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Sanctuary: An original web based show turned primetime. Stars Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus, scientist studying the extreme and Robin Dunne as Zimmerman the psychologist who people say sees too much.

Settling into a smoother format, this episode opens with a supposedly normal robbery. Clerk sets off the silent alarm and the criminals make a break for it. As one of the criminals seems trapped in a corner, he proceeds to make his skull collapse and is perceived to have squeezed through the pipe. Cut to the good folks at the Sanctuary, in the office, checking out the surveillance tapes.

It appears the theft of only gold from the store seems familiar to a case will worked on a few years prior with a similarly impossible escape. With a print scraped from the crime scene shown earlier, the investigation is under way to track down all those possibly involved or related. The closest they can get to the perp (Malcolm) is a man who is a drifter in a run down part of town. They question the man thinking that the perp is his son, since he lives in a community of other folding men.

It turns out that the drifter does have a son, but he is one of Malcolm’s co-conspirators. Part of the point of stealing the gold was to create an addictive drug which also happens to ease the pain of extreme folding. Ashley once again seeks information from an abnormal informant, who easily leads them to Malcolm ending in a short chase and capture.

Inside of the facility, Will questions Malcolm about his involvement with the crimes. Here a valiant attempt is made to paint the picture of Malcolm as the victim of the infamous Nomad: leader of the criminal folding men. The problem with this is the fact that the most likely audience for this show is full folks who already watch a large amount of television. With this in mind, the shows writers cut between Malcolm dictated flashbacks and the other characters.

The big problem is that the character painted as the most perceptive, misses pretty blatant hints about Malcolm’s real intentions. Malcolm, leads the team to a place where the drifter’s son may have been hiding. Instead of a warm greeting, they find all his belongings and his remains. The team, minus Will, heads over to intercept a possible delivery of the drug while Will continues to talk to Malcolm.

Magnus and the others find out the lead they had on the drugs was a ruse, just as Will asks Malcolm to lead him to the hideout. Unfortunately for Will it was a trap, its just too bad it wasn’t better acted. Of course Magnus thought ahead and placed a tracker on Will’s car, distracting the group of folding men long enough for Will to spill the beans on the drifter’s son’s death. One of the subordinates questions Malcolm (predictably revealed as the infamous Nomad) which prompts them to trade bullets. Magnus stops the drug shipment and sort of happy ending.

This episode may have been too early in the season. Filler episodes work much better in the middle of the line, then again I am not sure how many episodes have been greenlit. Unlike the previous episodes, this is the first one not from the web version of the show. It is better paced than the premiere and has a better feel for the characters. The parts of the program I didn’t buy into where the more routine ones, but that comes from tons of TV and movie screenings. It holds up pretty well regardless, and I can now say I do recommend giving this show a shot.