Sanctuary isn’t dead. That is what star and co-executive producer Amanda Tapping told me when I sat down with her last week as she was preparing to direct an episode of the upcoming SPACE series Primeval: New World.

“I don’t think that Sanctuary is dead. If you look really closely you can see the chest rising and falling and I’m standing by with the paddles,” she said, smiling.

Fans have been wondering what has become of the Canadian sci-fi series since the fourth season ended last Christmas. CinemaSpy recently ran a poll asking our readers which of a number of science fiction series they would like to see return for another season: As of today Sanctuary has received over 100,000 votes.

Neither of the North American broadcasters—SPACE in Canada and Syfy in the U.S.—has said whether Sanctuary has been renewed. Neither, thankfully, has either said what fans don’t want to hear: That Sanctuary has been cancelled. That is because it hasn’t, officially. Instead, it seems like everyone involved is currently in TV limbo.

“It’s very complicated and I have just stopped trying to say, ‘We’re waiting to see.’ because that seems woefully unfair,” the Stargate alumnus told me. “The true situation is really multifaceted.”

Sanctuary started life as a web series five years ago this month and is different from most major science fiction and fantasy series because it is largely independently produced. That makes coordinating financing and international distribution deals a complicated process.

“Syfy was taken over by Comcast, which bought NBC, which owns Syfy, and they were not able to make a decision about whether or not they were going to pick us up for the fall season,” said Tapping. “They actually have till July to give us an answer, which takes us off the fall slate automatically. At the same time our financers—we’re a privately financed show [by] the Beedie Group, who have been fantastic and incredible supporters – they own the show, they have made it happen—got nervous: ‘Well what are we going to do without a pick up from Syfy? We can sell to the rest of the world but we need this pick up’.”

Those delays in tying up the deals needed to get the show on the air for a fifth season inevitably led to complications at the production end, Tapping explained.

“Without the pick up our studio came up for lease and [our financers] said, ‘We’re not going to pay for any more studio space. Why would we?’ I absolutely agree with them. The rent doubled and [the landlord] wanted three months in advance and a year-long lease. And thank God they didn’t go for it because we’d still be sitting here and they’d be spending all this money.”

When news came out that the studio lease had ended and some props had gone out for possible auction, some Sanctuary fans naturally feared the worst. Those who were also keen on another Vancouver-shot series that Syfy didn’t officially announce the cancellation of, Stargate Universe, might have remembered the poignant sell-off of props that signaled an end to their hopes of a return for that show. As Tapping pointed out, though, in the case of Sanctuary similar developments don’t inevitably signal the end.

“Anyone who has seen the end of Season 4 [knows] it’s not a big deal that we took down our standing sets,” she said. “Kinda makes sense. It’s okay. And all the assets have been put in storage, some of them have been sold and some of them are being held.”

Even so, getting the show back on the road means keeping the attention of certain people and getting them to talk to other people. That hasn’t been easy, Tapping explained.

“Basically the financers have kind of drifted off and lost a bit of interest and the network hasn’t had to make a decision because contractually they don’t have to. So they haven’t had to answer to their masters and our financers haven’t had to answer to the bank. We really tried to get them to connect and they did for a little while but because Syfy couldn’t make a decision our financers couldn’t make a decision. Nobody’s willing to make an announcement, which I find really fascinating. Syfy won’t announce and SPACE won’t announce.”

SPACE has been showing Sanctuary since its second season (the first aired on The Movie Network and Movie Central in Canada) and has always publically supported the show. The Bell Media-owned channel has earned the respect of Canada’s genre fans and people in the TV industry with its programming slate, which includes many imported series but also several homegrown sci-fi, fantasy and horror shows. The latter include Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, the upcoming Primeval spin-off and, of course, Sanctuary.

“SPACE in Canada was phenomenally supportive,” Tapping said. “They [said], ‘Come back, we want you back.’ So they were the first people on board to bring us back for a fifth season.”

Currently no-one seems particularly optimistic about getting another full season of Sanctuary. Yet, as I pointed out at the beginning of this piece, Tapping and her colleagues on the show haven’t written it off, either.


Dcotors Helen Magnus (Tapping; left) and Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) share a relaxed moment in Sanctuary.
“I think at this point maybe a movie, maybe a miniseries,” Tapping said. “We’ve pitched a bunch of ideas. We’ll see what happens. I don’t think it’s dead but I think at this stage everyone very rightly, including Martin and Damian and myself and Robin [Dunne], Chris Heyerdahl, Ryan Robbins, everyone went off and got other jobs because you have to. They have mortgages to pay, families to support and careers to continue.”

Sanctuary‘s family, then, has faced the fate of many others and been split up by necessity. But this is a close knit group and its members would be happy to reunite under Sanctuary’s roof again given the chance, Tapping assured me.

“Everyone has been very patient for the last four years waiting for Sanctuary to get picked up again and this year it was like, ‘It’s going to take a little while longer kids’,” Tapping said. “But the fact that we’re scattered to the seven seas doesn’t mean that we’re not going to get back together. And we’re all still very much in touch, which is great.”

There’s still hope then for what has become affectionately known as ‘the little show that could.’ And five years since the series debuted online, that’s reason enough to say Happy Fifth Birthday, Sanctuary.