob and drive the poor creatures over the nearest cliff just for mauling the odd girl-scout troop.
Sanctuary’s senior researcher (in more ways than one) is Dr. Helen Magnus (played by Amanda Tapping STARGATE SG-1), a British scientist who believes that everyone is entitled to freedom from persecution, no matter how many snakes they have in their hair or gill-slits they have in their neck. Magnus has a somewhat personal interest in the Abnormals, as she is 158-years old (even more in dog years) thanks to an experiment involving vampiric blood, and her cohorts, Dr. John (SHERLOCK HOLMES) Watson and Dr. Nikolai (grandfather of electricity) Tesla, into a steam-punk cyborg and a lightning-bolt throwing maniac, respectively. Oops!
Despite Watson and Tesla dropping in occasionally to accidentally flush a cannibalistic form of mermaid into the city sewer system or mistakenly set loose a cryogenically preserved Jack the Ripper (happens all the time at the CSIRO), Dr. Magnus continues to thumb her nose at the notion of a reasonable retirement age. Assistant lab monkeys include:
• Dr Will Zimmerman: the most human of the Sanctuary researchers Zimmerman is a Forensic scientist who totally cheats at Forensics, as he is an empath- he can sense and influence strong emotional states in people just by touching them. Indeed, as played by Canadian hottie Robin Dunne, Zimmerman exerts an empathetic tug on me; every time he does a shirtless scene, he makes me want to crawl through my television and snog him.
• Ashley Magnus (Emilie Ullerup) is Dr. Helen’s daughter, a haematologist (blood researcher) who again has something of a vested interest in her research field as she is also part-vampire. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
• Henry Foss (Ryan Robbins) is the Sanctuary’s security man; he’s responsible for locking the centre down during the unlikely event of one or more creatures escaping (current tally: at least once per episode). Once a month, he also has to lock *himself* down, as Robbins had a one night stand (possibly with a guy) that left him with one heck of a case of stubble burn- he’s a werewolf.
• John Druitt (played by TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON’s Christopher Heyerdahl again- wow, this guy gets around!) is a former lover of Dr. Magnus’ from the 19th Century, whom she dumped when he got her involved in the blood experiment that made her qualify for a senior’s discount six times over and then had the effrontery to cheat on her when she started displaying her immortality. He also turned out to be Jack the Ripper, but y’know, the cheating thing was the main deal-breaker. He pops up every few episodes to put a spanner in the works, as well as a scalpel in the guts of anyone who tries to stop him.
Each week sees the Sanctuary team investigating reports of strange creatures- an owl-man there, a mermaid here, a chupacabra over there- and offering to give the creature a place to live free from persecution if they agree to a series of tests and to eat the occasional salad instead of a pedestrian. Their efforts are undermined by a sinister cabal (well, run by Jack the Ripper it’s hardly going to be a laugh-a-minute cabal, is it?) which is determined to use Dr. Magnus’ research and the supernatural creatures she studies to gain occult power on the world stage, and to tell as many people as possible how old she is, just to piss her off.
File your fangs down and sink your teeth into it!
Gavin Pitts
