Continuum - Season 1

'Nice' Time-Travel Terrorist, Nasty Time-Travel Terrorist, Basically Honest Cop, Lying Time-Travel Cop, Innocent Tech-Nerd Who Grows Up to be the Chessmaster, the Lounge Lizard from Time-Travel Accounts.

Thanks to a Netflix account and a weekend of hideous blurgh, I have been catching up on some series that I missed first time out. One of these is Continuum, which is kind of like Time Trax for the arc-plot generation.

In 2077, the world - or possibly just Canada/North America - is run by a congress of representatives from the major corporations following a bail-out of the government(s). A group of terrorists demanding a return to representative government and personal liberties blow up the Congress and are sentenced to death, but dramatically escape by smuggling a small time machine into the execution chamber. Protector (police officer) Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols, which is presumably why she didn't appear in the GI Joe sequel) is caught up in the field and finds herself in 2012, along with half a dozen terrorists with knowledge and methods far ahead of their new time.

Cameron teams up with tech geek Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen,) a young man whom she knows will one day be the head of the most powerful corporation in the world and will create most of the technology she has brought back with her - a high-tech suit, a handgun that unfolds from its own handle and a multitool which is fortunately not quite as omnpotent as a sonic screwdriver. She is able to communicate with Alec through a compute in her head, and also connects with the Vancouver PD in the form of hunky Detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster). Throughout the first series her main goal is to get back to 2077 and the husband and child she has left behind.

I do not know why Tony Amendola isn't in the cast shots.

On the flip side of the coin are Liber8, lead by Edouard Kagame (Tony Amendola). Kagame represents a flawed balance between peaceful protest and violent activism. Of the remaining Liber8 members, three are more for violence and three for a more measured approach, although one of the former is killed early on and one of the latter essentially sets out on his own to profit from his future knowledge and live large. Liber8 are interesting mostly because they have valid arguments, but employ unacceptable methods (to assassinate the Corporate Congress they set off an explosive device and killed 10,000 innocents.) They are directly compared - and linked - to Alec's stepfather, a peaceful grass-roots activist, and stepbrother, who is played by the guy with the scary intense eyes who is Murphy in The 100 and so you know he's going to be trouble.

It's this measured approach that makes Continuum interesting. While Kiera is the good guy and Liber8 the bad guys, the system that Kiera defends is clearly a terrible one and many of Liber8's arguments are valid. They are also presented in a - sorry - continuum from peaceful protest to mass murder which makes it harder to draw sides, especially after an information gap leads to the death of a peaceful protester by a police sniper's bullet.

All-in-all, Continuum is an interesting series with decent action and technothrills accompanying a more than usually nuanced social position.