The Sentinel (TV series)

Infobox television
show_name = The Sentinel


caption = From left to right: Simon Banks, Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
format = Science fiction Drama
runtime = approx. 45 min (per episode)
creator = Danny Bilson
Paul De Meo
starring = Richard Burgi
Garett Maggart
Bruce A. Young
Kelly Curtis
country = United States
network = UPN
first_aired = March 20, 1996
last_aired = May 24, 1999
num_seasons = 4
num_episodes = 65
imdb_id =
tv_com_id = 1243

"The Sentinel" is a Canadian-produced television series that aired on UPN in the United States from 1996 to 1999. It premiered on March 20, 1996, and ran for 65 episodes (three and a half seasons).

Plot and characters

Jim Ellison was a U.S. Army Ranger who spent 18 months in the Peruvian jungle after his unit was killed. During this time, he developed hyperactive senses that came online five years later, when he was a detective in Cascade PD's Major Crimes Department. When he goes to the hospital to see a doctor, he finds instead Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist from Rainier University who tells him that he's a Sentinel. In ancient tribes, Sentinels protected the village. For Jim, Cascade is his village. Blair has been studying Sentinel mythology for years, but he had never before found a person with all five senses enhanced, a true Sentinel.

Blair helps Jim control his senses and joins Jim as a police observer. To the surprise of many people, this unlikely partnership works and together they fight against crime in the streets of Cascade.

Jim's hyperactive senses mean he can see beyond what others see, even in the dark, and with more detail; hear sounds that are farther than normal range or too low for anybody else; sense what nobody else can with taste, touch and smell, in short becoming a walking forensic lab. But Jim's powers have a drawback: if he concentrates too strongly in one sense, he could "zone out", a kind of catatonic state. Part of Blair's job is preventing the zone outs.

The only person who knows Jim's secret, apart from Blair, is his captain and friend, Simon Banks, and in the last half season, so does Megan Connor.

Cast

Regular

*Det. Jim Ellison - Richard Burgi
*Blair Sandburg - Garett Maggart
*Capt. Simon Banks - Bruce A. Young
*Lt. Carolyn Plummer - Kelly Curtis (season 1)

Recurring

*Megan Connor - Anna Galvin
*Bomb Squad Captain Joel Taggert - Ken Earl
*Det. Brown - Henri Brown
*Det. Rafe - Ryf Van Rij

Character history

Jim Ellison

Jim Ellison was born with hyperactive senses. During his childhood, he had a friend, Bud who helped him with said senses. Unfortunately, Bud was murdered at some point, one of many cases of trauma in his childhood. His mother also left, leaving him to live with his extremely wealthy father, William Ellison, and his brother, Steven Ellison. Jim's relationship with both characters is notably strained, and leads to both the repression of his senses and his joining the Army.

While in the army, Jim becomes a captain in the US Army Rangers and joins Covert Ops. His last mission takes him and his team of seven to Peru to stop a drug-smuggling campaign. Unfortunately, his ranking officer was corrupt and set him and his men up for failure. His helicopter crashes, killing his seven men and leaving him wounded. He is taken in by the Chopec, an elusive and secretive tribe in Peru, and learns to control his senses for the tribe's betterment under the tutelage of Incacha, the tribe's shaman. Incacha calls Jim Enqueri, 'Sentinel'. When a satellite photo finds seven tombstones at the helicopter's crash site, instead of just a pile of scrap metal, the US army sends in a team to bring their man home.

When Jim returns to his city, Cascade, his repression skills come to the fore and leave him without any memories of his time in Peru. Nevertheless, his instincts as a Sentinel are still there as he decides to 'serve and protect' his tribe, his city, Cascade. He joins the police force, and is first assigned to Vice, of which we know little. He might also have spent some time in Narcotics. His temper is legendary, until Jack Pendergast takes him under his wing and transfers him to Major Crimes. Jim then marries Carolyn Plummer, another detective on the force. Jack then dies, and Carolyn and Jim divorce.

Shortly afterwards, Jim is sent on a solitary stakeout for a week. When he returns, his senses reemerge, leaving him feeling a bit on the crazy side. He can see, hear, and smell things that no other person could, he can only handle the blandest of foods, and any barely-coarse materials leave him wishing to claw his skin off. He checks himself into a hospital, where he meets Blair under the guise of Doctor McCoy- or Doctor McKay, as he pronounced it.

During the series Jim falls in love with only a handful of women but most of them end up dying in his arms. Several of Jim's old friends from the Army and police force also end up dead during the course of the show.

