Sanctuary Season 4
Sep. 29th, 2012 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI was in two minds about whether or not to watch this last season, because I had heard ominous rumblings about it. As it turns out, I was for the most part pleasantly surprised. Which isn't to say I didn't have serious criticisms, or that this is my favourite season ever - I'm tentatively eying season 2 for that - but there was also a lot I could enjoy, and generally I think it made for a better conclusion for the show than the s3 finale would have done.
Now to start with the most obvious: the fact that I more enjoyed than disliked the season is crucially tied to the fact that a) I actually like Will Zimmerman, and dig the Helen-Will relationship, and b) John Druitt always was the least interesting member of the Five to me. So the fact that this season was Druitt-less aside from a short appearance in the season opener and that the Helen-Will relationship got plenty of exposure in the second half of the season was fine with me. I had missed Helen and Will doing their annual doomed trip of doom (aka the episode where the two of them are pretty much the only characters while they're trapped in some awful catastrophe) in season 3 and was glad it was back this season, complete with both of them verbally hitting where it hurts because of their issues with each other but pulling through because they love each other. In a non-sexual way, which is one reason why I enjoy the relationship. Four seasons, the show complete, the two main characters were female and male and their relationship never was about romance. See, tv, it can be done! Also it remains to me a great example of the Doctor-Companion relationship with reversed (usual) gender - Helen as the occasionally manipulative and infuriating but generally benevolent immortal, and Will as the apprentice/protegé supporting and challenging, and also, understandably, hoping for a more equal partner status. (Mind you, if Will and Helen started out as a Sarah Jane and Three or Four kind of team, in s4 they were more the Seventh Doctor (he of the "I'm manipulating you and putting you into dangerous situations for your own good" attitude) and Ace (Mommy issues!) type of team.) The show ending with Helen inviting Will once more into her world was such a great full circle to how it started.
As for John, whom as it turns out now we last see in the past getting beaten up by present day Helen: look, I like the deliciously dysfunctional mess that were/are relationships between the Five as much as anyone. And if we'd gotten another flashback episode with the Five, including Druitt, I'd have been thrilled. But it seems to me the show had done all it could with John Druitt in the present day. It had done the serial killer going detox, then killing again because of greater good, then horrified by the fallout thing. It had temporarily rid him of his demon. (The whole demon as the excuse for Jack the Ripper never sat that well for me anyway - in most though not all cases, I don't like it if someone's horrible guilt is blamed on possession/brainwashing/plot device - but Druit is hardly the only time the show did this; see also Ashley and in s4 the Big Guy, about whom more later.) As opposed to Tesla, whose central present day relationship was also with Helen but whom the show had successfully given the immensely entertaining relationship with Henry (and also the occasional scene with Will), John's present day appearances after the death of Ashley were all about and with Helen. If James Watson hadn't died in the present in his first outing, this would have been different, but it wasn't. Wait, he did have two or three scenes with present day Tesla as well, but aside from the one in the s1 finale I can hardly remember them, which makes my point, as far as this viewer is concerned. I.e. if you like the John/Helen doomed romance, his present day appearances were interesting, but if you found it stale, well, not so much. I mean, my favourite Helen and John scene in the present was that in the hallucination where Helen is offered a present day life with John and is all thanks but no thanks, and risks the possibility of suicide on her instinct that this is not her life and she'd rather have the Sanctuary one. Lastly, one tricky issue with John Druitt as a character when he's an ally always was his teleporting ability. Which unless you write in a reason why he can't use it (and the writers did come up with a few, but sometimes it was stretching), logicially used, would cut all too many plots short. (It's the same reason why in Torchwood, Jack got his teleporting/time travelling bracelett deactivated at the end of every DW crossover. A great deal of TW problem of the week plots wouldn't have worked if Jack could teleport.) In conclusion: I was fine with the absence of John Druitt.
I did miss Kate, a lot. I take it this was an actress commitment problem, though, and am glad they didn't solve it by killing the character off or giving her amnesia or something like this, but giving her an important job elsewhere and allowing her to return for the last few episodes. Unfortunately Kate's absence also meant hardly any more Kate and Biggie scenes, which left the Big Guy with first getting brainwashed and then dying tragically in the finale. Now I think the suggestion that even outside of brainwashing, he did have some buried issues about humanity, his life at the Sanctuary in the last 50 years was interesting but it was barely there, and needed development, plus as the show was cancelled Helen and Kate only got once short bit each to react to his death and that will be int forever more. Henry didn't get anything and he had a very important relationship with him. Well, I suppose that's what fanfic is for, but still: this would be one of my serious criticisms. If the plan was to kill the character off no matter what, than a far more interesting storyline would have been to skip the brainwashing plot device this time, and have his loyalties genuinely split. But then I said that about Ashley in early s2 as well, and both also would have depended on having the force they temporarily join due to brainwashing be something more than evil force of evil.
