Continuum, Season 4, Episode 6: Final Hour

We’re still in aftermath mode – and Keira asks for time from Carlos so she can go all solo mission before Carlos sends in his own forces.

Kiera and Alec again discuss the huge risk of going back to an unknown future but she’ll take that risk if there’s any chance of seeing her kid again. Kiera gets her assurance from Carlos along with a big semi-goodbye speech about how he doesn’t want to lose her and how he’s loved their time together despite all the chaos. Kiera also decides to show Dylon some future tech and let him in about the whole time travelling thing.

Brad and the future soldiers now have their key so they have their portal with its 90 minute window to bring all the future people back to the past (and epicly screw with any timelines). Through the portal we see a crowd of people but only a few get through before they have to shut it all down. A woman comes through, not happy but clearly in charge and ominously says that, if they don’t get the portal working, the only thing coming through will be “the enemy”.

Brad saw what was coming through the portal and isn’t impressed – that wasn’t a lot of civilian refugees. It was an invasion force (hey, Kiera’s completely random guess was right, go figure). Brad is totally shocked and appalled that he was lied to. Really.

Kellogg is being held hostage by the future soldiers and his bodyguard while he rambles on. He has pretty much guessed what is going to happen to him when future-him arrives while bodyguard Vasquez and future-people boss try to reassure him with comforting lies. Vasquez seems bothered by this. Kellogg decides to make a pitch – take young Kellogg rather than old Kellogg. Also she can totally be young Kellogg’s queen – she’s all sad, but refuses. When she is all sad that she can’t be with him forever he stabs her instead. As she dies she reveals that she’s his daughter. Ooops.

Jason gets the Time Machine to Alec – and a note he wants to pass on to his dad which is a bit weird with Alec right there. Curtis steals the other time machine from the Piron safe and greets the newly escaped Kellogg with it. Alec and Kiera have their own talk about he can now change his life before they meet up with Kellogg. Time for Kellogg to make his ode to Kiera

Really can we stop the gooydbye speeches, they’re getting tiresome.

Continuum, Season 4, Episode 5: The Desperate Hours

So Travis is in prison and warning that if he is arrested and goes to prison then all kinds of secrets and messiness will be revealed if any reported tries to investigate him. On top of that they have a lawyer who very reasonably is not impressed with Travis being shackled and held for days without charge.

Travis kindly helps with the lawyer by trying to strangle him. Don’t strangle your lawyer, Travis, it’s counter productive. After also tasing the lawyer in the head the police then try to tase Travis. It does absolutely nothing.

To make things worse for Carlos, Piron doesn’t want to have Travis tried – and while Carlos objects to the idea that a company makes that decision – Piron demands that Travis with all his super tech in his body be handed over to them. Boss lady isn’t happy, she wants Travis in prison and wants to know why Piron is involved.

Alec and Kiera nicely sum up just how their plan to send Kiera back in time may involve trusting Brad and Kellogg, neither of which is a fun choice. They go to make a deal with Kellogg which is so much fun. He agrees to leave them alone in the Piron log while Kiera and Dylon have a moment with Kiera trying to be nice while also firmly disapproving of Dylan’s choices.

Kellogg does take the chance of poking Alec about the sheer dubiousness of Kiera’s plan – to go back to a future she doesn’t even know exists any more. Still they go on with their plan (still believing the super soldiers plan an invasion). Kiera asks Kellogg what he will do after she’s returned to the future but Kellog says pointedly that it’s not her business “you chose you.”

Ouch. Double ouch is when Alec carefully doesn’t answer her when she asks if she’s being selfish. He’s also not a fan of her contacting Brad, but she does it anyway and goes to him with the happy story of waning to go home. She pleads for access to the machine – and she gives him the key to the machine. Yet another person raises the possibility with Kiera that her son, her future, may not even exist.

Kiera takes this up with Carlos back in the police station when both sides argue about her decision to go back – Carlos annoyed that she is going back, that she has told him so little and that grudgingly and her insisting that it’s all her own choice and he doesn’t need to be informed. He points out the consequences of her decisions actually do affect other people.

Carlos returns to Travis to warn him that Piron may make a play for him (which Travis doesn’t care about) and that Kiera wants to go home – and this does anger him. Kiera has only seen the truth and now is willing to go back. He adds again that if his truth is revealed it’ll go badly for Kiera as well.

Continuum Season 4, Episode 4: Zero Hour

Alec is all angsty over his break up and Jason tries to tell him that Emily isn’t his mother so not the woman he’s supposed to be with. Alec is angry that Jason drove Emily away and lashes out –he isn’t the man Jason remembers, he isn’t Jason’s father, that isn’t him and he doesn’t actually want to become him.

On to Lucas’s funeral with Kiera and Alec discussing the whole complexity of what Lucas was fighting for and how Kiera has swapped sides and he went from an enemy to a missed ally and the general hugeness that is the development of this show.

Brad comes to the funeral and Kiera and Brad argue – he blames her, she blames him. Kiera finally starts asking some questions about what Brad’s people are doing. He says he knows nothing – but wants the key Kiera stole and Alec now has.

Uh-huh this sounds like a terrible idea – give him the key to their tech when he doesn’t know what it does.

Kiera goes to see Carlos after yet another high tech theft. More distrust. More secrecy. They hope Alec will have more information while Alec is busy trying to patch up with Jason (and the general awkwardness of “parenting kids twice your age”). Alec wants to know who his mother is but Jason is reluctant because it’s not the time yet... it’s a whole matter of whether Alec’s destiny is fixed or not

Brad and Soren raid a blood bank to steal… blood. Still lots of distrust going round. Of course, Brad on the security camera makes Carlos angry and adds to the distrust between Kiera and Carlos. Carlos finally has a time limit for Kiera to actually come up with something in the next day. Looking at the synopsis of what Alec things the future soldiers are building (a time travel device) Alec makes it clear he also doesn’t trust Brad. But he does worry that the future soldiers have made a super weapon

Kiera confronts Brad about this but he assures her that it’s not a bomb and they totally wouldn’t do that. He does have an address of a storage facility where they were storing something unknown. Mission talk then goes on to relationship talk – all watched by Curtis.

She checks the warehouse with Carlos – inside which is a dialysis machine.

Kellogg is also getting tired of his bodyguard, Vasquez, not telling him anything and tries to seduce her. She decides to strangle him since future him had already warned her that he is hella creepy when it comes to women.

Continuum, Season 4 Episode 3: Power Hour

Travis is in prison and Carlos is talking to him – well mocking him about how Liber8 has failed to improve the world. Travis doesn’t see it that way – he rightly points out that they’ve exposed a lot of badness and caused change – even Kiera now agrees with Liber8.

