CONTINUUM Episode Guide and reviews on the SCI FI FREAK SITE

CONTINUUM

Season 1

A Stitch In Time
Fast Times
Wasting Time
Matter Of Time
A Test Of Time
Time's Up
The Politics Of Time
Playtime
Family Time
Endtimes

Kiera Cameron - Rachel Nichols

Carlos Fonnegra - Victor Webster

Alec Sadler - Erik Knudsen

OTHER CONTINUUM SEASONS
Season 2

OTHER TIME TRAVEL SHOWS
Doctor Who
Journeyman
Goodnight Sweetheart
Life on Mars
Ashes to Ashes
Daybreak
Timecop

A Stitch In Time

Kiera Cameron is a cop, but a cop in 2077. She is detailed to stand guard whilst a group of terrorists known as Liber8 are executed. When they pull a switch, she reacts and is caught in a blast that knocks her back to 2012 with them. Now, she has to help the local law enforcement to recapture the bad guys.

CONTINUUM is a mixture of TIMECOP and THE TERMINATOR and is just as generic in this opening episode as that sounds. Rachel Nichols even manages to be a completely generic heroine. Add to that Victor Webster as her completely generic contemporary partner and there isn't a lot going on here that is original or, for that matter, interesting.

The depiction of the future as a corporation-controlled age of peace and prosperity is blandness incarnate and trying to give the terrorists a double edge as freedom fighters just doesn't work when they're all such psychos. Then there's the fact that she just happens to link up with the creator of all the future technology that she is wearing which he has only just started testing.

CONTINUUM is going to have to get a whole lot better fast if it is to stand out.

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Fast Times

The terrorists have a way back to the future and Kiera wants to go along for the ride. All she has to do is escape from her partner who knows she is not who she seems and find them.

This rather dull episode has little in the way of action (unless you count two dozen SWAT members unable to hit a single terrorist with more ammunition than THE A TEAM) and even less in terms of character. Kiera misses her family and ... well that's it.

There's no more explanation as to where the terrorists got a time travel device or why Eric lives in a barn. There's very little plot and dull seems to be the show's default state.

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Wasting Time

The terrorist cell leader is dying. Two of the others start vying for control and that leads Kiera toward them.

It's a pretty dangerous title for an episode, but fortunately CONTINUUM steps up a gear here providing a pretty cool fight in a kitchen that throws in guns, bullets and electricity (the sink staying where it is only by the skin of its teeth).

The cop procedural side of things is pretty dull still and doesn't hang together all that well either. The crimes are being committed, but are barely shown and all the answers come from trawling databases which is seriously unexciting.

Better then, but still a long way from great.

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Matter Of Time

The leader of the Liber8 arrives in the present day with his memories somewhat garbled. Whilst the search for him continues, Kiera and Carlos investigate who killed a scientist researching antimatter containment.

The murder investigation is perfunctory to say the least. There are only two suspects and hardly any actual investigating goes on. The search for the leader of the Liber8 has a flash forward to explain his actions and really there's almost nothing at all to care about .

This time around there's no gunfight to save the day and the stand off that develops is only ever going to end one way - the dull one.

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A Test Of Time

The Liber8's leader Kagame decides to get rid of Kiera by killing her grandmother. The investigator locates her beloved ancestor, but finds that she is not all that her family said she was.

CONTINUUM steals the whole TERMINATOR plotline by having the bad guys go after Kiera's grandmother. The rest of the plot is equally unoriginal with nothing being a surprise and all the twists and turns, and there are quite a few, turning out to be obvious long before they happen.

If this is really the best that the show can come up with then it is in serious trouble.

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Time's Up

Kagame takes his fight to the corporations by kidnapping a corrupt executive and putting her life in the hands of an internet poll.

CONTINUUM continues its campaign of larceny, stealing its ideas from all over the place but not least the MILLENNIUM episode The Mikado. The clock is ticking throughout and that keeps things moving, but it never really catches fire in the way that it should.

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The Politics Of Time

Carlos finds that the woman he spent his night with has been murdered, possibly by a mutual friend he has known for a long time.

A dull, unoriginal and, let's be honest, boring police procedural that is slightly spiced up by having a high tech suit do some of the number crunching. In fact, there isn't any actual detecting done at all, just having computers work out all the clues for the clueless humans.

Add on to that the sledgehammer subtle subtext about truth in relationships and this episode manages to lecture on morality as well as being utterly uninteresting.

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Playtime

Liber8 find a way to hack Kiera's neural implants and place a command in her head to kill her partner.

Mind control through virtual reality video games ... stop me if you're bored already. This is a police procedural that doesn't require much policing. The clues are pretty much lined up so that Sherlock Holmes' dog could work it out.

It's all really a set up to give the bad guys a chance to put Kiera on remote control for a nail-bitingly tense climax. Except that nails remain decidedly unbitten. It's predictable and dull and shows how this show has failed to do anything with its premise beyond trot out old ideas.

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Family Time

Carlos and Kiera follow up on suspect fertiliser purchases that lead them to Alec's farm and a deadly seige situation.

Sieges have a built in tension factor that ought to see any episode using them through, but the plot here requires everyone to be utterly stupid throughout. That might be passable in the case of the kids doing the kidnapping, but the supposedly trained cops fail to isolate the site, fail to identify the bad guys, fail to secure the bomb even when told where it is, fail to save the hostages even when told the location is clear of bad guys and then shoot an innocent man who clearly is no threat to anyone at the time. The whole lot of them would be up on charges.

If this is the best that it can come up with then there really is no hope for CONTINUUM.

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Endtimes

Kiera believes that she has found a new ally from the future and that he can take them both back there. Alec uncovers his family's connection to the ongoing plot and steers Kiera to a way to stop a city centre bombing.

It's the season finale and everything kicks up a notch in terms of pace and interest. The subplot with the potentially mad time traveller with a route back to the future is pretty predictable, but manages to be fun enough not to get in the way.

The finale throws in a couple of twists and asks the questions about whether a time traveller could ever actually affect what has already happened. If the show had been this good from the start then we might have been more worried about whether it would come back.

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