"Sanctuary" for Monsters and Other Things that Go Bump in the Night

The new Sci Fi Channel series "Sanctuary" is actually a pick up from Canadian television where the second is already underway. What Sci Fi is televising is the debut 2007 season. The major selling point of "Sanctuary" is British born Canadian actress Amanda Tapping, a Sci Fi channel cult heroine from her long running role as Colonel Samantha Carter on "Stargate: SG-1" and "Stargate: Atlantis." Tapping stars as Dr. Helen Magnus who has a castlelike sanctuary for mutant beings and what humans would call monsters. She captures, protects and studies creatures ranging from a friendly mermaid whom she communicates with to terrifying nasties that will a person to shreds.

The debut episode introduces Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), a former FBI agent turned local CSI who is considered peculiar by his colleagues. Will is haunted by the vision of his mother being killed by a monster when he was eight and learned suppress that insistence. He is called to the scene of two uniformed cops' murder and his superiors are satisfied with their suspect in custody. Will feels there is something amiss and questions why no one will acknowledge the presence of a child. A ten-year-old Russian boy has a bizarre deadly snakelike thing protruding from his chest and that is what kills. Enter Helen whose daughter Ashley (Emilie Ollerup) is tracking the boy. Helen wants to recruit Will by offering the notion he will discover all the truths he has been seeking and understand what happened to his mother was real.