But Liber8 vs Corporations is so several seasons ago and Kiera wants Carlos to hand Travis to her custody. They’ve got super-soldiers from the future running amok so they need their own super soldiers to combat them – Travis fits the bill. Carlos isn’t a fan of this, especially since Kiera is keeping him in the dark and putting all her faith in Brad, her inside man who is doing very little

Even Travis agrees with Carlos on that.

Brad is dealing with the fact not all the super soldiers have accepted him back into the fold, though Marcellus still seems to trust him

At team Geek, Lucas and Julian are both poking Alec’s “breakup angst” and excellently keep Alec from getting above himself as seems to be Julian’s raison d’etre these days. They do have an interesting debate on how, while Kellogg beat Alec, he also saved Alec from his terrible future as corporate overlord while Julian is worried that he’s still detsined to be super-bad guy, which then Lucas objects to because, as a member of Liber8, he sees Julian as the founder of a heroic resistance movement.

See, this is why Continuum has so vastly improved from its early days. We have complexity and nuance and simple pronouncements of “good vs bad” just go all shaky because there’s so many sides and view points and just about everyone is at least a little right in some cases and at last a little wrong.

Lucas is a little in awe seeing Julian write a historic manifesto that will one day inspire him so much – and then horrified when Julian burns it. Julian is trying to erase his own legacy.

Except Lucas finds the whole Theseus manifesto online. Julian is not happy and decides to track this person down, finding a woman who is quite happy to see him – she published his manifesto because Curtis told her to. Because things aren’t complicated enough. Nope, let’s make it more complex – the woman is Mrs. Kagame, the mother of Edward Kagame, head of Liber8. Curtis tries to get him to talk out his legacy – his revolution and how he loses, while at the same time telling him to have courage and don’t assume that the future written. He adds that Julian has a responsibility to lead the movement so it isn’t abused by fanatics. Julian doesn’t seem convinced.

Continuum, Season 4, Episode 2: Rush Hour

Kellogg gets his little message which appears to be from older, future him (who isn’t in great shape) who is trying to get Kellogg to change the future to make things better – and telling him to trust the team he’s sent back. He especially needs young Kellogg to trust them – trust others occasionally (and to trust his future self because, basically, he’s not as much as a snake as his young self is).

Which is when he gets the message from his minions saying they’ve successfully kidnapped Emily. He then sends a picture of her to Alec. Threat and dramatics follow with Kellogg demanding Alec returning all of Pyron’s stolen data. Kiera, being classy, is quick to tell Alec that stealing all that data was a bad idea, especially since all the time travel knowledge isn’t actually all that useful to Kellogg without a time machine. Which Kellogg has –and presumably so do the troopers from the future. Now Kiera’s worried.

Kiera argues to get Carlos involved, while Alec calls in his own help. Carlos apparently has no damn clue how to handle a kidnapping and wants to just go arrest Kellogg. Really Carlos? Carlos also wants to know what Kiera’s recent issues are all about – and she tells him about her dream of her family and how it’s hit her, not being able to go home and see her family. She’s back to accepting that she will never be able to go home. Carlos also asks the fraught question – would she go home if she could She doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

Carlos agrees to put surveillance on Kellogg’s people – but also to go see him because that’s what Carlos would do and it’d be weird if he didn’t.

Kiera and Brad manage to meet up – and he decides to continue to be a spy though he is not really accepted or trusted by the future squad. Kiera is covering for Brad with the police and Brad is covering for Kiera with the future squad and it’s another load of complex that Continuum specialises in.

Kellogg gets a visit from Marcellus, leader of the future commandos. Marcellus has a list of gear he needs and a very specific building as well. Marcellus is cagey about what he’s there for, telling Kellogg he needs to trust, well, himself. That’s a problem, Kellogg knows himself after all. Marcellus tells Kellogg he’s about to save the world and millions of lives. I’m not sure Kellogg cares.

Carlos goes to see Kellogg as he said he would – and the newly recovered but heavily scarred Dylan joins them. He’s retiring as a police inspector (which he was terrible at) and joining Piron (which he’d already done before retiring anyway). With Carlos gone, Kellogg double checks that Dylan would support him in the event of him doing something naughty!bad!wrong! Dylan is adopting a hear-no-evil-see-no-evil approach.

Continuum Season 4, Episode 1: Lost Hours

So last season, in the vast well of confusion, Emily tried to kill Evil Alec and was arrested. Good Alec did kill Evil Alec and now as the sole remaining Alec he is dropping all charges against Emily.

That paragraph pretty much sums up how confusing Continuum has become.

Carlos would like some quid pro quo for this dropping the charges, but it involves Alec approving something with his company – only Kellog kind of stole the company last season.

Kiera and time-travelling-alternate-future-guy Brad uses his beacon to check if his future still exists. And from that Beacon futuristitc super-sioldiers appear and chase them. Oops, backfire. Brad tries to distract them but one still goes on to hunt Kiera while she tries to use her invisibility/armour suit to escape. They have better guns but I think her suit may be better. She’s eventually knocked out. Thankfully future people use weapons that destroy walls but don’t leave any marks on people

She wakes up… in 2080, in her own time, apparently after a 3 year coma after the whole execution chamber bomb (when she first went back into the past in season 1). Apparently her CMR kicked in and decided to create a fun little happy story while she was unconscious. Continuum I’m not buying this because the whole “it was all a dream” storyline has long since been an excuse for justifiable homicide for some time now.

So Kiera is reunited with her child for lots of tearfulness (and the kid is bizarrely mature).  And in comes old Alec praising her for changing the future – and then she wakes up in the 21^st century again with Carlos and Young Alec. Ok so the random aside was a way to fill in minutes.

Alec takes Kiera home – or to the home that Corporate Evil Alec bought anyway which is now his. Hey he gets all the fancy loot without any of the guilt! Kiera has a new goal though – she has stopped Good Alec creating an evil Dystopian future (which is what future Alec was worried about) and has stopped Liber8 doing whatever naughty shenanigans they were planning on (actually, I think their naughty shenanigans was stopping Alec creating an evil dystopian future too – only they used more bombs to do it). So job’s done- she can now go back home (her non-dystopian and possibly non-existent future where she might not even exist) and see her family (who also may not exist or be her future). And she needs Alec to make that happen.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 13: Last Minute

Start with a flashback into Brad’s time period – a war torn city, ruined and full of chaos. He’s part of a special mission for his clan, an all-or-nothing fight – and he’s given the special object that he managed to take with him to the past, only now it’s covered in glowing red lines. He’s sent off on his super important, possibly suicidal mission, by Kellog.

To the present and Kiera and Brad are being all couply (I still want to know when this happened) in their cabin. They both acknowledge their flawed pasts – Brad worked for a half-mad warlord and Kiera worked for Big Brother (this is actually a major shift – Kiera has finally openly acknowledge the corruption and evil of her time. Please don’t turn it into a single one off jokey line). He has some thoughts about her son and how everything feels right even if he feels so far away. It’s romantic and sweet, it doesn’t have to make sense.

Emily and Free Alec are making their own plans for escape when someone shoots up their hotel room.

To Corporate Alec who is preparing for a big speech about Halo, coached by Kellog and getting all nervous (apparently Halo is now dropping in stock prices so they need a good speech, no I don’t know why, random tension). Jacqueline delivers a rather ominous “the package has been delivered” message which I assume means the drive by on Free Alec – Jacqueline is really not happy to be used to deliver cloak and dagger messages.  Yes, it looks like Corporate Alec has reached the level of calling hits on people.

Kellog shows up at the police station to ask for more policing at Corporate Alec’s speech and has hostile Carlos be very unwilling. There’s some ominous threats about Piron withdrawing funding and Carlos calls the whole partnership with the police “under review.”

Time for a meeting of the time travellers, Emily, Free Alec, Jason, Kira and Brad and Free Alec expositions what’s happening – Corporate Alec is trying to cement control of the time line by removing the other Alec, which will leave Piron/Sadtech and complete surveillance in control of everything and create even more of a dystopian nightmare than Kira’s future. And Corporate Alec is rebuilding the lab to get the time machine working again, which he may have done as Jason reveals. Kellog and Corporate Alec with time travel sounds like a bad idea to everyone; so much so that Travis has also joined them.

Travis and Kiera go recruiting, bringing in Jasmine, Lucas (I love that Jasmine is worried, but when Lucas sees the 4 of them working together he just declares himself in no matter what it is).

At Alec’s lab, Kiera begins with a full confession to Liber8 –they were right. She was asleep. She was on the wrong side. She doesn’t agree with their tactics still, nor is she declaring alliance and friendship but she knows she was wrong and she will fight to make sure their future doesn’t happen

About damn time! Liber8 now finally wins through

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 12: The Dying Minutes

Time for a flashback – not to the future, but 3 months ago when the Freelancers stole Curtis’s body and then did their quasi mystical mojo to bring him back from the dead. Catherine and her fellow Freelancers seem quite apologetic about bringing him back and how terrible it must have been for Curtis. Something he agrees with. He has been “merged” which Catherine says with an incredible amount of distaste and Curtis doesn’t seem thrilled with it either. They talk about serving (and Curtis cryptically refers to the guard as “brother”). All very cryptic.

In the cells, Alternate Alec is being questioned – and suffocated when he lies. They get a GPS co-ordinate out of him for something – and a whole lot of snark. Alec is much more fun with snark. He also tries to stab one of them with  pen which doesn’t do much – but he keeps up the snark. Catherine’s minions aren’t happy keeping Alec around to keep Kiera sweet.

Kiera drops in and has guessed that the mystery thing in the mystery room is the Freelancer founder, he who travelled back a thousand years to set up the cult. She wants to swap Alecs, Corporate Alec is fast forwarding things, not keeping things on track but Charlotte is not about judgement, it’s about the true time line. Uh… well what is the true time line? Because Kiera is from the future and she just said “this isn’t how it goes”. Kiera also casts a little doubt on the motives of their founder. She offers a deal – they give her Alec and she will give them Brad – soldier from an alternate future is a big Freelancer no-no.

Julian meets with Sonya who is all kinds of bitter at them having failed at everything – and everyone is just loving Halo though it’s the beginning of corporate control over everything. Sonya’s still fighting the good fight and wants to stop it – with Julian’s help.

To corporate Alec who is giving orders to Dillon now, “get it done Jack”, ooooooh, Dillon was a little surprised by that one. Julian continues to play nice with Alec before bringing all kinds of data to Sonya – who promptly tries to freeze him out. She goes to Lucas instead who reluctantly agrees to help. Sonya doesn’t want anyone hurt but Lucas stretches that definition – because Halo is using technology that shouldn’t be, it’s also very vulnerable. Which means Lucas can hack it and then cause every Halo wearer to feel overwhelming, horrendous terror (which… may be pretty harmful since panicking people do silly silly things) which should discredit Halo pretty powerfully.

Sonya meets with Travis and we’re reminded they are a couple. Things have got complicated, she questions how they can make any change when people can pop back in time and tweak things to their own ends – Travis’s plan now is to flee to an isolated location and try to avoid the world.

Sonya is still fighting though – she flirts her way into Piron to put Lucas’s hack in place. As Sonya leaves she runs into Julian and again tries to convince him he’s important – which he still doesn’t believe. Frustrated, she finally tells him about the time travel thing – which fits exactly with what Jason already told him. He’s worried about being a murderer, killing people for his goal but she calls him a revolutionary, a leader and puts the killing down as a “maybe”. After all there have been a lot of changes, maybe he can find a peaceful path – but she’s desperate for him to lead. But she does admit that, yes, he does kill thousands.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 11: 3 Minutes to Midnight

Halo is going to market, and already it’s set to make a killing.

At Kiera’s, Brad is having lots of memory flashback confusion – including killing Kiera. Kiera returns home to find broken glass – and Brad missing. She instantly suspects the Freelancers and goes to examine their prison (sparing 2 seconds to worry about Alec she imprisoned) but they claim all innocence and try to push her into “doing the right thing” (putting Brad in a box. But while Alec in prison is totally ok, total stranger Brad is going too far).

Cut to a flashback of Brad walking with Chen, all friendly like, talking about keeping tabs on the then-free-extra-Alec and Brad seems to be Chen’s boss talking about changing their plans after learning more and keeping threats contained. Is this another Freelancer group? Like uber Freelancers? Who Freelances the Freelancers? Anyway, knowing the future and time travel doesn’t stop then Brad walking out in front of a truck. Oops

To now Brad, all confused and lost

Jason, who seems to have lost the clarity that Halo gave him, goes digging up the pieces of the time machine. Then beats a man with his shovel screaming about “not going back in the box”. This could be Jason fighting a Freelancer but turns out to be him beating up a random bystander because he’s not thinking very clearly.

Kiera and Carlos get to try and question Jason who has now lost all pretence of clarity. Kiera and Carlos are more worried about the Time Machine but, of course, Dillon’s oh-so-corrupt police force kicks in and Jason is released – and the minute he puts his Halo bracelet on he calms down.

Kiera goes to see Alec – though Carlos warns her that Alec can’t be trusted and Piron practically owns the police. Carlos confirms that Dillon was personally involved in getting the charges dropped; it’s not the first either. Other cases have been cleaned up, all with perpetrators wearing the Halo bracelets. Carlos questions the violent beta-testers of Halo and finds more of Dillon’s cover up, buying people off.

Kiera questions Alec and Jason and they both assure her Halo is wonderful and safe and amazing so all is good. Um… police corruption? Magically vanishing charges? Anyone interested in this? At all? Kiera trusts him because her CMR shows no lies – but Alec has a little programme that blocks it.

Brad, meanwhile, tracks down Kellogg. He needs his resources and help to get something back that the Freelancers took – and no, he isn’t bothered by the Freelancers

Alec, Jason and Jacqueline meet to discuss an unfortunate side effect of Halo – it makes 6% of uses unpredictable and violent – or psychotic as Alec puts it. That’s a… pretty bad side effect. But they’re sure they can fix this teeny tiny problem, of course. Which requires Jason’s help, which means he needs to wear Halo (Alec totally doesn’t want him to hurt himself, but, yeah put on the mind scrambler and fix it please!)

Kiera and Carlos consult over the blatant corruption but, as Kiera says “you shoot the king, you’ve got to kill the king.” They’re going to need a lot of evidence to bring down Dillon – and Alec. Kiera tells Carlos what Alec did to other Kiera’s body. He is not amused.

Carlos goes to see Julian – and accuses Theseus of having being bought, now working for Piron and sets him on the Halo attacks.

Julian follows up Carlos’s clues and finds Alec’s keeping secrets from him – but has a chance to speak to a Halo-less Jason (he’s wearing it part time to reduce the side effects). Jason rambles back and forth – and includes how Alec sent them all back in time 65 years. Oops. Julian naturally thinks he’s out of his mind – until Jason calls Julian “Theseus” just like Liber8 does. Of course, he also calls him a murderer and tries to strangle him. Jacqueline and Alec arrive in time to stop him and put Jason’s Halo back on.

Contunuum, Season 3, Episode 10: Revolutions Per Minute

John Doe wakes in the middle of the night from a traumatic dream. Upset and confused, he tells Keira some memories of his daughter – but then looks out the window and is shocked by the lights in the buildings; he thinks the towers should be dark. Keira asks why and he says “ribbons of dark slash the starlit sky” and then says that it’s dangerous.

Alec, in his lab, has a Eureka moment with Halo – achieving something Jason says they won’t manage until 2028 (anything to do with him ripping the chip out of dead Keira’s head?) A body that Carlos has just noticed is missing. And Alec isn’t returning his calls which makes Carlos agitated.

They test Halo on Jason and not only does it work – but it completely cures his time-travel based confusion. Of course going public with that may ask some questions (is Jackie, Alec’s lawyer, in on the big secret?)

Dillon remembers Betty’s first day on the job and is all sad and angsty and Dillon cracks. He calls in Keira and tells her how he thinks they’re not doing enough against Liber8 (Keira points out they’ve sunk nearly every resource they have against Liber8. She doesn’t mention that fighting the PR war is not actually their job) and he confesses to using his daughter as bait, her whole arrest being fake. He wants Keira to get his daughter out before there’s another Betty

Keira is busy predicting Liber8’s next move to a curt and angry Carlos. Liber8 focuses on corporations that will later be the Global Corporate Congress so she looks at one of those companies that is around today and will later be a member of the Congress – the currently small pharmaceutical company, Gautuma who will master nano-medicine rapidly becoming a complete pharmaceutical monopoly (except a few episodes ago Sonmato was developing cures?)

Of course, it’s hard to convince Gautuma they’re a target because they are currently so small. They look around – and a Liber8 mole (Dillon’s child - Christine) calls Lucas to let him know the police are looking round; Lucas tells Sonya. Gautuma is about to launch a major drug trial against Alzheimers and all is looking good and positive. Until Carlos does some digging and finds that Kellog is buying up Gautuma stock. They also find Christine in the employment records so Keira has to tell Carlos what Dillon has done. Carlos is not amused. He says they go ahead as they would with anyone else, they can’t ignore their best lead on Liber8 because Dillon is playing his own foolish game

Keira tries to question Kellog but he’s cagey – but they do remember that the narcotic-from-the-future they had to deal with in a previous episode was once an Alzheimers drug. Keira also stops John Doe from fiddling with his dog tag because he may activate it (it has a picture inside) and come to the attention of the Freelancers. They talk emotion, sentimentality and clinging to family as time travellers (including Keira’s own mental gymnastics that allow her to keep going) and find a key to a bank safety deposit box hidden in the cuff of John Doe’s jacket.

She finds footage from the bank’s CCTV showing John Doe placing an item in a deposit box – one that she later gave to the Freelancers. And they still can’t figure out what Liber8’s plan with Gautuma is but need to check the drug they’re releasing to see if it is Flash – which means Keira sneaking in invisibly to steal a sample.

Alec finally talks to Carlos to assure him he’s just working on some kind of funeral for Dead Keira. And he’s called into a secret meeting with nefarious unknown bigwigs who tell him to slow everything down, he’s rocking the Powers That Be boat. Alec complains about this to Kellog who assures him he can handle them; he’s more focused on boosting the marketing on Halo.

Sonya takes Christine to see Julian because Sonya wants advice - she doesn’t understand why, when they expose what the corporations are doing, people do so little. Why isn’t their more outrage? Julian points out people feel impotent, powerless – they may hate what’s happening but they also don’t think they can change it. She says they need a leader (hint hint) and he hands her something he’s been writing. Alec also drops in to see him – he wants Julian to endorse Halo. He wants to hire him as a Vice President in charge of corporate responsibility – and as a taste of his help, hands him a file that Sonmato for Julian to use. Julian uses it and they seem to consider going forward as partners.

Downstairs, Sonya is tearfully moved by what Julian has written – she calls it Theseus (the name Julian will be known for in the future when he leads Liber8). Christine keeps talking a good game to Sonya, seeming to tell the truth by talking about Dillon going from seeing the Public as something vital to protect to “souring” on them – all of them.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 9: Minute of Silence

Starting in the future, we have a crowd of people queuing up for “citizenship extraction” (which invalidates birth certificates) and apparently very painful, unpleasant process to remove a chip from their arm.

And in the present a man wakes up after 2 months in a coma – he doesn’t remember much, not even his own name. But he remembers Kiera’s name.

At the police station, everyone returns from Betty’s funeral and Carlos tries to confront Dillon about investigating Betty’s murder – but they’re too close to it, Independent Investigation has taken over and it’s not like this particular police department has the best reputation at the moment. And he may have handed over the investigation just to ensure Betty’s Liber8 connections remain buried.

