Fata Morgana (103)

[knowles2]

Well I am loving the Sanctuary series. The episode was pretty good. I love the elevator scene.

The ending was really good.
I thought the set up the cabal group and Abnormal intelligence network was done pretty well. I got a feeling the Cabal gonna regret taking the witches back and messing with Helen. They have deferentially got to start to respect those witches from now on.

The only real thing that disappointed me was Helen not having a few more surprises, like perhaps using the Sanctuary own Abnormals against the invading forces, I mean after all some of them think of the place as a home I would of liked to of seen them helped defend it. But I guest this episode is one of their low budget ones, reusing stock footage from the webisodes.

I enjoyed the Bridge scene. And I thought the autopsy scene was good. Through I would like to know how they got back from Scotland with three witches and the dead bodies.

And I thought Will in the elevator scene was pretty funny. But I am surprise that he one of the ones allowed of their cages, given his uncontrolled thoughts. I think he gonna be causing trouble in the future. Just the looked on his face, he enjoys winding will up.

Was a shame that Paul did not reappear as the professor but I guest they wanted a more available actor to become a reoccurring guest character.

[Falcon 304]

I'm gonna have to find another (legal) way to get the episodes. Streaming from scifi and hulu isn't working isn't working. Well, it is, but not...well. Dialogue and video don't mesh well. Old computer...

suse

I find the quality to be nice (I have fairly new SDTV, but it displays some channels like utter crap, scifi being one of them ), but they cut a bit from the top and bottom for no reason, and squish it as well.

[RealmOfX]

Didn't like it as much as the premier.

Mythology was a bit of a mishmash.

Morrigan is Irish Celtic.
Music was Irish Celtic.
Girls found in Scotland, not in Ireland.
Girls last battle at Baden Hill (Somerset) about 350 miles from Scotland.
Girls home in Scotland? Or Ireland? Or Somerset?

Morrigan is a battle field goddess but Danu isn't one of her names (different goddess entirely). I should look up the other girls names, but The White Goddess is still about and there are plenty of other lists online of Her names, shouldn't have been hard to find a suitable one.

This is the one which really puzzled me, Morrigan has no connection (bar the similarity of name, though the names have different roots) with Morgan/Fata Morgana/Arthurian myth cycle (Welsh/English with a healthy dose of later French romance). So why Fata Morgana as the episode title and why bring Arthurian myths in at all?

Last dose of plague in Scotland, 1900, not 900. Even a Canadian school boy should know about the Great Plague in 1665, decimated most of Europe, including Scotland.

Ashley needs more work, more personality beyond her proto-Buffy fight skills. Great shot of her coming up through the water.
I was more aware of CGI this week, assume it was earlier CGI from webisodes re-used.
Helen is morally ambiguous, hope this leads to more conflict with Wil.
Liked the addition of another group with interests in supernatural creatures, wonder what their agenda is?

Hope my disappointment with this week is just a blip (due to knowing way too much about Celtic mythology and goddess' in particular) still looking forward to next week and new material not on the webisodes.

FF

I'm liking the TV series but I'm having trouble objectively viewing it because I keep comparing it to the webisodes. I'm leaving any detailed comments until I get to see a couple of episodes with new material. I think this episode suffered just a little from it's basic storyline being altered so much from the webisodes. I'm not saying it wasn't good but I thought they did a much better job of fitting their version of myth into their fictional world in the webisodes (I truly loved Danu's "I remember who we are" scene).

One thing to keep in mind when watching Sanctuary is that Damian intended it to be similar to our world but it is not our world so things will be different, hence being set in a city which is supposed to be a mixture of elements from Gotham City and New York City. So is it reasonable to be overly comparing the show's chosen way to develop their mythology to a specific version of our mythology?

Here's a different viewpoint on some of the points you raised.


Girls found in Scotland, not in Ireland.
Girls last battle at Baden Hill (Somerset) about 350 miles from Scotland.
Girls home in Scotland? Or Ireland? Or Somerset?