Which in the Big Guy's case could have been done, and that brings me to another point of criticism. S3 laid the groundworks, but s4 was the one which saddled us with the Abnormals suddenly turning into a anvilly allegory for the Muslim world, with a radical branch of fanatic evil terrorists complete with suicide bombings and a majority who doesn't want that but in turn gets treated with discrimination, internment and finally possible genocide by the US government. It could have been handled worse (I'm thinking of some Space Nazis in various space shows here), and I always understand writers wanting to tackle present day issues, but still, not only was this a bit more off than this particular show could chew, but it had the same problem you always have if you turn a fantasy group into a blatant metaphor/stand-in for a real life one. See also: vampires treated as discriminated minority when, you know, the premise is that they kill people as part of their nature, werewolves as metaphors for AIDS, and so forth. It's next to impossible to do without creating all kinds of questionable, to put it mildly, subtext.
Back to enjoyable stuff: loved the two Tesla episodes and his appearance in the finale two parter. Looking back, the show handled Nikola Tesla just right, having him show up enough to always leave an appetite for more but not so often the character felt overused or made you go, oh, not him again. Comparisons to Methos in Highlander apply. And to go back to a Doctor Who comparison I already made: with Tesla (aside from his first appearance, the only one where he's unquestionably villainous) the more morally ambiguous version of Delgado!Master, his and Helen's double act of flirting and bickering and the plot pattern of Tesla landing himself into troubled waters by his own schemes and drawing Helen into it is such a treat for anyone fond of the Three/Delgado!Master days as I most certainly am. As mentioned, additionally the Tesla and Henry scenes were a treat, both amusing ("Do you know what this means? I invented wireless electricity!") and occasionally touching. While Jonathan Young never manages to pronounce "Heinrich" correctly, I still find the nickname endearing. Also, Chimera must be the first time I found the s3 big bad Adam Worth (aka worst Jekyll and Hyde wannabe ever because all Hyde, no Jekyll, and weak point of s3) a good plot device, as, hey, anything that gets Helen and Nikola into a computer world and gives Helen the opportunity to smile enigmatically to Tesla's final inevitable question can't be all bad. And I'm most definitely on board with the final Helen and Nikola scene of the show being a kiss in Sanctuary for None II. :)
Another minority opinion, apparantly: I like Abby, the way her being an FBI agent is crucial to her characterisation this season, and Will's relationship with her. Speaking of Abby, as far as musical episodes are concerned, Fugue doesn't come near the heights of BTVS' Once More With Feeling or Xena's The Bitter Suit, but the actress has a nice voice. Also Helen getting into musical mode by accident when dealing with the other Sanctuary heads was hysterical.
Not a minority opinion, I hope: the episode where Helen has a James Bond interlude of taking out the villains and getting the girl was great, and I like how matter of factly the show got around to establishing on screen that Helen is bisexual. And I liked Charlotte.
Once both the government and the terrorists were established as villains of the season, it was clear that Helen's end game had to be a new start for all the Sanctuaries in secrecy while both parties believing her dead, so that was obvious, but I was pleased that the device allowing her to survive was established two episodes previously in all fairness, and also that her 113 additional years of going the slow path to the present after Tempus weren't as random as I thought when Tempus ended (back then, I was trying to make up my mind whether to take this as something like Jack Harkness' additional millennium after TW season 2, i.e. something given to the character without showing us any consequences in said character); letting Helen not just meditate in Nepal for more than hundred years but prepare for her reboot of the Sanctuaries in the present really made that plot decision useful. Also those additional 113 inspired delightful fanfiction.
In conclusion: Sanctuary won't make it to my list of must-see tv, but I liked the show a lot, and its characters (some less than others, sorry, John Druitt and Adam Worth), and in Helen Magnus, it provided the genre with one of the sadly still rare female leads who are most definitely adults and look like in their 40s (because Helen is immortal, I have to phrase it like that), get to do action, manipulation, double and triple crossing, are interesting and flawed and have both a fascinating backstory and a fascinating present. And are infinitely crossover-friendly. Hail and auf Wiedersehen, not farewell, show!