As a Sentinel Jim has several powers:
- all 5 senses are strongly enhanced
- able to communicate with ghosts
- has a spirit animal, a black jaguar
- receives visions which guide him in the choices he makes and sometimes predict the future (Jim had a vision that showed Blair's death before Alex killed him [see below] )
- used the power of his animal spirit to bring Blair back from the dead

Blair Sandburg

Blair Sandburg is the genius son of Naomi Sandburg, an absolute flower child. In her youth, she was all about free love and the hippie spirit, and has yet to stop. Blair had little to no stability in his youth, always moving from home to home and never settling, but that was also what spawned his love of anthropology.

When Blair was sixteen, he moved to Cascade, Washington to begin his studies. An anthropology major, his advisor was Eli Stoddard, a major expert in the field. As he quickly moved through his education, he took many trips on grants to various parts of the globe. When he finally decided to get his doctorate, he became a teaching fellow. The topic of his dissertation was the Sentinel. This was brought about by a monograph by Sir Richard Francis Burton that described both the sentinels and their roles in their respective tribes, and their partners, acutely named by one villain: guides.

At twenty-six, Blair has an 'office' in the basement at Rainier, an $850 a month, 10,000 sq. ft. warehouse apartment, and an ex-girlfriend that works at Cascade General, where a man who complains about all five of his senses has recently been admitted.

During the course of the show Blair has several girlfriends, sometimes dating more than one woman at a time.

In Jim's visions Blair's spirit animal is a grey wolf.

eries summary

Jim doesn't believe Blair's explanation about his senses at first. In fact, at their second meeting, Jim throws Blair up against a wall and calls him a 'neo-hippie, witch-doctor punk.' Nevertheless, Jim's senses are a huge problem, as demonstrated when Blair has to shove Jim and himself under an oncoming garbage truck to save Jim from a zone-out. Jim later introduces Blair to Simon Banks, the chief of Major Crimes, and gets Blair a ninety-day observer's pass so that Blair can help with his senses. The excuse to the higher-ups? Blair is (supposedly) Jim's kid cousin, whom he is helping get his doctorate by allowing him to study the police force so he can write a dissertation on the 'thin blue line' and the closed society of the police force.

Soon after, Blair's warehouse apartment is blown up by the drug lab next door, and Jim invites Blair to stay with him at his loft apartment at 852 Prospect Ave., apartment 307. Blair temporarily brings with him Larry the Ape, the remnant of a past experimental study. Although the arrangement is only meant to last a week, Blair stays for years.

On the job, Jim constantly reminds his wayward 'partner' to stay in the truck, although Blair rarely listens. Also, Blair is often the victim of kidnapping and torture by various criminals. Blair also steadily serves to fill out Jim's paperwork and soothe Jim's temper. The other detectives at Major Crimes think of him fondly, and Blair has many nicknames- 'Chief' from Jim, 'Hairboy' from Rafe and Henri, and 'Sandy' from Megan Connor.

At the end of season three, Blair meets a new sentinel, Ms. Alex Barnes, and agrees to help her with her senses. Jim has visions of Alex killing Blair and is haunted by visions of Barnes' spirit animal, a spotted panther. However, at this point Blair has not told Jim there's a new Sentinel in town and Jim is confused over the Sentinel instincts he's receiving. Unsure of what is going on Jim throws Blair out of the loft. Jim and Blair part without having told each other of their reasons for doing what they did. Alex attacks Blair and kills him. After Blair has been proclaimed dead Jim uses the power of his animal spirit to bring Blair back from the dead. However, he's still haunted by spirit visions of Alex and is unable to control a strange attraction to her, leading to a kiss between them in front of Blair. Jim manages to regain control over his Sentinel urges and Alex is eventually sent to live out her life in a mental institution, and Blair returns to the loft.

The last episode of the series, "The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg", shows Blair finishing his dissertation, finally. He has promised Jim to allow him to read it first before he turns it in. Unfortunately, his mother shows up at the loft and sends the document away to Sid Graham, a bigshot agent for publishing in New York. Sid releases snippets of The Sentinel to the press and the general public, who then hound Jim and Blair. In order to repair his relationship with his friend and fix his wrongdoing, Blair gives up the three million dollar contract in a press conference where he makes himself out to be a fraud, thus destroying his academic career. At the end of this last episode, Jim and Simon offer Blair a place in Major Crimes should he choose to accept it.

Cancellation

"The Sentinel" was canceled after 3 seasons by UPN, with the last episode being a big cliffhanger with Blair's life in the balance. An intense fan campaign convinced UPN to give the series a further half a season to end the series properly.

DVD release

On April 18, 2006, CBS Home Entertainment released The Complete First Season of "The Sentinel" on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. It is unknown if the remaining 3 seasons will be released at some point.

International

Outside the US, the series has been broadcasted by the following stations under the following names: