Continuum

1. season 1. 2012
2. season 2. 2013
3. season 3. 2014
4. season 4. 2015

2077. My time, my city, my family. When terrorists killed thousands of innocents, they were condemned to die. They had other plans. A time travel device sent us all back 65 years. I want to get home but I can’t be sure what I will return to if history is changed. Their plan, to corrupt and control the present in order to win the future. What they didn’t plan on was me!

It’s 2077. Liberate, a terrorist organisation, have committed a great atrocity, and the ringleaders are scheduled for execution. Kiera Cameron, a law enforcement officer, is on duty. But something else happens: instead of being executed, the terrorists are flung back to 2012, and Kiera along with them. They decide to continue their terrorism here, to change the future, and Kiera tries to stop them, and to find a way back home to her family.

This is smartly made, with a lot of ambiguity: to start with, the terrorists are clearly evil, killing thousands; by the end of the season, we see the repressive nature of the future they are fighting against, gain some sympathy for their ideals, yet their extreme violent methods are still unacceptable.

Pleasingly, the science fictional elements are more than mere future tech: the time loop is just short enough that some of the people involved exist in both eras, and everyone is fully aware of the potential for paradoxes. The grimness is leavened on occasion by Kiera’s need to cover up her future tech here in the present. We see how present tech is itself pretty science fictional: merely sticking a mute bluetooth receiver in her ear stops people looking at Kiera strangely as she talks to her remote contact.

Rating: 3
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 11 August 2013

Season 2 continues the premise of a time-travelling cop after time-travelling terrorists, but things get much more complicated, and even more morally ambiguous. More factions get involved, potential paradoxes occur, the present starts to become the feared future, and the future begins to influence the present. The season ends on a cliffhanger, but there is a season 3.

It’s still snappy and sharp. Don’t leave too long between episodes, as this is definitely not a “crime of the week” series, but has a strong, and complicated, arc. Concentrate, here comes the science fiction bit.

Rating: 3
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 24 August 2014

Season 3 continues the premise of a time-travelling cop after time-travelling terrorists, but things get even more more complicated, and even more morally ambiguous. Brilliantly, the short time hop at the end of season 2 is not used as a reset, but rather makes everything more complicated and darker, and changes lots of relationships.

The flash forwards show how morally compromised Kirra really was as a future cop, and now she is beginning to realise that. By the end of the season it is clear that there is no way for Kiera to return home: the future has been changed, and she no longer wants that specific future, anyway. So what comes next? Well, it looks as if the Time Guardians are about to up their game…

Rating: 3
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 30 June 2015

The final Season 4 is only a half season, 6 episodes in total, which means there is a desperate rush to get everything sorted. So no flash-forwards to Kiera’s old life, very little of the Time Guardians, and everything just hurtles along to the conclusion.

By now, Liberate and Kiera are essentially on the same side, trying to stop not only the future they came from, but the even more dystopian future they have helped bring into being. This results in a lot of running around, blowing things up, not blowing other things up, and not telling people things they need to know. But by the end, although many people have died, people make decisions that change the future, and everything gets optimistically concluded, except for a hugely bitter-sweet resolution for Kiera.

This has been a good series, with intelligent playing around with timelines, paradoxes, free will and responsibility, and people learning and changing. A pity the final season had to be so rushed.

Rating: 3.5
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 12 July 2018