 Rugged police detective James Ellison and good-natured anthropology student Blair Sandburg become an improbable team when the renegade detective develops a dramatically different advantage -- his five senses are heightened wildly beyond that of an ordinary human being -- and the hip, young graduate student knows an extraordinary thesis subject when he sees one. Richard Burgi stars as James Ellison and Garett Maggart stars as Blair Sandburg in The Sentinel, a one-hour series combining riveting stories of hyper-sensory powers with broad-scale and dramatic police action.
Although Ellison finds Sandburg annoying, he trusts only him with the secret of his sentinel-like hyper-senses. When Ellison -- with Sandburg's help -- is quickly able to break a tough case, he convinces his supervisor, Captain Simon Banks (Bruce A. Young), that Sandburg is studying police science and he is granted permission to observe him in the field. Ellison and his unlikely new partner seek both the cause and cure for hiscondition and begin to use Ellison's edge in the pursuit of justice.
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By the time James Ellison was recruited to the Cascade Police Department, he had already made a name for himself in the world through his extraordinary experiences as Captain in the U.S. Army's Special Services. Five years earlier, Ellison was found alive in the Peruvian jungle after his U.S. Army helicopter crashed there, killing his fellow crewmen. Unaware that he was listed as Missing-In-Action and presumed to be dead, Ellison continued on the mission, relying on his specialized skills to survive in a hostile jungle for
18 long months. When he was finally rescued and his traumatic ordeal told, Captain James Ellison became a household name.
Now, as a member of an elite division of the Cascade police, Ellison is renowned for his expertise and routinely assigned to handle the most formidable cases. While alone on a lengthy, high risk stake-out, the hard-edged detective fears he is succumbing to mental illness as he suddenly possesses alarming hyper-senses. Feeling vulnerable, Ellison chooses not to reveal his mystifying abilities to anyone. But, ultimately, he begrudgingly consents to let Sandburg, an amiable graduate student whose personality clashes with his own, observe him in exchange for Sandburg's help in determining how to use the newfound capability to Ellison's advantage.
Sandburg theorizes that Ellison is the living embodiment of his field of study -- and a behavioral throwback to a pre-civilized breed of man. He explains to a skeptical Ellison that in primitive cultures, a tribe's survival depended on asentinel a guide with sensory awareness beyond the others. These watchmen monitored approaching enemies, the movement of game and changes in the weather by relying on acute sensory perception. They honed their capability by spending time alone in the wild. Sandburg surmises that during Ellison's lone ordeal in the jungle he developed, and since repressed, skills akin to a sentinel's. Further, he believes, the danger and isolation of his recent police stake-out likely caused the hyper-senses to resurface. Sandburg also warns the detective of one serious disadvantage to his condition -- when a sentinel's hyper-senses are engaged, he involuntarily tunes out the rest of his environment, creating a moment of vulnerability. Because of this potential danger, the pre-historic sentinels were accompanied by a partner.