Mini-review of Sanctuary (no spoilers)
Oct. 3rd, 2008 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rockwoodWell, the first episode of Sanctuary has failed to dazzle me, but has some promise. The basically interesting premise seems to suffer from an attempt to include too much.
My overall impression, as drawn from non-spoilery parts, is that they spent the first episode (a 2-hour special) trying to:
1) Sever Amanda Tapping's ties to Stargate and Samantha Carter by changing her hair and eye coloring to the point where it looks artificial.
2) Set up the audience to see her character's organization as a cross between Special Unit 2, the MiBs and the group from the Hellboy series.
3) Establish the 'relatively normal' main character as a cross between Adrian Monk from Monk and Shawn Spencer from Psych.
It just feels, on my first viewing, like they took a bunch of ideas, crammed them together, and didn't spend a lot of time smoothing over the rough spots. However, I'll have to watch it again before I pass final judgement on whether or not I actually liked it. The level of camp may simply be too much, but I want to believe that SciFi can have a good fantasy series for once, and I may be willing to wait for improvement in the near future.
In terms of writing...well, there was a lot of overdone exposition, but that's not a surprise in a first episode. As far as the graphics go, I'd say they vary across the spectrum of modern TV special effects from so-so to pretty good. I think I caught a few that broke from realistic motion, but that could just be that I was watching from a bad angle.
Blessed be,
~Nathan
My overall impression, as drawn from non-spoilery parts, is that they spent the first episode (a 2-hour special) trying to:
1) Sever Amanda Tapping's ties to Stargate and Samantha Carter by changing her hair and eye coloring to the point where it looks artificial.
2) Set up the audience to see her character's organization as a cross between Special Unit 2, the MiBs and the group from the Hellboy series.
3) Establish the 'relatively normal' main character as a cross between Adrian Monk from Monk and Shawn Spencer from Psych.
It just feels, on my first viewing, like they took a bunch of ideas, crammed them together, and didn't spend a lot of time smoothing over the rough spots. However, I'll have to watch it again before I pass final judgement on whether or not I actually liked it. The level of camp may simply be too much, but I want to believe that SciFi can have a good fantasy series for once, and I may be willing to wait for improvement in the near future.
In terms of writing...well, there was a lot of overdone exposition, but that's not a surprise in a first episode. As far as the graphics go, I'd say they vary across the spectrum of modern TV special effects from so-so to pretty good. I think I caught a few that broke from realistic motion, but that could just be that I was watching from a bad angle.
Blessed be,
~Nathan
