Sanctuary is a American-Canadian science fiction-fantasy television series created by Damian Kindler which centres on scientist Dr. Helen Magnus and her team of experts who run the Sanctuary, an organisation that seeks out non-human intelligent creatures.
The show is an expansion of an eight-webisode long series that was released at no cost on the Internet in early 2007.
The series aired in the USA on Syfy from 3 October, 2008 to 30 December, 2011. There are 59 hour-long episodes in four seasons.
Sanctuary premiered in South Africa on DStv's M-Net Action channel on Thursday 19 February 2009, at 20h00. It moved to DStv's M-Net Series channel for the final two seasons and later aired on M-Net Series Zone as well (Season 4 only). See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 4 premiered on M-Net Series Zone on Wednesday 31 July 2013, at 22h30. New episodes broadcast from Mondays to Thursdays at the same time. There are 13 episodes in the fourth and final season.
Synopsis
Sanctuary follows the adventures of the beautiful, enigmatic and always surprising Dr. Helen Magnus, her new recruit, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman and her fearless daughter Ashley.
Together they track down, study and protect the strange and often terrifying creatures that secretly populate our world and live among us.
Although dismissed as monstrous figments of our imaginations and the stuff of our childhood nightmares, Magnus recognises that the world is full of nature’s mistakes and triumphs and has the spectacular proof that they are indeed real.
Will, an insightful psychiatric profiler with a knack for finding the strange and curious, reluctantly joins the team to aid in the study of beings he can hardly believe himself.
Together, Magnus, Will, Ashley and quirky tech-whiz Henry use their unique combination of instinct, medicine and cutting edge technology to find the creatures that lurk in the corners of our civilization and protect us from those too dangerous to be roaming free.
Sanctuary stars Amanda Tapping as Dr. Helen Magnus, Robin Dunne as Dr. Will Zimmerman, Emilie Ullerup as Ashley, Christopher Heyerdahl as the sinister John Druitt and Ryan Robbins as Henry Foss.
Braving new worlds in each episode is just the start for Sanctuary. The series is also credited for pioneering new techniques and technology in television production.
Sanctuary is one of the only series to shoot extensively on green screen using extraordinary visual effects and virtual sets.
The series was also the first in North America to shoot with the new RED camera - a digital system that captures images at four times the resolution of a high definition camera.
Seasons
Note: the first two seasons aired on M-Net Action, after which the show moved to M-Net Series. The first three seasons did not air on M-Net Series Zone.
Season 1 (13 episodes)
Channel: M-Net Action | Premiere: 19 Feb 2009 | Finale: 14 May 2009 | Thu, 20h00
Season 2 (13 episodes)
Channel: M-Net Action | Premiere: 11 Nov 2010 | Finale: 3 Feb 2011 | Thu, 19h00
Season 3 (20 episodes)
Channel: M-Net Series | Premiere: 17 Feb 2011 | Finale: 30 Jun 2011 | Thu, 21h30
Season 4 (13 episodes)
Channel: M-Net Series | Premiere: 5 Apr 2012 | Finale: 28 Jun 2012 | Thu, 22h30
Channel: M-Net Series Zone | Premiere: 31 Jul 2013 | Finale: 21 Aug 2013 | Mon-Thu, 22h30