In the US: Fridays, 10/9c, SciFi; 7p, Movie Central; 8e, The Movie Network
In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, ITV4
There are two big trends in TV and film production at the moment. Okay, there are lots of trends, but here are two big ones.
The first is green screen, in which rather than building great big sets, you stick the actors up against a green screen and use special effects to add a computer-generated set in later. George Lucas pioneered it on Phantom Menace, but it’s only proved its truth worth recently on films like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and 300, in which pretty much everything other than the actors was computer-generated.
The second is the Internet. You might have heard of it. Now, all sorts of shows that don’t manage to get a look-in on the mainstream networks can be shot cheaply, uploaded to YouTube or a dedicated web site, and suddenly everyone’s watching it and one of the big networks picks it up. Quarterlife and The Peter Serafinowicz Show both managed it, but many argued they should have stayed on the Internet.
Sanctuary is a shiny new show, airing almost simultaneously on the US’s SciFi, Movie Central and The Movie Network channels and ITV4 in the UK, that combines both these trends. Not only is there a massive amount of green screen work, but it started off on the web before being spotted by SciFi. Starring and produced by Amanda Tapping of Stargate SG-1, it’s a bit of a dark piece in which faux-Brit Tapping, her faux-American kick ass daughter and a faux-bright criminal profiler join together to investigate odd beasties that they then take to their ‘Sanctuary’.
But despite all these shiny trends, is it a show that’s good in its own right, or simply "not bad for the Internet"?
Continue reading “Review: Sanctuary 1×1”
