Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Sanctuary: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

The Perils of Helen Magnus.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 30, 2012

For those not up to speed on the labyrinthine world of Sanctuary, reviews of the previous three seasons can be found here:

Sanctuary: The Complete First Season Blu-ray review
Sanctuary: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray review
Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray review

The first time travel movie or television series I probably watched were old broadcasts of George Pal’s The Time Machine (a film whose “sixties” elements were already hilariously out of date by the time I saw them) or an afternoon rerun of that great old Twilight Zone episode where Gilligan’s Island’s Professor (Russell Johnson) journeys back to try to prevent the Lincoln assassination. (Interestingly, the first reboot of Twilight Zone featured a remarkably similar episode dealing with someone attempting—successfully, at least for a moment— to prevent the Kennedy assassination.) While The Time Machine was a bit like a temporal travelogue, more or less dropping in on various moments in time without really doing much other than observing, outings like that Twilight Zone episode or the late, great Irwin Allen one season wonder The Time Tunnel frequently worked in stories where time travelers actually tried to change something. Those early efforts rarely got into the “nuts and bolts” of time travel paradoxes or “changing the timeline” (though, again interestingly, the ramifications of having changed the timeline was part and parcel of that Kennedy assassination Twilight Zone episode), elements which have become increasingly utilized in time travel storytelling since at least the 1980s, in everything from the Back to the Future trilogy to Star Trek: The Next Generation. But there’s a point where emphasis on time travel paradoxes can tip the scale into whatever the time traveling version of jumping the shark is, and Sanctuary’s fourth season, which starts out with a convoluted time travel escapade, comes perilously close to that tendency. When it’s working on all cylinders, Sanctuary has delivered some sterling science fiction stories over the course of its previous three seasons, but the show has also had a proclivity toward filler material, as well as oddball tangents that repeatedly threaten the very existence of Helen Magnus and her “abnormal” protection squad, only to have things work themselves out at the last moment, with a collective “never mind” as about the only follow up.

You know you’re in for some head scratching when several different versions of various characters are traipsing around the same timeline and the only way the characters themselves can differentiate these various versions is to refer to them as “future Adam” or “past Adam”. Helen in fact has followed Adam back into 19th century London after Adam has wreaked all sorts of havoc attempting to save his daughter Imogen from an incurable blood disease. This has led to the devastation of Hollow Earth and Helen is wary that Adam’s continuing to alter the past will end up destroying the above ground world as well. Of course “modern Helen” starts interacting with the past as well, all the while trying to stay out of view from “past Helen”. And just as is too often the case with Sanctuary, this whole time travel escapade plays out in incredibly convoluted fashion, only to be “solved” before the final credits roll, and the series moves on as if nothing much has happened.

Sanctuary has seemed to be, well, a sanctuary for its core group of actors and creative staff, many of whom matriculated over to this series from Stargate and Stargate SG-1. Star Amanda Tapping has segued into both an Executive Producer as well as a director role on the series, and several of her acting cohorts helm various episodes throughout this season. The core group’s camaraderie is undeniable and the basic premise of the show still satisfies, although more in dribs and drabs this season than in the third season, which may in hindsight have been this show’s high water mark.

Too often the series goes out on hyperbolic limbs, just to have things resolve magically, and its attempts to take chances seem ill conceived and, worse, poorly executed. Probably the best example of this latter tendency is “Fugue”, a sort of mini-musical that finds Abby (Pascale Hutton) transmogrifying horribly after an encounter in an alley, with the result being that she can only communicate to the Sanctuary team through singing (and, likewise, they can only communicate with her by singing). What this boils down to is a whole episode full of risible dialogue that is sung, like some kind of, well, abnormal operatic recitative that has no musicality and at times even less sense. It’s as if someone said “let’s make a musical episode” without thinking it through until the Red cameras were already rolling, or whatever it is that digital cameras do.

