Continuum: S01E02 - Fast Times.

Well, I have nothing else to review, so I may as well review another episode of Continuum. Hope you enjoy!

An amazing amount of nothing happens in this episode, which is hilarious given the title of the episode. It's bizarre too because they have a lot of ideas, they just apparently wanted to cram them all in the pilot and do nothing else for the rest of the season. The terrorists try to get home and fail twice.  This is unsurprising considering just last episode the show specifically stated there was no way back. Did the show just forget? Or is it deliberately trying to waste our time? Even that aside, this makes no sense, why are they going home already? Weren't they building an army last episode, they haven't actually done anything? Or are they just trying to get to their original destination, 2070/71? Make this clear, show! Kiera is arrested, escapes, only to give herself up at the end and all the while Carlos is still dribbling over her, as are probably most of the audience.

Okay, this isn't entirely fair. It looks set that Kellog will be the big bad, because he seems to be the only terrorist with any brains and common sense. Then again, Travis can take a taser without even flinching, so I guess we'll see what wins out! Plus, Kiera's sidekick who has been too meaningless to mention up to this point actually had some impact on the story. And we do get to see the origin of some of Kiera's tech, alongside some hilarious child acting from Sean Michael Kyer, oh child actors, you are always so terrible.

Although really, the main meat of the episode, is Kiera trying to deal with the fact that she might not get home, that she might be here in 2012 for a reason and that is where she might be stuck. This is fine, character driven narratives can work with a strong enough writer but the best writer in the world is useless if the actors portraying the words are so weak. Nichols is surprisingly cool when it comes to action scenes but is much too wooden and unnatural when it comes to the emotional down point moments and this creates real problems, when they make up 50% of her character.

Another big problem with Continuum is the amount of liberties it takes to get on with things. Both in terms of real world logic and its own mythology. I'm not complaining about it getting on with it, but it's also easy to assume from Continuum that 2012 Vancouver is apparently full of utter retards and pretty much the entire police department should be fired. Taking a moment, even a brief one, to actually be convincing in your plot convenience really isn't hard as you make it seem.

In terms of time travel, their time machine device thing is just a metal Terry's Chocolate Orange, really? I know I said I wouldn't talk about this...but I think they did well at making Kiera feel out of time. She comes from a time where everyone relies on tech to do everything for them, they need to do little themselves in 2077. So when they strip that all away from her, she has to 'learn herself' again, learn to trust her own human abilities which will be great for developing her as a character. Plus there are a few silly, but fun scenes, like how Kiera, even with all her fancy tech, can't comprehend an automatic car.

We get some much better action this time and it still manages to keep all the style and gloss - normally the follow up to a pilot or premier looks much cheaper, but this was a much better serving when it came to set piece moments. I mean I kinda hated the terrorists at first, but they are just captured like such badasses here, I found it hard to hate them. Kiera was pretty badass in the first episode, but is even more so here. It's hard to believe both this episode and the first one has the same director. Although I love how she always fights in really Power Rangersesque settings, just to further rip off Time Force.

Although I have only seen two episodes so this could change, I have little hope that this will become a sci-fi classic or great, there is nothing in place for that, the show has little personal identity. However, I do have hopes that this show will be a lot of fun and if nothing else, an entertaining way to waste 45 minutes eight more times, and that is okay, that is all a show really needs to do.

Pros;

• Nichols really works as a badass.
• At least the show gets on with it.
• Kiera is well handled when it comes to plucking her from her tech-total world of 2077 into our tech-developing world of 2012.
• This episode had loads of problems but it was fun and isn't that all that really matters?
• Great action.
• So much badassery.

Cons;

• The narrative is an utter, tangled mess that is a nightmare to try and wade through and we're only on the second episode!
• Nothing bloody happens.
• Stop giving Nichols emotional set pieces, she sucks at them.
• This show is really stupid.
• What are the terrorists even doing?

Think About It!

-Locke