It is possible to be born somewhere and travel someplace else and for your captors to again take you somewhere else and imprison you. I'm not sure of the correlation you are trying to draw from being in a place and the witches home.

This is the one which really puzzled me, Morrigan has no connection (bar the similarity of name, though the names have different roots) with Morgan/Fata Morgana/Arthurian myth cycle (Welsh/English with a healthy dose of later French romance). So why Fata Morgana as the episode title and why bring Arthurian myths in at all?

As the original storyline was directly involved with the Arthur myths I can see why it is there. Now the way I see it is that Damian was combining the concepts of the triple goddess and the trio of witches that constantly appear throughout our mythology to create their own mythology. To my knowledge there was at least one account of three witches connected to the Arthurian legend in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, who sucked the life out of Arthur's soldiers on the battlefields. The names Morrigan, Danu, Tatha and Caird could simply have been taken or been variations from existing mythology names. Actually I remember Tracy putting up some research over on the Sanctuary Fans Forum last year, I should go check it out.

Now as for the plague, it should be noted that the term plague was historically applied to a lot of things that resulted in the death of many people. Also the terms plague and bubonic plague tend to be erroneously used interchangeably. Today there is a section of scientists who believe that most of "the plague" outbreaks attributed to bubonic plague were actually some kind of hemorrhagic disease. I can't remember the book I read about it but it was a recent book written about 4-5 years ago. Now it's quite possible that Damian's research took him along that alternate path of thinking since Will deliberately differentiated between plague and bubonic plague.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Actually something I will comment on from this episode :

*pouts*

No Wexford or Steve appearances!! I loved those two characters! We did get a Steve mention by Will but there was no training sequence in the alley, maybe in a future episode please??

I can understand why they took Wexford out because they changed the storyline but hopefully there will be a use for his character in the future?

[helenmagnus23]

I just watched FATA MORGANA it was great i loved it my favorite scenes were seeing Helen blow away the keepers and telling the leader of the Cabal to get off her property and Ashley taking Will's gun and when Henery gets caught and he's empitying his pockets i cant wait for the next episode .

[Rocky89]

Cross post from Sanctuary Forum.

----------------------------

Alright, 20 minutes in and I'm not liking the story changes that much. The Keepers are governed by... someone/some organization? Yeah...

EDIT

I suppose I'll just edit this on commercials.

YAY for more Bigfoot dialog. It seems that they've reused EVERYTHING from the webisodes. Because of this, Amanda is wearing her wig for the episode (except for maybe one scene so far). I'm continuing to not really like the changing of the story.

EDIT 2

AW MAN! They changed what Steve looks like. First scene back from the commercials was EPIC though. It almost seems as if Amanda may have just straightened her hair, but it also seems too dark for that to be so. Sometimes, and sometimes not seeing the streak of color in there is throwing me off.

EDIT 3

Okay, I'm liking the establishment of bad guys, but I still don't like how they never explained the myth of The Morrigan. I also think that Amanda straightened her hair, but can't be certain.

I currently have no other thoughts other than OMG HELEN DID THE MOST BAD *** ****ING THING I'VE EVER ****ING SEEN IN THE HISTORY OF ****ING EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well since I've never really seen the webisodes, I don't really have a point of reference, expect the comments I've read about the changes. I agree, her hair does look like a wig in a few shots, and when I see them I think "Oh, she's still blonde under there" . And yeah, Helen kicking butt-- AWESOME, I WANT MORE .

And now a question about the opening credits. Does anybody else think that might have been a picture of Amanda and Olivia?

That was actually the very first thing I thought of as soon as I saw that pic, I actually rewinded the tape to see that again. If that is Olivia, I'm sure Amanda thought about it, and maybe she thought it'd be a sweet gesture to put her on TV. But we don't know for sure so we shouldn't jump to conclusions. But I will say this though, the dress Amanda/Helen's wearing in the pic looks like the one Amanda wore at AT3, and if that is a real pic, maybe it was taken before AT3 and after Amanda dyed her hair.

i've got about 45 minutes until it's on for me, but after it's over, i *have* to go to bed (have to get up and 4:30am) and i won't be able to review it until tomorrow... work is a four-letter word.

but i'm VERY excited to see sanctuary tonight!!

