Jim Ellison Jim Ellison was born with hyperactive senses. During his childhood, he had a friend named Bud who helped him with said senses, but was murdered at some point. 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 achieves the rank of captain in the US Army Rangers/Special Forces, working covert ops. His last mission (for
7th group special forces - ODA 731) takes him and his team of seven to Peru to stop a drug-smuggling campaign, but 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, who calls Jim "Enqueri" ("Sentinel"). The following year, when a satellite photo shows seven tombstones at the helicopter's crash site instead of just a pile of scrap metal, the US Army sends in a team to find the sole survivor of the crash and bring him back home. During the series, in flashbacks of Jim's military time, his various military awards and badges were shown on his military uniform. For example, in Season 2 episode "Secrets", Jim's
Silver Star medal is shown. Additionally in the pilot, Jim is shown to be wearing a
Combat Infantryman Badge and the
Parachutist Breast Badge on his uniform. In Season 4 episode "Dead End on Blank Street", Jim is also shown to be wearing a
Combat Medic Breast Badge. When Jim returns to Cascade, Washington, he represses the memories of his time in Peru. Nevertheless, his instincts as a Sentinel remain, leading him to "serve and protect" his "tribe", the residents of Cascade, by joining the police force. Eventually assigned to Vice, he is mentored by Jack Pendergrast, who helps Jim tame his temper and his rebellious attitude. Jim later marries Carolyn Plummer, another detective on the force. Jack then dies, and Carolyn and Jim divorce. After a solitary week-long stakeout in a remote woodland location, Jim's senses begin to re-emerge, focusing primarily on his sight and hearing. Upon his return to the city, his enhanced senses fully manifest, causing disorientation, stress, and a drugged feeling. He can perceive sights, sounds, and smells beyond ordinary human capability, has an aversion to flavorful foods, and experiences discomfort with any slightly coarse materials. Jim opts to check himself into a hospital, where he encounters Blair Sandburg posing as Doctor McCoy (as indicated on the stolen lab coat he wears) or Doctor McKay (as he pronounces it). During the series, Jim falls in love with 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.
Powers 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. 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 that 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). • 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 his youth, he 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 adviser 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, accurately named by one villain: guides. At twenty-six, Blair has an "office" in the basement at Rainier, and an $850 a month, warehouse apartment. During the course of the show, Blair has several girlfriends, sometimes dating more than one woman at a time. One of his ex-girlfriends works at Cascade General, which is how he met Jim in the first place: she told him a man with complaints about all five of his senses had recently been admitted. In Jim's visions, Blair's spirit animal is a grey wolf. ==Cancellation==