Sanctuary Discussion (Spoilers for the most recent episode)

[Tracy Jane]

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Yalta - as in Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference - in the Crimea?

That would make more sense. The caption labels the people as Pierson and Allembert, though.

[BruTak]

Hmmm... Maybe Helen's friend, the mysterious stranger who travels in a big blue box, helped?

[jckfan55]

I do see what you mean about the transition between those two scenes, but I did really like Helen's response to Will's question about how she knew where the next victim would be --

Spoiler:

I have my sources....plus I have a police scanner! Sidenote: I liked the "don't be ridiculous, exercise isn't for another two hours" in response to Will's question about whether or not these creatures run around freely!

I thought her timing was great on that

Spoiler:

police scanner line. I also liked the exercise period line. It's like Helen gets a kick out of seeing this new guy awed.

.

[BruTak]

It strikes me that the relationship between Helen and Will is very much in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, or Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie, or even Dr. Who and any one of his innumerable assistants.

Will takes the place of the audience and asks all the "stupid" queations.

[jckfan55]

Excuse my stupidity but I have just been on the Sanctuary site and am a little confused. I haven't tried downloading any of the webisodes yet and when I go into 'My Library' (where I assume the free ones are) there are 3 versions of Ep 1 and 5 of Ep 2. What is the difference between them?

Is a free webisode a frebisode?

Are the versions you're seeing the little icons for Quicktime etc? You pick the version you want to download.

[jckfan55]

It strikes me that the relationship between Helen and Will is very much in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, or Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie, or even Dr. Who and any one of his innumerable assistants.

Will takes the place of the audience and asks all the "stupid" queations.

According to something I read or saw in an interview, he's

Spoiler:

the latest of her proteges. She outlives them all apparently.

[BruTak]

Now, what does that remind me of,

Spoiler:

Highlander

maybe?

[rderoch]

Ok, the second photo Will looked at, when he made the comment about Job Lewis.... Job Lewis Smith was the founder of the American Pediatric Society. He lived from 1827-1897 in New York and was possibly the best known American doctor of his time. Lewis Smith argued that "deformity" was due to the emotional state of the mother during pregnancy.

The second photo was Joe Louis, the boxer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis

Judging by her clothing and hair, the photo was taken in the 40's.

[Tracy Jane]

The second photo was Joe Louis, the boxer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis

Judging by her clothing and hair, the photo was taken in the 40's.

Ah, okay... That makes sense. I had just been doing some research into Job Lewis and got excited, that's all. I was kinda going "WOW! Helen got to meet one of the most influential doctors of the era" kind of thing. I didn't think the clothing and hair looked right, but I was far too excited about the prospect of Job Lewis Smith to let something so trivial get in the way

D'oh!

[BruTak]

This actually raises a point I was going to make - is there any way that the guys at Stage 3 Media can encode subtitles into the webisodes?

[Uber]

This actually raises a point I was going to make - is there any way that the guys at Stage 3 Media can encode subtitles into the webisodes?

Actually this is something we're looking into.

Some fans are doing it independently of S3M also.

[Uber]

On a separate note...

There is still time to participate if you want to wish Damian a happy birthday.

You have til midnight tonight PST (Vancouver time).

PM me for details if you haven't read them elsewhere.

[ForeverSg1]

I have a few questions about Webisode 2 :

Spoiler:

When the two rail guards are searching for the missing guard one of them says "Hey, no one likes working under old city. Too many bad memories." So did some catastrophy happen in the past? Why has two distinctley different parts of the the city developed? Did they build the New City after some trouble and now only the poor and downtrodden stay in Old City?

It's quite possible. There are many cities that have experienced a catastophy of some sort in the past and rebuilt nearby or over the old city. I know Seattle did this after a huge earthquake. People do not exactly live in these areas, but they used to have tours of the area until it became unstable.

Spoiler:

How does Ashley drop down so silently behind the guards? When Ashley is talking to Helen towards the end she says "Tall dude, moves faster than me, if that's possible". So does Ashley have special powers? or is she just extremely fit and is supremely confident / over confident of her skills?

I think...

Spoiler:

we will find out that Ashley has cat-like reflexes. The ability to move silently and quickly. Also you may have noticed that she didn't appear to use a flash light to move about the tunnels like Will and Helen did. However, whether these are powers/traits she inherited from her father or acquired by being near the other abnormals in the Sanctuary I'm not sure. The whole issue about Ashley's birth is something that I'm very interested to see revealed, because I have been trying to figure out how/when Helen conceived the child. At first I thought perhaps Helen had been running from John for years and that at one point in time he found her -- thus Ashley's conception but she managed to get away from him again. This would also explain Helen's need to change the way she looks, but now I'm not so sure. Then I thought perhaps Helen conceived Ashely in the 1800's before John's disappearance and due to her extremely slowed aging process, the fetus's growth was slowed immensely as well; however, when I imagined Helen being pregnant for 90+ years, I immediately cringed and tossed that idea out of the window. I have to admit I never really thought about the stasis idea simply because I couldn't imagine Helen doing that to her own child, but it's definitely as good a possibilty as any I guess.

Spoiler:

When Will is looking at the photos in the bedroom, who is the wedding photo of and what time period is it from? Tracy Jane are you about? I know you did some research on Victorian clothing, can you pick the era they belong to? I don't think it is Victorian but clothes aren't my thing.

Spoiler:

Is anyone familiar with the play Twelfth Night, it's not one I've read or seen. Could the "A5 S1" be something from the play? Act / scene?

Does anyone have some insight to offer?

Yeah I was thinking it might be Act/Scene as well. I haven't actually read the play myself, only bits and pieces online since I saw the wepisode, but it's a very interesting read.