That early? Wow Sally, you're tough, and at least you'll have some caffeine waiting for ya when you get that there . Plus, if Amanda can do all those long hard hours at work, you can too. *Wink*

just a quick note and then bed time...

LOVED the ep!!

Word.

my thoughts on 'fata mogana'.

loved it!

i'm very glad they've worked on mellowing ashley. she's a much more likeable person. my mom was woo hooing while ash was kicking butt.

loved that the three witches weren't all that bad after all. they were given an option to be something different, which i'm hoping we'll see (them) again. i especially liked the main sister. i don't know where i've seen her before, but i like her.

the black guy that was the head of the organization that wanted the witches back, we've seen him before on sg1. and he was being snarky to amanda/character then too!

very cool scene of ashley hanging out at the end of the brooklyn bridge... really curious on what happened to the bridge and society for that to happen.

my only complaint is MORE HELEN is needed!!, but i'm sure that's going to come along, like any fine dish that's slowly surved... just don't let us starve to death first.

excellent second ep of the series!


sally

"and he was being snarky to amanda/character then too!" Sally, have you forgotten about Sam already? Just kidding . But yeah, more Helen/Amanda is always better, and like you, I know more will come, after all, I need my Amanda fix .

i liked the allowance line as well, but i think they're trying to soften the helen/ashley relationship, so maybe that's why they changed it. but it didn't take anything away from the ep for me at all.

i was telling to my mom that i'm glad this isn't an all shoot 'em up show. they're taking the time to know and delve into the characters, which i think is the number one interesting thing about any story. at least ones i like (and end up falling in love with).

i'm soooooooo glad amanda kept the british helen accent!


sally

Me too .

i loved their interactions in the ep too! like, when helen's in ashley's room (and holding her cup of tea), and just wanting to make sure her daughter would be careful and safe. and their loving kiss goodbye. i also chuckled when helen called her while ash was on the roof of some building (or ash called her), and when helen asked ashley if she got hurt and ash said no, helen said she'd change the bandages when she got home.

I love their time on screen together, I'd like to see Helen and Ashley spend some normal time together, like in a theme park or something, that'd be nice .

[suse]

I'm liking the TV series but I'm having trouble objectively viewing it because I keep comparing it to the webisodes. I'm leaving any detailed comments until I get to see a couple of episodes with new material. I think this episode suffered just a little from it's basic storyline being altered so much from the webisodes. I'm not saying it wasn't good but I thought they did a much better job of fitting their version of myth into their fictional world in the webisodes (I truly loved Danu's "I remember who we are" scene).

One thing to keep in mind when watching Sanctuary is that Damian intended it to be similar to our world but it is not our world so things will be different, hence being set in a city which is supposed to be a mixture of elements from Gotham City and New York City. So is it reasonable to be overly comparing the show's chosen way to develop their mythology to a specific version of our mythology?
<snip>

This is the one which really puzzled me, Morrigan has no connection (bar the similarity of name, though the names have different roots) with Morgan/Fata Morgana/Arthurian myth cycle (Welsh/English with a healthy dose of later French romance). So why Fata Morgana as the episode title and why bring Arthurian myths in at all?

As the original storyline was directly involved with the Arthur myths I can see why it is there. Now the way I see it is that Damian was combining the concepts of the triple goddess and the trio of witches that constantly appear throughout our mythology to create their own mythology. To my knowledge there was at least one account of three witches connected to the Arthurian legend in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, who sucked the life out of Arthur's soldiers on the battlefields. The names Morrigan, Danu, Tatha and Caird could simply have been taken or been variations from existing mythology names. Actually I remember Tracy putting up some research over on the Sanctuary Fans Forum last year, I should go check it out.

<snip>
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Actually something I will comment on from this episode :

*pouts*

No Wexford or Steve appearances!! I loved those two characters! We did get a Steve mention by Will but there was no training sequence in the alley, maybe in a future episode please??

