Sanctuary for All

"Sanctuary for All"
Sanctuary episodes
Will Zimmerman and Helen Magnus in the "Sanctuary"
Episode nos.	Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2
Directed by	Martin Wood
Story by	Damian Kindler
Teleplay by	Sam Egan & Damian Kindler
Original air date	October 3, 2008 (2008-10-03)
Guest appearances
Henry Foss Joe Kavanagh Kandyse McClure as Meg Alexi Panou as Sylvio Rudd Peter Shinkoda as Andy Fetz Chuck Campbell as Two Faced Guy (front face) Brad Proctor as Two Faced Guy (back face) Darien Provost as Young Will Nicholas Podbrey as Man Michael Adamthwaite as Albert Russo Malik McCall as Lawrence Birch Diana Pavlovská as Jagna Mitrovna Aidan Pringle as Vern Kovacs Mihola Terzic as Waitress Kirsten Robek as Mary Anne Zimmerman Dana McLoughlin as Hooker/John's victim David (Dan) Joffre as Transit Cop Dan Shea as Transit Cop Amanda May as Sally, the Mermaid Ian Wallace as Fire Creature Ivan de Leon as Med Tech Ellie Harvey as Eleanor Sheri Noel as Molly
Episode chronology
← Previous "Web series" Next → "Fata Morgana"
List of episodes

"Sanctuary for All" is the two-part series premiere of the

As the episode opens, two police officers answer a call to a disturbance in the home of Eastern European immigrants. They discover the body of a man, apparently shot in the head, then they notice a young boy cowering under the bed in the same room. As he attempts to coax the boy out, the first officer is killed by a mysterious snake-like creature, which stabs him in the forehead, leaving a wound resembling a gunshot. When the boy emerges from behind the bed, the snake creature rears and (although not shown) it kills the second officer.

After the deaths, forensic expert Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) is called in to inspect the murder scene. The police assume the victims have been shot, and claim to have apprehended the shooter (played by David Hewlett in the first webisode, but was played by another actor in this episode), who was fleeing the scene. Will sees no evidence of a gun being used and quickly deduces that all is not as it seems at the apartment, but his theories are ridiculed by Detective Joe Kavanagh (Kavan Smith). As he leaves, Will spots the boy and chases him down a back alley, where he narrowly avoids being struck by a young woman on a motorcycle who is also evidently pursuing the boy. He begins to chase them both, but moments later he is struck from behind by a car. Before lapsing into unconsciousness, he catches a glimpse of the driver—Helen Magnus.

Will regains consciousness and finds himself at Magnus' home. She begins to explain the truth behind the murders, and reveals that she knows about Will's long-repressed and traumatic childhood memory of his mother being killed by some kind of monster. She offers Will a position with her organization - The Sanctuary, which is housed in a top secret base under a partially ruined cathedral in an unnamed city. It houses a variety of "abnormals," who are, she believes, some of nature's triumphs and mistakes. Magnus explains that these creatures would have been mistreated, exploited or killed in the outside world, and that she and her team have dedicated their lives to rescuing and caring for these abnormals. She shows Will the fantastic creatures who inhabit the Sanctuary, including a mermaid; he also meets a Bigfoot (played by Christopher Heyerdahl), who has become one of Magnus' staff after being rescued and healed by her.

She tells Will that she has been tracking the "snake-boy", cryptically hinting that he is, and yet is not, responsible for the murders. Though very reluctant and confused, Will agrees to give the new job a try. In the next sequence, we discover that the girl on the motorcycle is Magnus' daughter,

Helen also reveals that Druitt had been her first patient in the 1880s. After suffering a life-threatening illness, she saved his life, but the procedure had an unintended side-effect. It caused a madness within him, and he went on a killing spree, murdering eight prostitutes in Victorian London - John Druitt is in fact the serial killer who has become known to history as Jack the Ripper. In a flashback, we see Helen confronting John in an attempt to stop him committing the last Ripper murder, but he kills the woman anyway and teleports away, although Magnus apparently wounds him as he vanishes. Will suspects that Druitt was more than just her patient, and Magnus' reaction confirms it. She then reveals that, after John's disappearance, she froze the embryo she had conceived with him, but when she could no longer bear the loneliness and believed John was gone for good, she brought it to term; giving birth to their daughter Ashley, who knows nothing of her father's true identity.^[1] Zimmerman decides to join the Sanctuary.

Production

The producers wished to feature the series in a fictional city, Old City, located in the West Coast of North America. The working name for the city was "Odisburg".^[2] The idea behind Alexi's "creepy" expressions in the beginning of the episode were Wiebe's idea, and the producers granted his request.^[2]

Both parts of the episode were effectively reshoots of the first of the original webisodes. According to director Martin Wood, much of the footage of the webisodes were reshot in a very similar style. The producers decided not to include virtual sets for the first 20 minutes of the episode, in order to lull the audience to a false sense of security, so the production crew filmed on location.^[2] The apartment building from the beginning of the episode were shot at the partially decommissioned Riverview mental care facility.^[3] Because the producers found the location "creepy", they felt the location could be used to impart this creepiness to the audience.^[2] In the 18 months between the webisodes and the series, Wiebe grew taller.^[4] The corpses used in the beginning were mannequins the props department had in their possession and put holes in the forehead, and were easier to use than actors.^[2]

Like the web series, much of the episodes were filmed on

The series premiere received a household rating of 2.2, the highest rated original series premiere from the