Sanctuary is a Canadian science fiction-fantasy television series, created by Damian Kindler. The show is an expansion of an eight-webisode series that was released at no cost through the Internet in early 2007. Seeing the success of the web series, Syfy decided to pick up the series for a more traditional television-based 13-episode season.[2] A second season of 13 episodes aired in 2009–2010,[3] and Sanctuary was renewed for a third season of 20 episodes on December 12, 2009.[4]
The show centers on Dr. Helen Magnus, a 158-year-old English scientist, and her team of experts who run the Sanctuary, an organization that seeks out extraordinarily-powered creatures and people, known as Abnormals, and tries to help and 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.[5] 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 five through eight. Amanda Tapping, with all of the original cast from the web series, made the transition to the television series. 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 one started on 1 March 2010 each Monday at 9:30pm.[7] Season two commenced on 12 July 2010 in the same timeslot.[8]
Season 3 premiered Friday, October 15, 2010, on Syfy in its original 10pm timeslot.[9] In January 2011, Sanctuary was renewed for a fourth season.
