Sanctuary 2×01

Sanctuary… this show has the potential to be campy fun, thanks to a couple of gleefully whacky ideas, but somehow, the creators also think their show needs a serious, dramatic side. No, no, no. The show’s other problem last season was its racism.  It’s sad to see that a show that does such a conscious effort to have Strong Female Characters doesn’t give a fuck about the other important kind of equality. Sadly, the amount of women notwithstanding, Sanctuary’s best characters are the guys, and those aren’t even entirely orginal characters, they are merely original takes on famous historical or fictional characters, most prominently Jack the Ripper and Nikola Tesla (who is here a narcissistic wannabe vampire overlord!). The season picks up a few months after the end of Season 1, and with the same problem they had back then: the Cabal has kidnapped Ashley, and turned her into their brainwashed puppet. Especially Helen is desperate to rescue her, and travels around the world together with ex-husband and ex-killer John aka Jack the Ripper. This only serves to give us a green screen Cairo with a worm eating heavily-accented monster Egyptian. Oh, sorry, “abnormal“, not monster. *rolls eyes*

Eventually, the Sanctuary team discover that the Company has stolen the files on an old British government project, where they experimented on orphans in order to produce… uh… flawless DNA. Pure DNA, free of any “abnormal” traits. Helen assures us she thinks such a probject is despicable, but I have to wonder about a show whose mythology works under the assumption that there is such a thing as “flawless” DNA. That there is an objective normalcy. Because the experiments did create six such orphans, and the Cabal is kidnapping them. In the end, it turns out that their plan was to overwrite their DNA data with Ashley’s to have not one, but several mindless superpowered killing machines. Because their… erh… flawless DNA somehow means they are also… blank slates… oh whut.

To Sanctuary’s credit, these six orphans include people of colour, I think three, so at least there is no toughtless implication that only white people are flawless, normal, whatever. Sadly, this also means that 3/4 of the show’s people of colour are impersonal killing machines. The Cabal also only got to kidnap five out the six. One was rescued in time by the Sanctuary. A white woman, of course, although her role has so far amounted to absolutely nothing. No idea where they brought her, hoe she is doing. Maybe they will talk to her next episode. Maybe not.

Actually, it cracks me up because they sent Jack the Ripper, of all people, to pick her up. And he walks up to her and she is all: “what are you doing in my horse stables wtf” and he just slowly says “Today is your lucky day…” See, this show can be hilarious.

The episode’s final scene has the Cabal’s leader, who in this season has a Cruella deVil-inspired madwoman haircut, order her blackclad six man kill squad to destroy the Sanctuary!!!! And this emotionless team of six, in complete unison, turn around. Towards a window. Erh. Why?

A lot of time is spent on how a deranged creepy scientist woman performs the brainwashing, personality-wiping procedure on poor Ashley. After a while, it got repetitive. And since Ashley was already brainwashed before these scenes, I never really felt much suspence.

In the end, the Sanctuary team can track down brainwashed eeeevil Ashley. You can tell because her eyes are now orange. Then she grows vampire fangs. I had plastic ones that looked better than that, when I was a kid. Sanctuary’s strength does not lie with the special effects. Sometimes, less is more.

When trying to rescue the orphans, the team also ran into a new character, Kate. Kate is a person of colour, and as such, morally inferiour to the white main characters. This is a Sanctuary rule. The show is yet to have a person of colour in a recurring role of any importance who is not a bad guy, or somehow shady, or needs to be put into his or her place.  Kate is a ruthless freelancer who cooperated with the Cabal. She is captured by the Sanctuary team, but tricks into resident werewolf nerd Henry with a rather transparent “oops-I-dropped-the-candybar-between-my-legs-and-my-hands-are-bound-what-will-you-dooooo?” tricks. I am sure even Henry saw that escape coming, but he fell for it anyway… There was a scene like that in Hunter X Hunter.

After her escape, Kate is screwed over by the Cabal, who try to assassinate her. You got to give it to them, they don’t fuss around. Injured, Kate makes her way to the Sanctuary, and will in all likeliness fill the spot of sassy kick-ass girl in the absence of Ashley – and Clara. She might be fun, the actress is likeable and, well, the show needs some diversity. If only she hadn’t been introduced as a villain, you know… but it’s better than being that unnamed African American guy, who died after two episodes.

Kate also seems to be set up as a love interest for Henry, not Will. That could be cute, or it could go nowhere, like the last time there was a hint at a love interest for Henry. Funnily, like Kate, that was with an Indian woman.

I’m surprised that Clara is not with the Sanctuary anymore – she is now at the London Sanctuary, but still officially dating Will. Why they constantly have to rotate these characters, I have no idea. Every third episode last season seemed to introduce a new girl for Will to flirt with. And he’s still boring as hell. They… never actually gave his character any form of development. In this episode, he was entirely pointless and unmemorable. I cannot even remember what he did, aside chatting with his girlfriend on the internet, while vampire Tesla was standing a few steps away, encouraging him to take a break and travel to London…

Tesla is, admidst this silliness, my POV character. I appreciate his attempts to talk Will into GOING AWAY, and I liked him calling him “Dr. Expendable”. Tesla is written as obnoxious, and that makes him much less obnoxious than, for example, Helen, who is written as super intelligent and cool and a Strong Female Character, and has a stupid smug British accent.

Tesla expositions that he has worked hard on a cure for the virus from last season finale, and has travelled the world to give it to all “abnormals”. That’s that storyline wrapped up then! He says only Bigfoot refuses to take his medicine, and he takes this personally. Will testily says something to the effect of: “It’s not all about you!” and indeed it isn’t. It’s about Bigfoot. Who is dying. Painfully. But Will doesn’t say that, and indeed, the only person aside Tesla for whom Bigfoot is of interest this episode is Henry. Of course, Henry and Bigfoot are BFFs, and I have the sneaking suspicion they’ll kill Bigfoot to use it as a character-development moment for Henry, who has been struggling to accept his werewolf nature.

Bigfoot’s reasoning for not taking the medicine is asinine and ridiculous and sounds like the writers were trying to come up with something. Basically, he says his people would disown him if he took a cure that was produced by humans. Firstly, it was not produced by humans, it was produced by a vampire. Secondly, according to Tesla, other “abnormals” had no issue taking the medcine. Thirdly, Bigfoot has been Helen’s servant for years, he is wearing human clothes and seldomly ever (or maybe never?) even leaves the Sanctuary building – wouldn’t that already count as a betrayal of his people? Why does he suddenly care? Whatever!

I was wondering if they’d kill off Bigfoot now that Jack the Ripper is around more. They are both played by Christopher Heyerdahl…

What annoys me most is that no one aside Henry really cares about Bigfoot. Meh. I care about Bigfoot. He and Vampire Tesla are my reason for watching. Plus, that elusive hope of Peter Wingfield and Jim Byrnes maybe sharing the screen in a flashback. I need my Joe/Methos reunion!