And so far, the second season has really hit its stride.   I had felt the finale last year was very strong, with various elements of the show that had been established (the Cabal, Nikola Tesla and of course John Druitt) coming together.    The second season picked up on this, following on from the cliffhanger and gave us a great, exciting wrap-up filled with action and great one-liners from Tesla.

Post the wrap-up, the show’s settled back into its more familiar formula, however I do love the way the show has now built up these strong recurring characters that can drop in and out every so often to spice things up.

There’s also been a slight shake-up in the main cast, with new character Kate Freelander spicing things up as a slightly untrustworthy freelancer who had previously been working for the Cabal before they decided to turn on her.

I guess that’s something I really enjoy with this show, is that once you get outside the core of the main cast, most of the recurring characters operate very much under their own agendas.  While the Sanctuary network itself is vast, the show has instead focused more on building up a larger world outside of the Sanctuary by introducing the history of the vampires and the Five.    If anything it might be something to build on this series, is the larger story of the Sanctuary network itself, now that the fundamentals of the world and Abnormals are established.  With the season opener showing a few other Sanctuaries around the world, it might be interesting to play with the idea of this being a global organisation, as opposed to the one central Sanctuary dealing with its own problems.

Over the last season and a bit, this is show that’s crept up my “to-watch” list and is now one of the small number of shows I actually watch live and wait through the adverts, rather than just using the Sky+, and so far the second season is really showing how much the show has settled and gained confidence in telling big stories alongside the more standalone scripts.

I first found the show in its original form, where it debuted as an online-exclusive series, attempting to bring a broadcast-quality show via online delivery by charging a nominal amount for each episode. I enjoyed these original episodes, but it sadly didn’t make as much money as they’d hoped.

And then, in steps the Sci-Fi channel and decides to take advantage of this ready-made show, and they promptly commission a full season of it (I believe this is partly related to the writer’s strike as well).

The show centres around the Sanctuary. A project set up by Dr Helen Magnus to provide a safe haven for “abnormals”, evolutionary oddities and creatures that pop up all over the globe. We are introduced to the Sanctuary via Will Zimmerman, a psychiatrist recruited by Magnus to help run the Sanctuary.

Its a good, fun show and its nice to have something new to watch that’s not in imminant danger of cancellation (Sci-Fi have already announced they’re making a second series).  While its maybe lacking the depth of some other genre shows currently around, its nice to have a few shows now that I can just switch my brain off and enjoy.