Sanctuary is a Canadian science fiction-fantasy television series, created by Damian Kindler and funded largely by the Beedie Development Group.[1] The show ran for four seasons, from 2008 to 2011; a fifth season was planned but never made.
The show is an expansion of an eight-webisode series that was released through the Internet in early 2007. Seeing the success of the web series, Syfy decided to buy the broadcast rights to the series and pay to re-stage the series in a season of thirteen episodes.[2]
The show centers on Dr. Helen Magnus, a 157-year-old teratologist, and her team of experts who run the Sanctuary, an organization that seeks out extraordinarily powerful creatures and people, known as Abnormals, and tries to help and to learn from them while also having to contain the more dangerous ones.
The series premiered on October 3, 2008, in both Canada and the United States and on October 6 in the United Kingdom. The premiere drew in more than 3 million viewers, making it the highest rated original series premiere for Syfy since Eureka debuted in July 2006.[3] The premiere two-parter, "Sanctuary for All", was a combination and rewriting of the first four webisodes and was followed by "Fata Morgana", based on Webisodes 5-8. Amanda Tapping, with all of the original cast from the web series, made the transition to the television series. A second season of 13 episodes aired in 2009–10,[4] and Sanctuary was renewed for a third season of 20 episodes on December 12, 2009.[5] The second season premiered on Friday, October 9, 2009, in the 10 pm timeslot.[6] In Australia, the program debuted on Pay Television's Sci Fi and on free-to-air channel ABC2, where Season 1 started on March 1, 2010, each Monday at 9:30 pm.[7] Season 2 commenced on July 12, 2010, in the same timeslot.[8] Season 3 premiered Friday, October 15, 2010, on Syfy in its original 10 pm timeslot.[9] In January 2011, Sanctuary was renewed for a fourth season, which finished airing on December 30, 2011.[10] On May 21, 2012, Syfy announced that Sanctuary will not be returning for a fifth season and that the show has been cancelled.[11][12][13] On October 8, 2012, PPI Releasing announced that it would distribute the series in U.S. syndication, starting fall 2013.[14]