Kiera goes to the hospital to see the mystery man – but she doesn’t recognise him. But the doctor decides to farm him off on her anyway because he’s perfectly healthy and she has no-one else to hand him over to. I’m pretty sure this isn’t standard procedure.

Carlos has taken up day drinking and decides to show Corporate Alec the other Kiera’s body. This turns into Carlos and Alec deciding they can trust the dead original but new Kiera is scary and unknown.

So when Kiera calls Alec for help with her John Doe, he’s snarky and uncooperative and really really passive aggressive. Alec’s day gets a little worse when he learns that Kellog is suing him – because the contract he signed for Sadtech with him had anti-competition rules and Kellog getting a sizeable cut of every one of Alec’s ideas. Working for Piron breaches that. Oh and Kellog adds that, since he’s from the future, he knows that Sadtech ends up beating Piron

More bad news – even working with Jason he can’t get Halo to work without a patch on the back of the neck which is ugly and not likely to be wanted. And he’s losing talent to Sadtech. Jacqueline, his lawyer/assistant also points out that Kellog has reasonable grounds to sue and Jason has no good news about Halo – the things he needs to make it will be very easily available. In 10 years.

To another plot – a guy sneaks into a building and steals something and then escapes pursuit with impressive agility and parkour skills – and some future technology that makes him invisible.

Dillon, Kiera and Carlos meet about the theft (and taking lots of proprietary information) using high tech and inside knowledge without a leak and come up Liber8 (this is deduction. To be fair, though, every time someone jaywalks in the city, Dillon screams “Liber8”). But Kiera takes time off the case because she’s obsessing with John Doe and has found a hotel he apparently was booked in. Which shows he’s either poor or has poor taste (it’s not the most up market) and that he had a sci-fi book about 2071 (I smell time traveller). He also has some random digits tattooed on his wrist. And yes, he looks around and realises he knows the city – but not the time.

The future-tech enabled parkour thief hits Piron and steals a Halo bracelet.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 8: So Do Our Minutes Hasten

I know Continuum has a theme going with these episode titles – but they’re really really struggling now.

Flashback time – Kiera and her fellow fascist storm trooper protectors go into an “illegal political meeting” with big guns; the locals are committing the dastardly crime of trying to preserve a historic building. And Kiera’s mother is part of the group. Kiera tries to get her out before she’s arrested, but mother is awesome and so much better than her daughter – and protests that Kiera isn’t the only one who gets to take a stand for what she believes in.

Oh awesome mother, how did you produce Kiera? She tells Kiera there are other ways to rebel against her mother – and it’s ok to be wrong but eventually you’ve got to own up.

To the present with Curtis calling Kiera to taunt her with his escape for random reasons. And on television both Julian and Dillon being interviewed on television by Diana the sound bites reporter. Dillon tries to justify selling out the police to Piron and further how he cannot possibly show his budget to the public. Of course, there’s absolutely no real challenge to Dillon’s corruption and Dillon uses his reputation as police chief to silence Julian.

To the board room of Fermitas with a man making a big corporate speech to his fellows – and then gas coming through the vents. They try to leave but every door is sealed – they collapse, coughing then into unconsciousness.

At Piron, Alec has his own speech to sell a new product – Halo. Something you wear that constantly monitors your health and body and updates the information to Piron servers to help treat diseases as soon as they’re detectable (and, of course, cache all kinds of data about you). To prove his invention does what he claims, Alec has a doubting board member put it on and it diagnoses many basics and colon cancer which he had 2 years ago. Though he says he’s in remission – so Alec hopes. He leaves abruptly. Another board member proposes 2 months funding though Alec says 2 months is not nearly long enough.

After the meeting Dillon praises Alec for his performance – because it was a lie. Halo doesn’t work, Alec check the man’s insurance file to discover the man’s cancer.

To the crime scene, Dillon, Kiera and extras, Dillon is sure that the dead board room was caused by Liber8 but Kiera realises it doesn’t make sense – not with the good PR Liber8 has been working on. Carlos is on another case (a whistleblower case with Sonmanto) – it’s just Kiera and Dillon.

Speaking of that whistleblower case, Betty shows Carlos that his whistleblower was in touch with Julian. Betty’s also happy to show off her ankle tracker because she’s not even going to pretend to hide. Carlos decides the way to handle this is to go and try to arrest Julian for stealing Sonmanto property – huh, even Dillon was calling this a whistleblower case 5 minutes ago.

She tells Kiera and Dillon that Liber8 has released a statement denying all involvement with the Fermotas gas attack – and there has been no online planning of it that Betty could find at all. Kiera and Dillon still thinks the technological expertise to pull it off was Lucas so want her to be active in chat rooms in the hope Lucas will reach out to Betty again.

Kiera has her own task for Betty – use her contacts to try and find and track Curtis. Betty claims she first got involved with Liber8 because she was a hacker who got in over her head. She adds that doing the right thing matters to her which makes me laugh since it doesn’t matter all that much to Kiera and certainly not to Dillon.

Continuum, Season 3, episode 7: Waning Minute

After the revelations last week that Curtis was the one who killed the spare Kiera, Curtis gets himself put in one of the clear cells. They talk about “debriefing” which sounds ominous, applied to Future Alec as well. Curtis mocks her for the title “protector” as well – she didn’t protect Alec, her family and barely even realised what was happening in the future. And now what does she do? She sees one of the other locked up prisoners, with a tattoo, and remembers him telling her that he’s freer than she’ll ever be (I can barely remember who this random encounter was – but the point is made). She cries and asks “what have I done.”

Honestly, Kiera? I think this whole series could be titled “Kiera: What Have I done?”

That calls for a flashback to the future (which sounds so wrong) when she and her colleague stalked tattoo guy who has been getting busy with a knife –stabbing someone and cutting their finer so he can use their DNA/finger print secured gun. A gun that shoots armour piercing rounds that cut through the Protector suits. When he’s out of ammo he lays a crafty ambush for her but her suit protects her and lets her electrocute him.

She ships him back on a future plane thing – which then has a systems failure and crashes. Kiera crawls out of the wreck, the pilot is dead and her CMR is messing up – so is her gun. And her prisoner is up, alive and well except for a chunk of “fascist gunship” in his leg which needs removing and treating. He makes an attempt to bribe her (while taking a swipe at the system) but she’s not playing, she’s too loyal to her corporate overlords and keeps chanting the corporate party lines.

The man keeps trying to talk her out of her party loyalty and that they need to head to civilisation themselves because the corporations will have just written off the plane. 2 men find them (men with crossbows) and take them away – once they’re assured by her prisoner that her CMR is broken.

They take them to a camp of “gleaners”, an old derelict factory turned over to growing plants; they’re self sufficient and try to live separate and apart from the corporate congress. Their doctor fits Kiera with a headband that prevents her CMR, even if it were working, from transmitting, receiving or recording.

Back at the city, Kiera’s husband is informed of Kiera’s supposed death with a corporate drone bringing a pack of paperwork for him to sign and absolve them of all responsibility. Yes they’re caring people

At the commune Kiera tries to convince everyone the system is fair while the farmer points out they were legally required to use genetically modified crops that produced no seed – so they had to buy seed every year; which in turn would only grow with proprietary fertiliser and pesticide. So she and her farm went off the grid “went grey”. Others have stories of how the system treated them and Kiera offers weak, empty sympathy that her prisoner mocks as the useless thing it is.

The doctor is actually Sonya – and in the back she is treating Kagame. And he is sharing banned literature and reminding her that the Gleaners are always on the edge of being hunted down. When he’s alone he bites and apple and puts his blood on it… that’s not hygienic.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 6: Wasted Minute

We begin with a different flashback this time – a plague scene. Apparently in a war zone by the noise. Kiera is one of the sick, succumbing to despair and being barely comprehensible (which isn’t helpful) and not being happy with her nice doctor fellow. She points a gun at her own head, but the doctor manages to convince her not to commit suicide when the cure arrives.

To the present where Future Alec and Kiera seem to have found some level of peace together – enough for him to use his lab to continue to try and find who killed other Kiera and for him to angst about all the trouble he caused time travelling. He’s also planning on leaving because he’s terrified of becoming evil 2077 Alec which Kiera thinks is great. Because they’ve both forgotten about Corporate Alec?

The Freelancers haven’t been duly sinister enough yet, so we see Catherine go into her secret room apparently to talk to “him”, who is like listening to “16 channels at once” and he gives out revelations. Revelations that Curtis, at least, doesn’t think are entirely accurate or useful. Move on to Catherine reminding Kiera that she’s supposed to be murdering an Alec here (can I choose which one?), Future Alec in particular, in order to protect the time line and the future. And, hey she has other Freelancers if someone else has to do the killing.

Future Alec is still planning to leave with Emily – which means getting money, papers et al from Kellog, which Emily isn’t a fan of because Kellog cannot, ever be trusted. She’d also quite like to have her file back from Corporate Alec so she doesn’t end up being blackmailed all over again.

Emily deals with her little problem a different way, beating up evil Corporate Alec and his bodyguard and throwing in some threats. Emily kicks arse. Also it was a cover for her to steal something from Corporate Alec.

Liber8 are up to new shenanigans, sneaking a big truck into a guarded facility – and the brand name Sonmanto is visible, the same company that, in the future, will provide the cure to Kiera’s nasty plague. Travis and Sonya throw around some smoke grenades to have everyone evacuate while they steal a full truck load of some chemical.

Carlos and Kiera are called in, particularly since Travis seemed to make a point of exposing his identity, but they run into corporate guy Richardson, who they’ve clashed with before. He is secretive and unco-operative, as usual, insisting nothing was stolen and nothing sensitive was reached. Questioning lying employees happens in Richardson’s presence.

Kiera fills Carlos in on how Sonmato is all about food and medicine in the future, and Richardson continues to lie to them about what’s in the tanks. She needs Alec help so, after holding her phone very carefully so we can all see the Apple sign, she calls Corporate Alec. He only takes her call when she texts him a warning about Liber8 stealing chemical waste and need shim to analyse it. This goop mixed with some commonly available compounds is apparently super-duper dangerous

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 5: A Minute to Air

As ever we start with a flashback to the future (which sounds so wrong) in which Travis, a fugitive, pays a dangerous visit back to his wife and daughter (romantically nearly giving his wife a heart attack). They’re all very touching together – but him being there leads the Protectors right to them and ultimately causes Travis’s capture.

To the present where activists unfurl a banner on an office building owned by Fermatas – a major arms dealers. Carlos isn’t impressed by the idea from Kiera that they should get involved in this – a little civil disobedience is hardly exclusive to Liber8 and she can’t decide any and all protests are Liber8 covert actions. He hangs up on her

Which is when Curtis (he was a Liber8 but actually a Freelancer) pops up to say “hey Kiera, need a friend?” since Carlos and Alec are not all super happy with her at the moment (hmmm… must be something about joining secret cults and upholding fascist states. Funny that). Kiera responds to this overture of friendship by reporting him to Catherine (Freelancer head) because she suspects Shenanigans. After a brief comment on how they recruit people and Catherine seeing herself as a mother figure, she really clumsily dodge’s Kiera’s question about what’s behind an Ominous Door. Seriously “none of your damned business” would have been more subtle.

At the police station Betty, the new mole, gets a call from Lucas that Dillon won’t let her answer. Wow, someone needs to explain to him what the purpose of a double agent actually is.

Now for an extra twist, they’ve arrested one of the activist who unfurled the banner – and it’s Dillon’s daughter Christine. And she’s really not happy with her father or his brutal, police state tactics. Unlike previous suspects he was happy to torture, he pushes his daughter to demand a lawyer.

Of course, having a pro-Liber8 daughter leads to investigation, but now with Prion’s funding and the utter and complete corruption of the police force, Dillon cannot be removed, even by Inspector Nora. So it’s spin doctor time. And an argument with his, I presume, ex-wife who is very not happy with the corrupt Dillon for being so corrupt but not willing to help their daughter.

Over to Corporate Alec and Kellogg slithers over, sniffing for a job to join his team. C. Alec says no. And further he’s going to buy out Kellogg’s involvement in Sadtech and show him the door. Kellogg freaks more than a little and brings up a random book on corporate management (steamrolling) which, apparently Alec wrote. Or will write.

Anyway, Dillon’s spin involves and interview with Diana, the same journalist who interviewed Julian last episode. She’s certainly good at spin and manipulating people. The interview is pretty awful – Bolton focuses entirely on Dillon’s daughter and Nigel, her fellow interviewer, continually tries to talk about the corporate corruption and police failings and everyone ignores him.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 4: A Minute Changes Everything

Time for another insight to the future to remind us what a terrible terrible terrible place it is and further make us question why Kiera was such a big fan of the system. Kiera rescues a child from a burning building with her nifty shield suit – but  there’s another little girl in need of rescue. She starts to go back to save her when her boss says, basically, forget the child there’s some rich guys needs rescuing! And the fire-brigade is delayed because they’re at another fire with even richer people who are, obviously, far far more important.

Back to the past and Carlos is all kinds of conflicted and tortured and decides to meet up with Julian Randall who is a naughty boy for various reasons and in future is going to be some kind of Messiah figure against the corporations. Carlos is all conflicted – apparently about whether people can change (does he think Julian needs redemption?) and he orders Julian to keep his head down – something he links to T-shirt with Julian’s face on it in a classic revolutionary style that are apparently becoming popular.

From there to a big party full of teenagers and young adults who are great Liber8 fans. It’s pretty non-threatening, music and dancing and the police arrive to shut it down. There’s an argument, the students are outraged, one of the cops pulls a baton and violence breaks out and the campus police get their arses handed to them.

To Dillon’s police station where Dillon announces the university has responded to Student outrage over their gathering being shut down by shutting down any future gatherings, leaflets with extra profiling of “suspicious” students. Because just because you’re professors doesn’t make you smart. Carlos snarks away at what an awful idea this is. Kiera speaks up – how could Carlos think of letting them tear down the system – and Carlos responds with some actual perspective. There’s also a gun missing because one of the campus cops lost his – Carlos questions why, in the name of common sense, was he carrying a gun. Kiera, of course, speaks up – fearful cops carrying guns in case of escalation is a good thing (uh-huh) and she tells Carlos that campuses is where it all starts with Theseus rising.

When Carlos goes to pick up the list of people to harass off Betty’s desk, he finds she has a phone SIM card taped to the bottom of her stapler.

Time for some drama – Emily drops in on Alec in his nifty new lab at Prion and Alec is very very bitter and angry about the secrets she kept, with the video of her violently attacking people playing in the background. She responds by hitting at his sheltered existence – he just hasn’t found the part of himself that will do anything to survive. Though he hits back that she knows nothing of his experiences and feelings (he was involved in an armed siege, for example) before she leaves because he has a meeting. A board meeting – which he attends and is awkward and is quickly shuffled out the room to go do some research while the board handles matters.

Kellogg is there to poke Alec while he’s down and offer his services for dealing with the board. He hands over the research he’s dug up on the board members and points out they’re bullying because they have a weak hand and are trying to make Alec back down.

Carlos and Kiera go to the campus where they’re not popular (and Kiera declares the whole thing so unthreatening), and likely to become less so when Kiera runs down and chokes a student who she has seen with Theseus in the past. After checking the CCTV they find absolutely nothing to hold the girl – or anyone else on especially since the college isn’t pressing charges thanks to a Professor who happily comes to talk to them and isn’t impressed by Kiera’s “AAARGH TERRORISTS”, pointing out that an awful lot of groups have been called terrorists over the years. He adds as well that, in the name of combating Liber8, the powers that be are becoming more and more oppressive.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 3: Minute to Win It

Start in the future, with a roving firefight between Kiera’s squad of enforcers and Liber8 – it a resembles a war more than anything. During the fight she runs across their informant – but they don’t need him any more so her bosses order her to murder him; when she balks they use the CMR’s mind-control override (which is apparently a thing) to make her do it.

In the present, Kiera consults Catherine, head of the Freelancers, voicing suspicion of Curtis (who tried to kill her in the other time line) and worry about the killer of her double still being out there. Catherine is happy, though, that the newly rejiggled police force is increasingly resembling the one Kiera remembers from the future – a sign the time line is on the “right” track. Towards a dystopia.

In the mental institution, Lucas seems to have got better. And he’s also reminding us he’s an utter genius by repurposing random stuff around. His inventions cause rather a large amount of chaos, mind control a dog and allow him to escape to where Garza is waiting with a getaway car.

Carlos and Kiera investigate the escape and find that at least some of the parts were smuggled into Lucas – and that he was experimenting on cockroaches. And Carlos is still confused as to which Kiera is which.

Meanwhile men with big guns and big, ominous looking electronic vests rob a bank (and spray out the CCTV cameras in the vault). There’s an electronic buzzing around one of the robbers and he drops his gun in shock and starts reassuring a hostage. She grabs for the gun and he snaps back into violent robber mode.

As they leave the bank one of the robbers walks into something which seems to fry his circuits as well; only this one becomes even more aggressive – and then he pushes the button on the bomb he’s wearing (screaming “no” as he does)… the button doesn’t just make his bomb explode – but all the robbers’ bombs go up as well.

On the plus side, the vests don’t see to do any damage to anyone but the robbers themselves. Carlos and Kiera are called in and apparently this is a second bank robbery with respectable looking thieves in suicide vests (the thieves in the last robbery were identified as white collar criminals). They try to figure out why the thieves exploded themselves before leaving when they were definitely getting away with it, though Dillon points out that in the last bank a number of safety deposit holders with the bank are claiming on insurance: after all, how do you prove something wasn’t stolen when only the owners know what’s in the boxes? They do find a Liber8 connection.

To Liber8 and Lucas who is using drugs to control himself, much to Travis’s disapproval. But they do have safety deposit boxes from the bank – apparently containing ill defined by compromising secrets of certain corporations.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 2: Minute Man

Starting in the future, with a woman who has clearly just lost her parents having some of their property taken to pay their “life debt” to the corporations. As an added bonus she has her “citizenship” barcoded on her arm. The woman is Kira’s (a young Kira) mother, the deceased her grandparents and her sister finds a stash of books. Apparently it counts as “seditious printed material”.

To the present and Kira is not very happy to see a dead her. She blames Alec – after all, when there’s only one Alec Sadler, she didn’t get shot. Kira is also completely unforgiving about Alec meddling with the time line and likely destroying any chance she has to go back to her family. She shows him her new Freelancer tattoos – and tells him she has to kill an Alec. He’ll do.

Meanwhile the mayor Jim Martin (remember him? I barely do) is at a party where someone offers hm cocaine (you can’t offer the mayor of Vancouver drugs! What do you think this is… Toronto?) The man is Solomon, a lawyer who works for Liber8, just like Jim – and Jim has a problem because he tricked Sonya and Travis, the two leaders of the separate factions of Liber8, into meeting each other intending them to kill each other. Instead they re-formed their alliance. And to make sure they’re not cross with him they want him to hire Solomon and give him all kinds of power and influence.

Kira and Alec meet Carlos and show off the second Kira body so he can dispose of it for her – and to help explain the oddness. Carlos lets them know about Escher’s murder – more blame for Alec.

The next day Kira discovers the next problem: Original Alec doesn’t understand who has been going through his lab. She arranges to meet him – and in the meantime he finds the full time travel device hidden in his lab. Kira also has to work through Carlos’s confusion and feeling that “his” Kira is dead. To top off the plot lines, Jim arrives trying to use the police to wriggle out from under Liber8’s thumb – he wants immunity in exchange for info; Dillon listens.

Cut to Carlos questioning Marco, a gang member who works for Liber8 who just got ratted out by the mayor. Though Marco points out everyone is corrupt – especially since the police force was effectively bought by Prion Industries.

Time Travel Alec and Kira still have a frosty relationship and Kira says TT Alec should leave Emily alone now he’s saved her life – or risk her all over. She guesses that whoever killed Dead Kira wanted the Time Travel Device she’d just recovered from Lucas at the time.

Kira has her meeting with Original Alec who is confused about the state of his lab and worried about losing Escher’s research. Original Alec also discovers Jason is his father. TT Alec goes to see said father to warn him about Emily’s death than has to hide when Original Alec shows up. Bringing the partial time machine (missing one piece TT Alec has) and, unfortunately, also bringing Emily – this is where she gets shot. Original Alec wants to talk about Jason being his father, Jason says no – time travel, other way round. Jason is Alec’s son, hence the genetic match. While Original Alec is reeling from that, TT Alec sneaks out the back to try and get Emily to leave.

And, just in case you’re not totally lost yet, the newly escaped Jasmine joins Travis who is apparently up to new shenanigans. Those shenanigans involve Sonya so Jasmine and Sonya have to get reacquainted.

Continuum, Season 3, Episode 1: Minute by Minute

We left off with all kinds of chaos – including Alec using the time travel device not to send Kira home – but to go and save Emily.

Kira is in a Freelancer prison along with Garza, Kellog and Jason – and we have a reminder that the dead Liber8 member Curtis is neither dead nor Liber8. He takes Kira to an interview room where he tells her they’ve all been had by Alec. Curtis and the Freelancers want to know when Alec is. (Yes, when). She describes the death of Emily at the hands of the Freelancers (Freelancers need to take better notes) and still wants to know why Curtis isn’t dead since she did the killing and all. Apparently soon she will know everything and see the “battlefield” for the first time – totally not ominous.

As if this show weren’t confusing enough with the time line, we also have to play the “one week earlier” game. Alec has successfully travelled through time and buries the time machine (if by “bury” we mean “put in a hole less than 2 inches deep”) and repeatedly shows us the nifty features on his phone which I’m sure isn’t blatant product placement, honest.

Future Alec finds Emily who is with Past Alec – Alec, despite being a genius, doesn’t think things through much. He’s spotted by Jason who sees 2 Alecs and realises there’s time travel afoot; he agrees to help. Whether that’s useful or not is somewhat in doubt. Future Alec hits his lab and has to deal with a highly clueless Kellog, including using future knowledge to reveal poor Kellog’s plotting and Escher’s evil schemes.

Future Alec runs into Emily and does an awful job of covering his shock and emotion – and tries to get her to go to Thailand.

Kira is taken to see Catherine, the head of the Freelancer cell who has some exposition for us: 100 years after Kira was born (even further in the future) a war began as time travel technology became more commonly available. Laws were created to stop people messing with the time line for personal gain and the Freelancers came together to try and stop people screwing with history. It started with their founder going back 1,000 years to create his little cult to always be ready to fight time travelling naughtiness. This also means most of them don’t travel through time – because they have agents in every age and excessive time travel is kind of the opposite of what they do.

Anyway, Alec has messed with the time line and created a new branch – a branch which he is now on. Apparently that means he ISN’T on the current branch which is awkward since his global corporate empire kind of entirely defines Kira’s world and future. So Kira and the Freelancers have a common goal – restoring continuity. And they want Kira to fix it because they’re limited and in trouble for letting it happen at all.

Apparently collecting all the time travellers is no longer sufficient to fix what Alec is breaking since he is such a pivotal historical figure. And Kira is just not that willing to jump on the Freelancer bandwagon given the givens. She’s lead back to her cell and on the way crosses path with Garza and her own guard – deep eye contact and a fight scene follows – Kira and Garza fighting off both guards and another who joins, with the addition of a gun Garza manages to grab. This is why you don’t chain people’s hands in front of them – it just puts lumps of metal and useful chain on their fists.

Freed, Garza and Kira make a quick truce. Elsewhere in the base, Curtis tells Catherine what a bad idea it is to recruit Kira since she’s a brainwashed cop and Catherine hits back that she’s a mother so that overrides right before the alarm sounds (cop or mother irrelevant, can kick arse almost as good as Garza is far more pertinent).

Continuum and the Ruined Setting

As fans of speculative fiction, we expect to see the fantastic and the unbelievable on our shows and in our books. We accept vampires and demons, zombies and werewolves, space ships with strangely humanoid aliens, we accept dragons and magic and all kinds of fantastic and wonderful things besides. The very nature of the genre requires us to believe the very extremes of human imagination to be possible.

But, sadly, sometimes we’re left feeling that because we’re fans of speculative fiction, we’re able to swallow anything, no matter how implausible. This particularly applies to the real world setting, the world and characters which can be inexplicably radically different from the actual settings we know (or even incomprehensible to anything resembling basic common sense) and we’re expected to accept that. This leaves a yawning credibility gap that undermines the story and smacks of lazy writing or poor research

While there are many ways to produce this credibility gap (many shows have done this by having protagonists who make the most unimaginable decisions - AND survive them), Continuum opens it’s credibility gap with its highly dubious representation of its setting that barely resembles the actual city its supposed to be set in.

One of the things that continues to bother me about Continuum is the fact that though it is set in Vancouver, Canada; Betty is the only Asian character. Vancouver is the site of the second largest Chinatown in North America and the Chinese are by far the most visible minority in Vancouver. The Chinese population is also the fastest growing and is expected to reach 809,000 by 2031. That being said, where are all of the Asian cast members? Why don't we see more Chinese people in street shots? The racial makeup of Vancouver is well known and yet Continuum chose to basically erase Chinese people. This is actually very much in line with most media as on an average night’s television viewing Asian people are greatly erased.

If this was Continuum's only failure it would be bad but, unfortunately, while Continuum took the time and care to create a fantastic future, it showed little concern  for the present. When Kiera first arrived in the past, Alec was able to quickly create a shaky covert identity for by breaking into CSIS's computer banks. I am sure that I was not the only shaking my head at that. Yes, Alec is a genius but, to be clear, CSIS is the highest level of policing in Canada. Not just policing, but this is the head of Canada’s intelligence and security - but Alec, working from a computer in his back yard, is not only able to do this but do so with incredible ease?

To further confound this (and insult our intelligences), everyone is quite willing to accept Kiera’s heavily redacted file from an organisation no-one’s ever heard of. So willing are they to go along, unquestioning, with Kiera’s shoddy background that when Agent Gardiner, an actual CSIS agent, shows up he is treated as suspicious and paranoid for questioning who Kiera is and what she’s actually doing and under whose authority?