Now to start with the most obvious: the fact that I more enjoyed than disliked the season is crucially tied to the fact that a) I actually like Will Zimmerman, and dig the Helen-Will relationship, and b) John Druitt always was the least interesting member of the Five to me. So the fact that this season was Druitt-less aside from a short appearance in the season opener and that the Helen-Will relationship got plenty of exposure in the second half of the season was fine with me. I had missed Helen and Will doing their annual doomed trip of doom (aka the episode where the two of them are pretty much the only characters while they're trapped in some awful catastrophe) in season 3 and was glad it was back this season, complete with both of them verbally hitting where it hurts because of their issues with each other but pulling through because they love each other. In a non-sexual way, which is one reason why I enjoy the relationship. Four seasons, the show complete, the two main characters were female and male and their relationship never was about romance. See, tv, it can be done! Also it remains to me a great example of the Doctor-Companion relationship with reversed (usual) gender - Helen as the occasionally manipulative and infuriating but generally benevolent immortal, and Will as the apprentice/protegé supporting and challenging, and also, understandably, hoping for a more equal partner status. (Mind you, if Will and Helen started out as a Sarah Jane and Three or Four kind of team, in s4 they were more the Seventh Doctor (he of the "I'm manipulating you and putting you into dangerous situations for your own good" attitude) and Ace (Mommy issues!) type of team.) The show ending with Helen inviting Will once more into her world was such a great full circle to how it started.
As for John, whom as it turns out now we last see in the past getting beaten up by present day Helen: look, I like the deliciously dysfunctional mess that were/are relationships between the Five as much as anyone. And if we'd gotten another flashback episode with the Five, including Druitt, I'd have been thrilled. But it seems to me the show had done all it could with John Druitt in the present day. It had done the serial killer going detox, then killing again because of greater good, then horrified by the fallout thing. It had temporarily rid him of his demon. (The whole demon as the excuse for Jack the Ripper never sat that well for me anyway - in most though not all cases, I don't like it if someone's horrible guilt is blamed on possession/brainwashing/plot device - but Druit is hardly the only time the show did this; see also Ashley and in s4 the Big Guy, about whom more later.) As opposed to Tesla, whose central present day relationship was also with Helen but whom the show had successfully given the immensely entertaining relationship with Henry (and also the occasional scene with Will), John's present day appearances after the death of Ashley were all about and with Helen. If James Watson hadn't died in the present in his first outing, this would have been different, but it wasn't. Wait, he did have two or three scenes with present day Tesla as well, but aside from the one in the s1 finale I can hardly remember them, which makes my point, as far as this viewer is concerned. I.e. if you like the John/Helen doomed romance, his present day appearances were interesting, but if you found it stale, well, not so much. I mean, my favourite Helen and John scene in the present was that in the hallucination where Helen is offered a present day life with John and is all thanks but no thanks, and risks the possibility of suicide on her instinct that this is not her life and she'd rather have the Sanctuary one. Lastly, one tricky issue with John Druitt as a character when he's an ally always was his teleporting ability. Which unless you write in a reason why he can't use it (and the writers did come up with a few, but sometimes it was stretching), logicially used, would cut all too many plots short. (It's the same reason why in Torchwood, Jack got his teleporting/time travelling bracelett deactivated at the end of every DW crossover. A great deal of TW problem of the week plots wouldn't have worked if Jack could teleport.) In conclusion: I was fine with the absence of John Druitt.
I did miss Kate, a lot. I take it this was an actress commitment problem, though, and am glad they didn't solve it by killing the character off or giving her amnesia or something like this, but giving her an important job elsewhere and allowing her to return for the last few episodes. Unfortunately Kate's absence also meant hardly any more Kate and Biggie scenes, which left the Big Guy with first getting brainwashed and then dying tragically in the finale. Now I think the suggestion that even outside of brainwashing, he did have some buried issues about humanity, his life at the Sanctuary in the last 50 years was interesting but it was barely there, and needed development, plus as the show was cancelled Helen and Kate only got once short bit each to react to his death and that will be int forever more. Henry didn't get anything and he had a very important relationship with him. Well, I suppose that's what fanfic is for, but still: this would be one of my serious criticisms. If the plan was to kill the character off no matter what, than a far more interesting storyline would have been to skip the brainwashing plot device this time, and have his loyalties genuinely split. But then I said that about Ashley in early s2 as well, and both also would have depended on having the force they temporarily join due to brainwashing be something more than evil force of evil.
