Season one of Sanctuary ended with one of their team kidnapped and brainwashed by the nefarious Cabal, who were on the verge of launching an all-out assault on the Sanctuary network. Dr Helen Magnus and her remaining team aren't going down without a fight, though.
You might think that's the sort of set-up that could easily take up most or all of the second season's 13 episodes, but it's actually resolved in pretty short order, with the team soon back to their previous "weird thing of the week" missions until a double-parter at the end of the season sets up next year's cliffhanger.
The above provides a pretty good summary of why Sanctuary doesn't work as well as it, to my mind. It's a little too comfortable being comfortable but ultimately disposable episodic SF. Yes, individual characters have some developments, but they don't really have arcs because arcs require longer term planning than the show seems interested in.
Genre TV was in a very different place in 2009 than it is now, and back then this aura of being "okay if unambitious" wasn't really a big problem for the show. But a lot has changed the past decade, and I'm afraid Sanctuary has been left behind by a new generation of shows that - even if they stumble from time to time - have the attraction of being ambitious. Or are just plain more fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment