The BEST episodes of The Sentinel

Every episode of The Sentinel ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Sentinel!

Jim Ellison was a U.S. Army Ranger who spent 18 months in the Peruvian jungle after his unit was killed. During this time, he developed hyperactive senses that came online five years later, when he was a detective in Cascade PD's Major Crimes Department. When he goes to the hospital to see a doctor, he finds instead Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist from Rainier University who tells him that he's a Sentinel. In ancient tribes, Sentinels protected the village. For Jim, Cascade is his village. Blair has been studying Sentinel mythology for years, but he never found before a person with all five senses enhanced, a true Sentinel. Blair helps Jim control his senses and joins Jim as a police observer. To the surprise of many people, this unlikely partnership works and together they fight against crime in the streets of Cascade. Jim's hyperactive senses mean he can see beyond what others see, even in the dark, and with more detail; hear sounds that are farther than normal range or too low for anybody else; sense what nobody else can with taste, touch and smell, in short becoming a walking forensic lab. But Jim's powers have a drawback: if he concentrates too strongly in one sense, he could "zone out", a kind of catatonic state. Part of Blair's job is preventing the zone outs. The only person who knows Jim's secret, apart from Blair, is his captain and friend, Simon Banks, and in the last half season, so does Megan Connor.

Last Updated: 2/26/2024Network: UPNStatus: Ended
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The Switchman
star
7.77
87 votes

#1 - The Switchman

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/20/1996

The sole survivor of an Army plane crash in the Peruvian hinterlands, Jim Ellison subsisted for nearly two years on his raw animal instincts. When he returned to America and became a police lieutenant, Jim discovered that the abilities that had kept him alive in the jungle now gave him extraordinary senses of perception. With the help of Captain Simon Banks and a grad student Blair Sandburg, Jim now attempts to use these powers to apprehend a terrorist bomber called the Switchman.

Directors: Danny Bilson
Watch Now:Amazon
Rogue
star
7.38
16 votes

#2 - Rogue

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/8/1996

While guest-lecturing in Blair's anthropology class, Jim saves the entire building from a deadly gas leak designed to distract the attention while a canister of the Ebola virus was being stolen from the hazardous materials lab.

Directors: Mike Vejar
Watch Now:Amazon
Love and Guns
star
7.29
14 votes

#3 - Love and Guns

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/15/1996

After stopping an armored car heist, Ellison is struck by the high-tech weaponry at the criminals' disposal.

Writer: Bruce Kalish
Watch Now:Amazon
Night Train
star
7.22
18 votes

#4 - Night Train

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/1/1996

Jim and Blair are assigned to escort Derek Wilson, a key witness in a local homicide case, on his train ride to the courthouse in Cascade.

Directors: Bruce Bilson
Writer: Harold Apter
Watch Now:Amazon
The Rig
star
7.22
9 votes

#5 - The Rig

Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/6/1996

When employees start dying aboard the North Star Five oilrig, Jim and Blair conclude that ex-con Truck Brower is their most obvious suspect.

Directors: Danny Bilson
Writer: Harv Zimmel
Watch Now:Amazon
The Debt
star
7.14
44 votes

#6 - The Debt

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/10/1996

When Blair moves unknowingly into an apartment next to the drug lab of a gang, Jim finds himself embroiled in a gang war.

Directors: Gus Trikonis
Writer: Steven Baum
Watch Now:Amazon
Cypher
star
7.11
72 votes

#7 - Cypher

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 4/24/1996

Blair and Jim, with forensics specialist Carolyn Plummer, suspect that a series of seemingly unrelated murders are actually the work of a serial killer.

Directors: Mike Vejar
Watch Now:Amazon
True Crime
star
7.08
12 votes

#8 - True Crime

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/9/1996

Ellison gets fame when the police department invites TV producer Wendy Hawthorne and her cameraman to do a piece on him for her show ""True Crime.""

Directors: Tony Westman
Watch Now:Amazon
Reunion
star
7.08
13 votes

#9 - Reunion

Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/25/1996

When Blair and Jim join Captain Banks at his 20-year high school reunion the Captain's old sweetheart, Peggy Anderson, turns up dead with Banks her apparent murderer.

Watch Now:Amazon
Vow of Silence
star
7.08
40 votes

#10 - Vow of Silence

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 7/17/1996

As Blair forces Jim to a vacation at a remote monastery, Ellison begins to enjoy until one of the monks is found dead.

