Sanctuary Series 2

Beyond Home Entertainment

R4 and Blu Ray

Following the success of Series 1, the second series is now available. Series 1 introduced the Sanctuary network, an organization devoted to rescuing creatures that in the human world are regarded as monsters. The dangerous ones are quarantined, the harmless ones are given a safe place in the Sanctuary. Many of its residents are traditional monsters – werewolves, vampires, even mermaids – but many have other abilities such as teleportation and telekinesis. These abilities are worth money to anyone who can recover an “abnormal” as they are called and reengineer the genes that give them their unique qualities. At the end of Series 1 one such organization, the Cabal, was making a raid on the Sanctuaries with the aim of using the abnormals’ abilities for world conquest.

Series 2 takes up from there. The entire Sanctuary organization is under attack by the Cabal who have the help of a small group of genetically enhanced superhumans. They have obtained their genetic material from Ashley, the head of Sanctuary’s daughter. In further episodes the organization comes under attack from others as the powers of the abnormals become wider known and more valuable. Some attacks come from within Sanctuary, a problem that the head, Dr Helen Magnus is only partly prepared to deal with.

With Sanctuary besieged on all sides there is still time for some episodes to show their basic work, the recovery of the abnormals, and the associated problems. Some of the characters were left only lightly developed in Series 1 and these are now fleshed out more. There is no danger of the series becoming an SF soap opera, however, with dangerous abnormals appearing in most episodes. There is still room in each episode for small flashes of humour. We meet some new characters during the series as well. Not all necessarily share the Sanctuary ideal.

If anything the CGI, a major part of the series, is better than before. Some 13,000 CG shots were used in this series and they have done them so well it is hard to separate reality from CG. A useful Extras section shows how the shots are done and skilfully integrated. It is hard to see how such a series could be made any other way. Live action and sets would be just too expensive.

The worst part is now I have to wait for Series 3.

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