Season one of Sanctuary will be released on DVD on September 15.

DVD features and cover art after the jump.

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Want to know what came out of the San Diego Comic-Con related to Sanctuary?

Attendees included executive producers Martin Wood & Damian Kindler and actors Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne.

There are clips from the panel below, but for the quick summary of what is talked about:

• season 2 is a “future story”
• there will be post apocalyptic episode of a ‘probable future”
• new characters will be introduced in season 2
• we’ll learn there are sanctuaries all over the world
• Amanda Tapping will direct an episode in season 2
• there will be events that have taken place between the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2
• a new Han Solo character named Kate Freelander (played by Robin D’Arcy) will be introduced in the season opener
• guest stars will include Stargate’s Michael Shanks, Smallville’s Callum Blue and Eureka stars Erica Cerra and Chris Gauthier
• Tapping cast Cerra in the episode she directs
• Wood says you’ll see the main characters do things you’ve never seen them do before

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The Syfy channel has confirmed the air dates for the first season of Stargate Universe and the second season of Sanctuary.

Stargate Universe will kick off on Friday October 2, 2009 at 9pm.

Sanctuary returns for a second season on Friday October 9, 2009 at 10 pm.

The return of Sanctuary marks the first time in history that an online series has transitioned to the small screen and survived its first season.

Lost, Battlestar Galactica & True Blood Are Emmy Nominees

The nominees list for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards has been announced and there are quite a few sci-fi and fantasy shows in the mix this time around.

Battlestar Galactica was the clear winner with 6 nominations including Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series, and Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series.

Lost came next with 5 nominations including, notably, Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Michael Emerson).

True Blood was also successful in drawing 3 nominations.

It is pleasing to see highly underrated Legend of the Seeker is also up for an Emmy care of Joe LoDuca’s music, although one of the most notable snubs of the year has to be a lack of a nomination to Bear McCreary for his music to Battlestar Galactica. McCreary’s music to Daybreak Parts 1 & 2 was nothing short of outstanding and considering all of Battlestar’s nominations came from Daybreak Pt 2 (the series finale) it is a shame not to see Bear McCreary’s name in the nominee list.

Additional nominees include Fringe, Heroes, Smallville, Life on Mars, Sanctuary and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Below is a modified Emmy Nominee list with all categories and nominees removed that are not from the sci-fi and fantasy genre for ease of reading.

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The 11th Annual Leo Awards have just played out in Vancouver and it’s a safe bet to say the production teams behind Stargate and Sanctuary will be feeling pretty happy right about now.

Stargate Atlantis won 9 of the 17 nominations it received for its fifth and final season.  Atlantis also took home the win for the coveted ‘Best Series Award’.

The made-for-dvd movie Stargate: Continuum also won 3 of the 11 awards it was nominated for and Michael Shanks (aka Daniel Jackson) won the ‘Best Lead Actor’ award.

Sci Fi’s new series Sanctuary has pulled in 4 wins from its 10 nominations – a monumental achievement from its first seasonal run.  Sanctuary star and exec producer Amanda Tapping (who also appeared in the fifth season of Stargate Atlantis) won the Best Lead Performance award for her acting in the Sanctuary episode ‘Requiem’.  She was joined by Ryan Robbins who won the Best Guest Performance award for his role as Edward in the Sanctuary episode ‘Revelations Part 2′.

All in all the awards ceremony was an amazing night for the production teams behind Stargate and Sanctuary who collectively amassed an amazing 38 nominations and at least 16 wins (final tally to be verified once all results are in).

The Leo Awards were founded in 1999 to provide support and recognition for the work of filmmakers.

Although it was Stargate Atlantis that ruled the night, with ten nominations and four wins from only its first season you have to give a lot of credit to the cast and crew of Sanctuary.

Sanctuary follows the adventures of Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping), forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) and Magnus’ daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup) as together they track down, study and protect strange and sometimes terrifying creatures that secretly populate the Earth.

Sanctuary is the first television show based on an online series to ever be picked up for a second season (which will consist of 13 hour long episodes).