Directors: Jeffrey Reiner
Writer: Bruce Kalish
Watch Now:Amazon
Flight
star
7.07
43 votes

#11 - Flight

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/4/1996

During a flight to South America, Captain Banks and his son Daryl crash land in the Peruvian jungle.

Directors: Danny Bilson
Watch Now:Amazon
Killers
star
7.03
73 votes

#12 - Killers

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/3/1996

After witnessing the death of undercover officer Danny Choi at the hands of sniper Tommy Juno, Jim uses his vision to identify and apprehend the killer.

Directors: Bruce Bilson
Watch Now:Amazon
Attraction
star
7.00
67 votes

#13 - Attraction

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/22/1996

Jim's sentinel abilities detect something strange at the scenes of the recent jewelry robberies but he's unable to figure out what's causing the reaction.

Writer: Harold Apter
Watch Now:Amazon
Out of the Past
star
7.00
40 votes

#14 - Out of the Past

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/11/1996

Jim and Blair are assigned to protect pop singer Angie Ferris from escaped convict Jay Weston.

Directors: Bruce Bilson
Watch Now:Amazon
Payback
star
7.00
40 votes

#15 - Payback

Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/2/1996

Ellison finds himself witness to the beginnings of an underworld war between the drug-running bikers and the local representatives of the deadly Japanese Yakuza.

Directors: Bill Gereghty
Writer: Peter Lance
Watch Now:Amazon
Dead Drop
star
7.00
7 votes

#16 - Dead Drop

Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/19/1997

Sandburg becomes trapped between floors in a skyscraper elevator controlled by an extortionist, who threatens to send the elevator to its doom unless a ransom is paid.

Directors: Danny Bilson
Writer: Peter Lance
Watch Now:Amazon
Murder 101
star
7.00
6 votes

#17 - Murder 101

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/8/1999

It appears that two students in Blair's anthropology class are engaged in extracurricular activities that aren't listed in any of the college handbooks.

Directors: Don Kurt
Writer: Ron Taylor
Watch Now:Amazon
Deep Water
star
6.97
68 votes

#18 - Deep Water

Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/18/1996

At an unrelated auto accident by the river, evidence surfaces which implicates Jim and his old partner, Jack Pendergrast, in a case from four years prior.

Directors: Bruce Bilson
Writer: Harold Apter
Watch Now:Amazon
Ice Man
star
6.88
8 votes

#19 - Ice Man

Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/30/1996

Ellison and Sandburg are called in to investigate an attack on a prostitute named Amber Larkin.

Watch Now:Amazon
The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg
star
6.83
6 votes

#20 - The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg

Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/24/1999

When Blair's mother Naomi secretly submits her son's Sentinel thesis paper to a publisher, Jim discovers that being famous can be detrimental to your health. While Jim and Blair protect a local union leader Jack Bartley, information from Blair's paper is leaked and Ellison is in the middle of a media frenzy. Unless someone can diffuse the situation, the Sentinel will be forced to leave the city of Cascade -- forever.

Directors: Danny Bilson
Crossroads
star
6.80
5 votes

#21 - Crossroads

Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/22/1998

Ellison, Blair, and Captain Banks are trapped in Clayton Falls when some overzealous military officers quarantine the small town, after an airborne virus is in the air. Sensing something more insidious, Ellison and Sandburg attempt to uncover the real truth.

Directors: John Connor
Writer: Rick Husky
Watch Now:Amazon
Dead End on Blank Street
star
6.80
5 votes

#22 - Dead End on Blank Street

Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/22/1999

When Internal Affairs accuses Ellison of stealing money captured in drug busts, he's forced to answer the questions instead of asking them.

Directors: Don Kurt
Watch Now:Amazon
Spare Parts
star
6.78
9 votes

#23 - Spare Parts

Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/13/1996

Ellison and Sandburg get a chance to hone their driving skills when car thieves set up shop on the streets of Cascade.

Directors: Paul Abascal
Writer: Harold Apter
Watch Now:Amazon
Hear No Evil
star
6.75
8 votes

#24 - Hear No Evil

Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/15/1997

Ellison sees undercover police detective Brent Marten thrown to death from a police helicopter.

Directors: John Connor
Writer: Harold Apter
Watch Now:Amazon
Light My Fire
star
6.75
8 votes

#25 - Light My Fire

Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/5/1997

An arsonist burns down a furniture warehouse, and Ellison rescues an unconscious guard from the building.

Directors: Scott Brazil
Watch Now:Amazon