Sanctuary, Season 3 (2010)

Season three of Sanctuary opens with the team facing a potential disaster that could cost millions of lives; a crisis that opens rifts in the organisation and also reveals that there are other, previously unknown, threats lurking in the shadows.  Finding those threats will require exploring parts of the world previously hidden from humans, and facing monsters and dangers right out of myth.

It all sounds very exciting, right?  Unfortunately, it is more compelling in the summary than in the actual execution.  At twenty episodes in length, this season of the show is by far its longest, and the momentum rather sags under the weight.  I think there are two main reasons for this.  First because the main villain of the season is occluded for a long time and frankly not that interesting when they are finally revealed.  Second, it rolls out a mid-season cliff-hanger that is so eye-rollingly overwrought and so lazily resolved that I spent most of the subsequent episode more invested in snarking at the TV than in paying attention to what was happening.

The longer season also has some production impacts, with numerous episodes focusing on only a subset of the cast rather than really featuring them all.  This mostly has the effect of creating a clear "A team"/"B team" division, where it becomes more and more apparent that the writers actually have stuff for Helen and Will to do (though in Will's case it's mostly "be someone Helen can explain things to) but don't have much in mind for Kate and Henry beyond a single feature episode for each.

Ten years ago, when it came out, Sanctuary was an adequate if unexceptional light SF show.  TV has moved on in ways that it, being a product of its time, cannot.  In this day and age, there are dozens of SF shows more deserving of your time and attention.