The Sentinel (TV series)

The Sentinel
From left to right: Simon Banks, Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
Created by	Danny Bilson Paul De Meo
Written by	Danny Bilson Paul De Meo Gail Morgan Hickman Harold Apter Laurence Frank
Starring	Richard Burgi Garett Maggart Bruce A. Young Kelly Curtis Anna Galvin
Country of origin	United States Canada
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	65 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Danny Bilson Paul De Meo
Producer(s)	Gail Morgan Hickman
Running time	approx. 45 min (per episode)
Production company(s)	Pet Fly Productions Paramount Network Television
Release
Original network	UPN
Original release	March 20, 1996 – May 24, 1999

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 (four seasons). The series later reaired on Syfy.

Jim Ellison was a US Army Ranger who spent 18 months in the Peruvian jungle after the rest of his unit was killed. He developed hyperacute senses from surviving in the wild, but repressed them when he returned to civilization. His sensory abilities re-manifested five years later, while conducting an extended stakeout in the forest as a detective in the Major Crimes Unit of the Cascade, Washington, police department. He went to a hospital for an examination where he met Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist from Rainier University, whom Ellison initially mistook for a physician. Upon hearing Ellison's story, Sandburg declares that Ellison is a "Sentinel": in ancient tribes, Sentinels used their enhanced senses to protect their village. For Jim, Cascade is his village. Blair had been studying Sentinel mythology for years. While he found many individuals with one or two hyperactive senses, 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. Their unlikely partnership works, and together they fight crime in the streets of Cascade.

Jim's hyperacute senses allow him to perceive things undetectable by normal humans. He can see perfectly in low light situations and with superb acuity at long distances, hear sounds at extremely low volume or beyond the normal range of human hearing, and sense what others cannot via taste, touch and smell; he declares himself "a walking forensic lab". Jim's powers have a drawback: if he concentrates too strongly on one sense, he may become oblivious to his immediate surroundings. Part of Blair's job is preventing this, and protecting Jim when he is focusing.

The only person aside from Sandburg who knows Jim's secret is his captain and friend, Simon Banks.

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.