Sanctuary: Season 2, Episodes 1-3

(Contains spoilers for Season 1)

Sanctuary is an organisation designed to protect "abnormals" (any weird sentient beastie... some benign, some nasty ones that need locking up for everyone's good) and humans from each other, run by Dr Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping of Stargate fame) who is over 150 but never ages.

Helping her out there's Will (who's human but has a Sherlock Holmsian deductive ability from visual clues), Henry (tech expert and part time werewolf), John Druitt  (Magnus' ex and possessing nifty teleporting abilities... he went through a 'bad patch' as Jack the Ripper) and Bigfoot (thankfully looking more like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast than from Bigfoot and the Hendersons!).

Episodes 1-2 End of Nights Parts 1 & 2 - Season 2 of Sanctuary starts off pretty much where the cliffhanger for Season 1 left off as the team try to track down Magnus' daughter, Ashley (who's been 'brainwashed' to work for the evil Cabal organisation) and work out what the Cabal have done to her and why. The first episode seems quite 'disconnected' for the first half with too many groups and threads not particularly well interwoven.

It picks up in the second half as the team stick together to start working towards one goal but there's still a sub-plot for Bigfoot which seems very 'tagged on' and unnecessary. After a rather ineffectual cliffhanger episode 2 is more action oriented but, in common with episode 1, the good guys seem to be a little to 'good' to be realistic with only the Tesla and John Druitt adding any edge to the proceedings, which is odd since at least in the UK the set is rated 15 and could therefore be (and could do with being) a bit 'harder'. Tapping does also occasionally up her acting game to show the harder side of Magnus but then lets herself down by being too trusting and motherly. To a certain extent this is quite reasonable but the script  sometimes makes her act this way to the point of stupidity, not aided by some rather stilted and/or clichéd dialogue all round.
The plot, whilst it works reasonably well, is quite derivative (Ashley really is in the Wolverine 'Weapon X' project) and despite being supposedly (well, according to the Cabal) impossible for the Sanctuary team to work out their plan it is actually solved in 2 minutes by Magnus and Nikola Tesla (yes, that Tesla - he's a vampire) having a chat. There are some nice humorous touches though and the final result is reasonably satisfying even if how they reach it is a bit of a cop out and obvious.

Episode 3 Eulogy - An obvious 'respond to the opener, set up for the next one' episode:

In the 'respond to the opener' section of the plot throughout the whole episode I sat there worrying they were going to 'jump the shark' and press some big reset buttons (including some ideas stolen off other shows... there's a blatant Star Trek one in there) but somehow they managed to avoid making the mistake you were fearing they might, despite the over sentimental attitudes on display (and the unexplained and rather annoying 'dream walk' sequences).
In the 'set up for the next one' plot strand the new girl (Kate, who they captured in the first episode) goes through the traditional 'can the untrusted mercenary become a proper member of the team' story in a self-contained little adventure (so self contained it didn't impinge on the other plot line at all which sat rather oddly). The funny ending is, well, fun, and gives a convenient result for future episodes but I think the whole issue should have been played out over a number of episodes as it could have been.

One odd plot choice was that John Druitt gets just about 3 minutes on screen in the whole episode to let everyone know he's actually been doing what the rest of the team probably should have been: (very successfully) going after the Cabal people who almost wiped them out in the first two weeks. I was hoping this would be Episode 4 at least instead of a side comment in this one.
Even though the two main threads did need to be addressed, overall I think this episode is much better when you look back at it after having finished watching. this is because the reasonably satisfying conclusions, in preparation for the rest of the series, are the only pay off for the episode that you get as you breath a sigh of relief that they didn't totally lose any edge the show had. Overall, personally I think in a lot of ways it was the off-screen Cabal hunting storyline that I'd have preferred to actually watch!