![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo, looking for stuff to watch tonight, I saw Sanctuary listed on ITV4. The on screen guide assured me it was a first episode, and the thing with Amanda Tapping I vaguely remembered from conventions. I'd seen bits of the download version shown on the big screen. I kind of remember thinking it had serious structural problems and not seeking it out further. Nothing happened in a chunk, and then there were more chunks. So I was kind of vague and maybe about watching it today. But hey, first episode, see where it starts.
First I'll believe, episode it was not. I'd put money on it being a chopped in half two hour special. Either that or their structural problems are deep and extensive. Lots of things were raised but nothing was resolved. This didn't even read like the first half of a two parter, it just... stopped. I was sure it was going to commercials, but it came up saying that the rest of it would be on on Monday. So, kind of screwed.
Aside from that?
Pretty good. Had a sense of a story this time. Recogniseable wrapped together threads, a pull that kept going on through the episode, character intros, all the right parts. I was actually thinking their structure thing was going great this time. Until the already mentioned abrupt halt.
Not that there's anything wrong with raising a lot of questions. It just felt... like it was definitely going somewhere and then the credits happened just when you were expecting it to get there. She asks him a question and then oops there's the ending.
FX were nice. Some interesting stuff being done with them.
Characters were... actually I'm not sure, I feel like I was introduced to them once and then introduced to their almost identical twins today. I don't have much of a feel for them today.
Amanda Tapping's accent... whatever she was trying for she missed. Sorry. Just... Canadian British by way of Australia? Maybe? I don't know. I don't usually mind, I've just got so much of another voice to compare it to it kept sort of crashing into my expecteds round the edges.
The fact I recognise half the cast from assorted SG type stuff is vaguely distracting in a heyitsthatguy way.
I'm not sure I like it. I'm not sure what it's got to make me like it. It has that dual layered world thing I quite like, but it also has what reads to me as skanky politics. Just... so far only the pretty have voices. The abnormals... and why call them that? Why not unusuals? Something. And how come they're patients? There's her as a pretty doctor person, and the dude serving the tea as a voiceless servant. If the point of this sanctuary is that all these assorted shapes of people are still people, tell their story. Don't tell it for them, tell it through them. Give them voices. Show us some more points of view. Right now it has uncomfortable overtones of tours through Bedlam. It's giving me the creeps and it has maybe one, maybe two more episodes to sort it.
It's one of the fundamental things about Doctor Who. They don't have to be all 'aliens are people too!' (even though they often are), because the Doctor is right there and he's people and oh yes he's also an alien. You know? And I'm not sure her being older than she looks counts.
I think the Stargate association is making me look sideways at that level. They've not really been of win on that level.
So, anyway, verdict: Show me the rest of the episode. Then I'll decide if I want to watch the next one.
It has some mother-daughter interaction, which should be of win. And they both look good in leather, so, you know, ahead on points already. And there's quite a lot of incidental pretty.
But the incidentals are not enough to grab if the story don't sell, and right now it ain't clear what the story even is.
PS: I'd have won that bet. First thing I find on the news section of the website?
"After originating on the Web, Sanctuary is making the leap from desktop to small screen, premiering on television with a two-hour episode tomorrow night."
So why oh why didn't ITV4 find it a two hour timeslot? They're killing the show straight out the gate. Lose.
PPS: Hadn't even heard it was on. Was that just me not paying attention? I guess I only watch the BBC lately.
PPPS: Two female characters with names, that interact, have skills and knowledge, are central to the plot, and both seem kind of interesting? That is in fact reason enough to keep watching.
... TV has so lowered the bar. *facepalm*
First I'll believe, episode it was not. I'd put money on it being a chopped in half two hour special. Either that or their structural problems are deep and extensive. Lots of things were raised but nothing was resolved. This didn't even read like the first half of a two parter, it just... stopped. I was sure it was going to commercials, but it came up saying that the rest of it would be on on Monday. So, kind of screwed.
Aside from that?
Pretty good. Had a sense of a story this time. Recogniseable wrapped together threads, a pull that kept going on through the episode, character intros, all the right parts. I was actually thinking their structure thing was going great this time. Until the already mentioned abrupt halt.
Not that there's anything wrong with raising a lot of questions. It just felt... like it was definitely going somewhere and then the credits happened just when you were expecting it to get there. She asks him a question and then oops there's the ending.
FX were nice. Some interesting stuff being done with them.
Characters were... actually I'm not sure, I feel like I was introduced to them once and then introduced to their almost identical twins today. I don't have much of a feel for them today.
Amanda Tapping's accent... whatever she was trying for she missed. Sorry. Just... Canadian British by way of Australia? Maybe? I don't know. I don't usually mind, I've just got so much of another voice to compare it to it kept sort of crashing into my expecteds round the edges.
The fact I recognise half the cast from assorted SG type stuff is vaguely distracting in a heyitsthatguy way.
I'm not sure I like it. I'm not sure what it's got to make me like it. It has that dual layered world thing I quite like, but it also has what reads to me as skanky politics. Just... so far only the pretty have voices. The abnormals... and why call them that? Why not unusuals? Something. And how come they're patients? There's her as a pretty doctor person, and the dude serving the tea as a voiceless servant. If the point of this sanctuary is that all these assorted shapes of people are still people, tell their story. Don't tell it for them, tell it through them. Give them voices. Show us some more points of view. Right now it has uncomfortable overtones of tours through Bedlam. It's giving me the creeps and it has maybe one, maybe two more episodes to sort it.
It's one of the fundamental things about Doctor Who. They don't have to be all 'aliens are people too!' (even though they often are), because the Doctor is right there and he's people and oh yes he's also an alien. You know? And I'm not sure her being older than she looks counts.
I think the Stargate association is making me look sideways at that level. They've not really been of win on that level.
So, anyway, verdict: Show me the rest of the episode. Then I'll decide if I want to watch the next one.
It has some mother-daughter interaction, which should be of win. And they both look good in leather, so, you know, ahead on points already. And there's quite a lot of incidental pretty.
But the incidentals are not enough to grab if the story don't sell, and right now it ain't clear what the story even is.
PS: I'd have won that bet. First thing I find on the news section of the website?
"After originating on the Web, Sanctuary is making the leap from desktop to small screen, premiering on television with a two-hour episode tomorrow night."
So why oh why didn't ITV4 find it a two hour timeslot? They're killing the show straight out the gate. Lose.
PPS: Hadn't even heard it was on. Was that just me not paying attention? I guess I only watch the BBC lately.
PPPS: Two female characters with names, that interact, have skills and knowledge, are central to the plot, and both seem kind of interesting? That is in fact reason enough to keep watching.
... TV has so lowered the bar. *facepalm*