Which in the Big Guy's case could have been done, and that brings me to another point of criticism. S3 laid the groundworks, but s4 was the one which saddled us with the Abnormals suddenly turning into a anvilly allegory for the Muslim world, with a radical branch of fanatic evil terrorists complete with suicide bombings and a majority who doesn't want that but in turn gets treated with discrimination, internment and finally possible genocide by the US government. It could have been handled worse (I'm thinking of some Space Nazis in various space shows here), and I always understand writers wanting to tackle present day issues, but still, not only was this a bit more off than this particular show could chew, but it had the same problem you always have if you turn a fantasy group into a blatant metaphor/stand-in for a real life one. See also: vampires treated as discriminated minority when, you know, the premise is that they kill people as part of their nature, werewolves as metaphors for AIDS, and so forth. It's next to impossible to do without creating all kinds of questionable, to put it mildly, subtext.
Back to enjoyable stuff: loved the two Tesla episodes and his appearance in the finale two parter. Looking back, the show handled Nikola Tesla just right, having him show up enough to always leave an appetite for more but not so often the character felt overused or made you go, oh, not him again. Comparisons to Methos in Highlander apply. And to go back to a Doctor Who comparison I already made: with Tesla (aside from his first appearance, the only one where he's unquestionably villainous) the more morally ambiguous version of Delgado!Master, his and Helen's double act of flirting and bickering and the plot pattern of Tesla landing himself into troubled waters by his own schemes and drawing Helen into it is such a treat for anyone fond of the Three/Delgado!Master days as I most certainly am. As mentioned, additionally the Tesla and Henry scenes were a treat, both amusing ("Do you know what this means? I invented wireless electricity!") and occasionally touching. While Jonathan Young never manages to pronounce "Heinrich" correctly, I still find the nickname endearing. Also, Chimera must be the first time I found the s3 big bad Adam Worth (aka worst Jekyll and Hyde wannabe ever because all Hyde, no Jekyll, and weak point of s3) a good plot device, as, hey, anything that gets Helen and Nikola into a computer world and gives Helen the opportunity to smile enigmatically to Tesla's final inevitable question can't be all bad. And I'm most definitely on board with the final Helen and Nikola scene of the show being a kiss in Sanctuary for None II. :)
Another minority opinion, apparantly: I like Abby, the way her being an FBI agent is crucial to her characterisation this season, and Will's relationship with her. Speaking of Abby, as far as musical episodes are concerned, Fugue doesn't come near the heights of BTVS' Once More With Feeling or Xena's The Bitter Suit, but the actress has a nice voice. Also Helen getting into musical mode by accident when dealing with the other Sanctuary heads was hysterical.
Not a minority opinion, I hope: the episode where Helen has a James Bond interlude of taking out the villains and getting the girl was great, and I like how matter of factly the show got around to establishing on screen that Helen is bisexual. And I liked Charlotte.
Once both the government and the terrorists were established as villains of the season, it was clear that Helen's end game had to be a new start for all the Sanctuaries in secrecy while both parties believing her dead, so that was obvious, but I was pleased that the device allowing her to survive was established two episodes previously in all fairness, and also that her 113 additional years of going the slow path to the present after Tempus weren't as random as I thought when Tempus ended (back then, I was trying to make up my mind whether to take this as something like Jack Harkness' additional millennium after TW season 2, i.e. something given to the character without showing us any consequences in said character); letting Helen not just meditate in Nepal for more than hundred years but prepare for her reboot of the Sanctuaries in the present really made that plot decision useful. Also those additional 113 inspired delightful fanfiction.
In conclusion: Sanctuary won't make it to my list of must-see tv, but I liked the show a lot, and its characters (some less than others, sorry, John Druitt and Adam Worth), and in Helen Magnus, it provided the genre with one of the sadly still rare female leads who are most definitely adults and look like in their 40s (because Helen is immortal, I have to phrase it like that), get to do action, manipulation, double and triple crossing, are interesting and flawed and have both a fascinating backstory and a fascinating present. And are infinitely crossover-friendly. Hail and auf Wiedersehen, not farewell, show!
