Dare To Believe In Sci-Fi Thriller 'Sanctuary' - And That Rays Team 'Is A Winner'
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Published: October 3, 2008
It took only one visit to Tropicana Field to make Amanda Tapping a Tampa Bay Rays fan.
"This is the way baseball should be played, inside where it's air conditioned," said the reigning queen of the Sci-Fi Channel (at least as far as fans are concerned).
Tapping also was impressed with the royal treatment she received from the fans and the Rays organization.
"Everyone here is so nice, and the team is a winner," she said during a short interview at the Aug. 30 Rays game with Baltimore.
She and co-star Robin Dunne and producer Damian Kindler threw out the first pitch, signed autographs and stuck around to watch the game. Tom Hoof, vice president of marketing and community relations, is a big fan of Tapping's work on the "Stargate" series.
Tonight at 9, the British-born, Canadian-raised Tapping stars as the mysterious, kindhearted and 157-year-old Helen Magnus in "Sanctuary," a new Sci-Fi Channel thriller. She says the character has some secrets that will be revealed over the course of the series, including why she is on a mission to provide safe harbor for creatures, spirits and misfits of nature and science.
In the first episode, she tracks a terrified young boy who is sharing a symbiotic relationship with a thing with deadly tentacles. In her large mansion in London, she houses a mermaid, a Neanderthal manservant, a small winged fairy, a lizard man, a fire-breathing dragon and so on.
Magnus is aided by her impetuous grown daughter (Emilie Ullerup) and a technology wiz (Ryan Robbins). The first episode is told through the eyes of Will Zimmerman (Dunne), an open-minded young forensics scientist who is recruited by Magnus to join her team.
"One of the main themes of this show is daring to believe, and we've all come to believe in this show, which has not only a good story and characters but a revolutionary production process," says Dunne.
Kindler, the series creator, says "Sanctuary" is the first in North America to use the RED camera - a straight-to-hard-drive, high-resolution digital system. The camera makes it possible to create virtual sets. About 80 percent of what is seen on the screen has been created in a computer.
"It looks absolutely amazing, and without it, there is no way we would have been able to afford the look that it has," he says.
Filmed in Vancouver in a converted bicycle factory, "Sanctuary" looks stunning in high definition.
"We work all day in front of green screens, which can give you a killer headache after a while," says Tapping.
"Sometimes I am standing in front of a green screen talking to someone's hand with lips painted on it like a puppet," she says (later the virtual mermaid is added). Other times, tennis balls on stands fill in for creatures.
Tapping spent much of her early career as a blonde. She played Samantha Carter for more than 10 years on the various "Stargate" incarnations.
For more of the interview with Tapping and Kindler, as well as photographs from the series and their visit to the Rays game, go to Keyword: Walt TV, on TBOextra.com.
Also at Walt TV, Tammie Souza, the new chief meteorologist at WTSP, Channel 10, explains why she was wearing sexy pink shorts on her last day on a Chicago TV station.
TUNE IN TONIGHT
Everybody Hates Chris, 8 p.m., The CW
This overlooked but very funny family comedy based on Chris Rock's childhood begins its fourth season with Chris entering high school. He lands in an all-white class with a bigoted teacher.
