Continuum (2012)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   Season 1: The premise owes something to Terminator a terrorists from the 2070s escape the death penalty by traveling back in time to the present day where they hope to make the Corporate State they were fighting against collapse before it can happen. They accidentally (or perhaps not so accidentally given the show's own predestination paradoxes) bring super-cop Kiera Cameron (played by Rachel Nichols) who soon connects with her tech's future inventor Alec (a id who is a dead ringer for his older self, William B. "The Cigarette Smoking Man" Davis) and the Vancouver police department (it's wonderful to see Vancouver - the sci-fi TV capital of the world - playing ITSELF for a change), from which she means to stage a counter-offensive to keep the future and her family safe. As Season 1 progresses, we discover that history may well be "fixed", but that doesn't we can't enjoy seeing HOW events will inevitably unfold. Interesting mysteries, strong action, a neat-looking future which we regularly go back to in flashbacks, Continuum is a show I want to keep up with (Season 2 is already on my shelf), and I'm hoping it doesn't stick to a police procedural format going forward. The premise certainly allows for mutations. If I have a complaint, it's that the cinematography does this weird blurry thing around the edges of the screen, which I'm not sure is altogether motivated by the idea that this is another world for the main character.
   
   Season 2: Continuum Season 2 continued the good work it started in Season 1, except with 3 more episodes (making 13) and time travel factions multiplying. It's a common trope in genre TV, that kind of unfolding conspiracy, but as long as the level of acting, action, twists and turns remain engaging and entertaining, I don't see why I should complain. Finally, we're starting to see how the present connects to the future, and fairly innocuous characters start to take on much greater importance, the whole thing leading to a sort of quadruple cliffhanger that will make it that much harder for me to wait for Season 3's DVD set to go down in price before I press that Buy button. Well done--holy crap, that's the Headstones/Hard Core Logo's front man as the mysterious Mr. Escher!!! Ok, calm down, Siskoid.
   
   Season 3: Continuum Season 3 starts off with a terribly opaque episode that tries to explain how time works and introduces the concept of multiple time lines in a most confusing way. It thankfully moves on from there to craft an interesting season that shows rather than tells, with Kiera probably having to abandon hope of getting back to her family. (They missed a trick, I think, in not making a certain new character her son from an even further future.) We see a lot more of the future Kiera comes from, which always begs the question of whether she's right to protect it, as we inch closer to a corporate dystopia that's already too close to home.
   
   Season 4: I had trouble finding the fourth season of Continuum at an affordable price, so it took me way too long to get to the last six episode, so long it's just not my kind of TV anymore (I'm really tired of high-concept sci-fi conspiracy thrillers). Six episodes to wrap things up, fix the present (or not), get Kiera back to her time (or not), defeat Kellog (or not). There's a lot of action across the season, much of it quite good, though I felt like the finale was an interminable fire fight with dodgy effects. Those power suits from the future look like they come from Halo machinima. Once you get through the paranoid who's working for who and who can you trust shenanigans that have always been part of the show's DNA, what you need is to at least stick the landing. Continuum does. I don't want to spoil it, obviously, but it plays fair with the audience and with the rules of time travel as laid out for us. It's even a little bit brave in terms of what you expect from mid-range television. 6 years 8 months ago

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