Viola - A young woman of aristocratic birth, and the play’s protagonist. Washed up on the shore of Illyria when her ship is wrecked in a storm, Viola decides to make her own way in the world. She disguises herself as a young man, calling herself "Cesario," and becomes a page to Duke Orsino. She ends up falling in love with Orsino—even as Olivia, the woman Orsino is courting, falls in love with Cesario(Viola). Thus, Viola finds that her clever disguise has entrapped her: she cannot tell Orsino that she loves him, and she cannot tell Olivia why she, as Cesario, cannot love her. Her poignant plight is the central conflict in the play. Viola (In-Depth Analysis)

Orsino - A powerful nobleman in the country of Illyria. Orsino is lovesick for the beautiful Lady Olivia, but becomes more and more fond of his handsome new page boy, Cesario, who is actually a woman—Viola. Orsino is a vehicle through which the play explores the absurdity of love: a supreme egotist, Orsino mopes around complaining how heartsick he is over Olivia, when it is clear that he is chiefly in love with the idea of being in love and enjoys making a spectacle of himself. His attraction to the ostensibly male Cesario injects sexual ambiguity into his character. Orsino and Olivia (In-Depth Analysis)

Olivia - A wealthy, beautiful, and noble Illyrian lady, Olivia is courted by Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but to each of them she insists that she is in mourning for her brother, who has recently died, and will not marry for seven years. She and Orsino are similar characters in that each seems to enjoy wallowing in his or her own misery. Viola’s arrival in the masculine guise of Cesario enables Olivia to break free of her self-indulgent melancholy. Olivia seems to have no difficulty transferring her affections from one love interest to the next, however, suggesting that her romantic feelings—like most emotions in the play—do not run deep.

In Scene 5, Act 1 the play comes to a climax and all the secrets are revealed.

Here is a write up...
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespear...ection10.rhtml

I found this particular piece very interesting...

The moment before the climax, significantly, is the most complicated moment in the entire play for Viola, at least in terms of how everyone understands her identity. Just before Sebastian’s entrance, Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, is surrounded by many people, each of whom has a different idea of who she is and none of whom knows who she actually is. Sebastian’s entrance at this point effectively saves Viola from her identity crisis. We might think of the scene as showing Sebastian taking over the aspects of Viola’s disguise that she no longer needs to wear. It is Sebastian whom Antonio has really been seeking, Sebastian who has really married Olivia, and, in the end, Sebastian who is actually male. Thanks to her brother’s assumption of these roles, Viola is free to cast off her masculine disguise. First she casts it off through speech, as she lets everyone know that she is really a woman, and then through deed, as she talks about putting back on her women’s clothing, or “maiden weeds” (V.i.248).

But even once the truth about Viola’s womanhood comes out, the uncertainty that her disguise has raised remains. For instance, Orsino’s declaration of love to Viola is strangely phrased. Continuing to address Viola as if she were male, he says, “Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times / Thou never shouldst love woman like to me” (V.i.260–261). Similarly, in his final lines Orsino declares,

Cesario, come—
For so you shall be while you are a man;
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
(V.i.372–375)

Orsino continues to address his future wife by her assumed male name, which hints at his ongoing attachment to Viola’s masculine potential. Though he knows Viola is a woman, he continues to recognize Cesario as a legitimate identity for Viola. His statement that in female garb Viola will be his queen does not make it clear that he is asking Viola to renounce her assumed male identity forever; nor is it clear whether Orsino is truly in love with Cesario or Viola.

Equally puzzling, but in a different way, is Orsino’s earlier threat to kill Cesario when he thinks his servant has betrayed him. “I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,” he says, and Viola acquiesces meekly (V.i.128). “And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly, / To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die,” she declaims (V.i.130–131). These bizarre speeches—articulating Orsino’s strange violence and Viola’s apparent death wish—recede into the background amid the general rejoicing that follows, but they leave critics baffled. Perhaps Shakespeare is suggesting that love is so close to madness that both Orsino and Viola can easily tip over the edge into blood-drenched insanity, where one lover becomes a killer and the other a sacrificial lamb.

The reason I think I found this all so interesting is while I was perusing information about John Druitt, I came across several pieces that suggested that he may have been homosexual. Given the time period that the Sanctuary story originates, I've been pondering a what if scenario. What if Helen was forced to take on the persona of a man in order to obtain the education necessary to become a doctor? What if John's first meeting of Helen had not been as the woman she is, but rather the man she was portraying. And he fell in love with her under these strange circumstances. I think this would definitely offer an interesting twist to the story especially in explaining why he went so psycho upon hearing the truth.

Granted I'm sure my little scenario is nothing close to what Damian has dreamed up, but it's fun to guess until the truth is revealed.

[jckfan55]

Ah, okay... That makes sense. I had just been doing some research into Job Lewis and got excited, that's all. I was kinda going "WOW! Helen got to meet one of the most influential doctors of the era" kind of thing. I didn't think the clothing and hair looked right, but I was far too excited about the prospect of Job Lewis Smith to let something so trivial get in the way

D'oh!

And I was wondering which picture you were all talking about. I caught the Joe Lewis picture just fine, but haven't rewatched the episode yet to pick out *all* the details.
As a side note, I'd love to see some Helen 1940s flasbacks because among other reasons, I think AT would look great in 1940s styles.

[dipsofjazz]

Yay! I did it! I had already downloaded the first two webisodes, but now I've managed to change the files and record them on a dvd. I then watched the dvd on the telly. It was a wee bit pixely at times, but that was probably my fault for not having a clue as to what I was doing. I'm just so happy that I managed to burn a disc.

Does this make me a geek?