Still the series manages to pull itself back from the brink, and it must be admitted that the two part finale is really rather touching and well done, with some smart, albeit overly philosophical, writing and an ending that can be seen as either the series’ fait accompli or a window offering a glimpse into future explorations. The best thing about the series is undeniably Tapping as Helen Magnus, a forthright, take no prisoners woman who nonetheless has her own vulnerabilities which the series has explored at some length over its four years. The supporting cast is also excellent, and each of them gets their little moments in the sun to shine throughout this season. Overall, though, the series has a little bit more of a flat aspect this year than last. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s starting to show its seams, and the clear indication of those seams is that this fabric, whether of space-time or mere weekly series writing, is beginning to fray.

Sanctuary: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sanctuary is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As has been discussed in reviews of the previous seasons of this series, Sanctuary is digitally shot utilizing the Red system, and a lot of the series has the sort of shallow, texture free ambience of high definition digital video, a look that some people absolutely love and others can't stand. The general image here is very sharp in sequences that don't depend on a lot of green screen compositing. Unfortunately a lot of this series utilizes both green screen and ubiquitous CGI and as with previous seasons a lot of those elements simply have a sort of soft quality to them (as well as bizarre anomalies like people seeming to be "walking in space" when they're obviously traversing a green screen territory that has had an environment added to it later). Generally speaking, considering the fact that the creative team churned out this season's episodes on a fairly tight timeline, and with a relatively constrained budget, things look rather nice, and I'd personally rate this season as at least a tick or two higher than previous seasons in general sharpness (unfortunately I'm only able to score in half point increments, and this minor uptick doesn't quite warrant a 4.5 score). Colors are often intentionally filtered and desaturated, and contrast is similarly tweaked repeatedly, but fine detail is quite pleasing throughout the season.

Sanctuary: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sanctuary boasts a very aggressive and nuanced lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that quite ingeniously works in not just basic sound effects, but 'bridging" sonic elements that surround the listener with various "whooshes" and "zings" as scenes segue into each other. Surround activity is remarkably consistent and varied throughout this season, not necessarily relegated to the many action sequences (though of course it's on full display in those segments). Fidelity is top notch and virtually every episode has at least one (usually several) bombastic moments of very impressive LFE. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented, and the series' score is utilized effectively (even if the lamentable "Fugue" episode proves that no one involved in this show is going to be making their Broadway musical debut anytime soon). The mix is very well prioritized and Sanctuary delivers a very satisfying sonic experience that should easily please picky audiophiles.

Sanctuary: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries by Cast and Crew. As with Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season, several of the principal cast and crew take part in various commentaries. These are slightly less raucous than the third season commentaries, and offer some interesting information (for example, there was quite a bit of discussion about whether to open the fourth season with "Tempus" or "Uprising"). The participants for each of these are:
  Uprising: Amanda Tapping, Martin Wood
  Chimera: Martin Wood, Ian Tracy, Lee Wilson
  The Depths: Martin Wood, Amanda Tapping, Gillian Horvath
  Sanctuary For None, Part 1: Damian Kindler, Ryan Robbins, Robin Dunne
  Sanctuary For None, Part 2: Damian Kindler, Ryan Robbins, Robin Dunne


• Special Features (HD; 1:33:43). Aside from the second part of the last episode of season four, the final disc is comprised entirely of these supplemental featurettes:
  Amanda Cam
  'Tempus' – Behind the Scenes
  Robin Dunne Directs 'Homecoming'
  'Fugue' – Making a Musical
  Gag Reel
  Deleted Scenes
  Sanctuary for Kids

Sanctuary: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Sanctuary saw a rather precipitous decline in its viewership in its fourth season, and there's probably good reason. The show goes off on too many tangents that repeatedly are amped up to be The End of Everything, only to have it all just work out peachy keen in the end. The cast and crew does seem to be continuing to take chances, and several episodes here, notably the two part season finale, are as good as anything Sanctuary has ever done. This is still by and large a very interesting series, despite its ever more apparent flaws, and you simply can't do better than the wonderful Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus. There's still no denying that this fourth season is at least a relative step down from the general high of Season Three, but for fans this Blu-ray set offers superior video and especially audio and comes with some nice supplementary materials. For fans if for no one else, this release comes Recommended.