Sanctuary's world and its plots are ludicrous. They barely utter a word to rationalize all this nonsense, so it is a very, very soft form of scifi. It's hard SF edge wouldn't cut meringue.
The thing is, the people making this show know the cardinal rule for scifi: If your science is ridiculous, don't do solemn and pompous.
Sanctuary doesn't camp it up, they play it straight, especially the characters. Said characters are pleasant visitors to your living room (much nicer than the Warehouse 13 people.) These nice people have adventures, much more exciting ones than on Eureka. The adventures have no limits on their premises, taking done stuff, strapping it to a rocket and taking off. It's like Farscape that way, although they don't rewrite characters the way Farscape did. At least not yet.
The smart guy was Dr. Watson, not Sherlock Holmes? Done, thank you, Ben Kingsley. But when Sanctuary does it, smart Dr. Watson is still alive
and he's a cyborg!
Nikola Tesla invented incredible technology? Done, thank you, David Bowie. But when Sanctuary does it, Tesla is not only still alive but he's evil
because he's a freaking vampire!
Cute little varmints that breed like crazy? This is a Trek bbs, half of us wish tribbles were real. They turn out to be carnivorous? We've seen the box for Critters at the video store, and we've actually seen Gremlins. But when Sanctuary does it, it's
carnivorous LUV tribbles that make our characters horny!
The show is not entirely without emo. The handyman, who is also an electronics genius, has werewolf angst. Merely combining lycanthropy and hacking is probably the most restrained this show has been.
The mayor had batwings. Shame he was assassinated.
The characters live in a ginormous mediaeval monastery, no doubt built by the Cistercian tribe of American Indians.
The city they live in has a broken suspension bridge. They must like it that way.
One character is named Big Bertha. She turns out to be a gigantic sea spider who is telepathically influenced
by a Bollywood dance routine.
Obviously, people who like serialization, or who like people having melodramatic confrontations over their love lives and/or discussing their relationships, or who like their nonsense pompous and solemn, or who identify with sociopaths, will not like this show. What doesn't make any sense is thinking it's average.