I can understand why they took Wexford out because they changed the storyline but hopefully there will be a use for his character in the future?

I loves Steve too. I hope they use that bit, I think they can later.

Wexford was cool too. I liked the Arthurian stuff. Whether it was accurate or not, it was cool.

I have a copy of the ep I can actually watch so am really liking this better now.

suse

[majorsal]

I love their time on screen together, I'd like to see Helen and Ashley spend some normal time together, like in a theme park or something, that'd be nice .

i hope, WHEN we get a season 2 , we'll get to see 1- helen's decision to 'finally' bring ashley into the world, and 2- seeing young ashley/helen interactions. doesn't have to be a lot of screen time devoted to it, but i'd love to see helen raising ashley through time.



sally

[hisg1fans]

i hope, WHEN we get a season 2 , we'll get to see 1- helen's decision to 'finally' bring ashley into the world, and 2- seeing young ashley/helen interactions. doesn't have to be a lot of screen time devoted to it, but i'd love to see helen raising ashley through time.



sally

LOL

What do you think Helen taught Ashley first?

To ride a bike? Or to handle a weapon?

[poundpuppy29]

I just watched it it was ok but I liked the premire more.

I didn't watch the Webisodes so I can't comment on those but I could tell that AT was wearing a wig.

I really like Will big surprise being a Daniel fan but I really don't see any chemistry with the girl who is playing his ex that part really left me cold.

I really liked the ending the heroes didn't save the day.

[Integrabyte]

Just finished this. This one seemed rushed compared to the pilot. I liked the latter more and this one has the same problem you see in Atlantis. They cannot film fight and heavy action scenes . They are great with landscape, and static objects but when moving is involved the camera fails to follow properly or it follows but the whole scene changes and looks amateurish .

Ash is still the rebel teen with the run and gun enthusiasm. I hope she matures a bit throughout the season.

CGI was okay, however, some scenes with Helen in the house looked very fake due to the fact that she was moving and shooting. Their eternal problem once again . The good CGI shots, perfect I might add, were the ones used in the Pilot, the circling camera on the mansion, and the bridge .

I am not a Buffy or Angel fan. I've never seen more than 3 episodes from both series. From what I saw in this one, the monsters and approach looked very similar.

I still don't know if I like it. Time will tell, for the moment, bring on the next one . Oh, and Helen was gorgeous with the shotgun . Lovely outfit for Amanda and very well done scene .

Speaking of which...yummmay

[Mcfergeson]

I've never seen the webisodes, so this is all new for me. And I'm enjoying it so far. I liked Fata Morgana's introduction of a new villain, the Cabal. A recurring baddie is just what the show needs.

I'm liking Ashley a great deal. She's sort of a cross between Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Selene from Underworld. I'm also becoming a fan of big foot.

It was also fun seeing Leah Cairns from Battlestar Galactica as one of the witches. Cairns played Racetrack on BSG.

[EvenstarSRV]

It was also fun seeing Leah Cairns from Battlestar Galactica as one of the witches. Cairns played Racetrack on BSG.

Whoa, thanks! I knew I'd seen her before but I couldn't remember from where. How could I forget Racetrack!

[majorsal]

i watched the ep again. good, solid entertainment, but a huge dose of WOW!

and can i say amanda tapping rocks? i can? thanks!

AMANDA TAPPING ROCKS!!!!!!!

helen is cool

[The_Carpenter]

Just watched it on ITV4... few thoughts, mainly why call the episode "fata morgana" when despite Arthurian mythology being mentioned it has nothing to do with Morgana La Fey? odd.

Other than that awesome bit of escapism for an Monday night (and did anyone else notice the recycling of the Kull Warrior prosthetic? )

[RealmOfX]

Just watched it on ITV4... few thoughts, mainly why call the episode "fata morgana" when despite Arthurian mythology being mentioned it has nothing to do with Morgana La Fey? odd.
<snip>

Because the story was rewrittten from the webisodes where it had a lot to do with the Arthurian legend (Merlin specifically).