Production began on the second season of Sanctuary just over a month ago in Vancouver.

Although it has yet to be officially confirmed, Sanctuary is expected to return to SyFy in October 2009 where it will feature alongside Stargate Universe on Friday nights.  We’re guessing both of these series will feature heavily in the 12th Annual Leo Awards in 2010.

Visit the Leo Awards Official Website

Visit the Sanctuary Official Website

Visit the Stargate Atlantis Website

A full list of award winners will be published on the Leo Awards Official Website shortly.

The latest edition of Stargate Atlantis Mag (Issue 27) has been out for a couple of weeks now and is dedicated to the ending of Stargate Atlantis. It includes information and images from the final two days of filming as well as an interview with Amanda Tapping, aka Samantha Carter.  Following is an excerpt from that interview:

Amanda Tapping is a busy woman. Not only is she the lead actress and Executive Producer on the hit show Sanctuary, but she still finds time to occasionally don Sam Carter¹s uniform. Despite Carter¹s departure from Stargate: Atlantis in the first episode of season five, she came back for the series finale. Shooting Sam¹s return during the show¹s final week must have been bittersweet.

“I was there for the last day!” exclaimed the actress when we spoke just after the show wrapped.  “I wasn’t there for the last shot, I have to be honest, because it’s a hard shot to watch. I had just wrapped Sanctuary, so I came off my new show and back on to Stargate: Atlantis, and I started feeling weird.  It was sad.  I was really shocked when it got canceled.  The show was doing well, the episodes this season are really good, it was getting good ratings and everything was in place ­ it made sense to keep it going. They’re a great crew and I hope that they manage to keep a lot of that crew on for Universe.”

The family atmosphere on the Stargate set is legendary, and these very pages often carry tales of the good times to be had in Vancouver.  Are there any particular memories from her sojourn to the City of the Ancients that Tapping will take with her?

“I’d have to go back to season four.  Doing the episode ‘Trio’ with David Hewlett and Jewel Staite.  I don’t know what the fans thought of the episode, and it’s probably best that I don’t know, because it was just so much fun!  I haven’t laughed so hard in such a long time ­ the whole cast of Stargate: Atlantis are really talented, really nice people.  Being able to hang out just the three of us and go through those shared experiences was amazing; me conquering my fear of heights ­ not really, but trying to; being thrown around on a gimble, and writing Stargate: Atlantis ­ The Musical.  Those kinds of memories are priceless.  That for me was a huge highlight.”

As far as Amanda Tapping is concerned, that legion of fans deserve special mention:

“I’ve always said that the fans have always been paramount to me, and they’ve been amazing.  I want to say thank you to the people who have supported, and continue to support me, no matter what I do.  They went over and checked out Sanctuary when it was on the web to be supportive of me, and I appreciate that.  Whether they stick with the show or not is entirely up to them, but the fact that they gave it a try is hugely important.   The fact that they gave me a chance going over to Stargate: Atlantis is just as big.  You remember the bad things, but I really try to remember the good things that people have said, and there have been so many.  With two possible movie appearances next year, whatever the future holds, Sam Carter’s place in the Stargate-verse will never be in doubt.”

Read the full interview in Issue 27 of The Official Stargate SG-1/Atlantis Magazine

Not long after the SCI FI Channel announced the green-light for a second season of its new sci-fi series ‘Sanctuary‘ comes the news that its first season finale raked in 2 million viewers.  As a result, Sanctuary made it into the top 10 most watched cable television shows for its screening day.

But that’s not all.  Sanctuary has been doing extremely well episode by episode, with viewer numbers continuing to climb throughout the first season (after an impressive 3 million viewers tuned in for episode one).  With the success of the finale, Sanctuary averaged more than 2 million viewers for its full season making it the best performing first-year original scripted series to appear on SCI FI since the debut of Eureka.

Sanctuary is the first television series of its kind to be filmed entirely in front of a green-screen, using virtual sets much like Zack Snyder did to create his smash-hit 300. Read the rest of this entry »