TV Show Review: Continuum Season 1

Pros: conflicted protagonist, interesting future dystopia, time travel conundrums

Cons: sometimes cheesy special effects, police accept Kiera's story too easily, partner accepts her lies/half truths too easily

A group of terrorists who use explosives to protest the rule of corporations as government in 2077 are scheduled for execution.  Something goes wrong and they, and one of the guards, Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), are transported back in time.  Despite being desperate to return to her own time - where she has a husband and son - Kiera knows she's the only one who can stop the criminals.  So she joins Vancouver's police force as a special advisor on the new group of terrorists in town, terrorists determined to see their future changed.  She's helped by the creator of her high tech police uniform, who's still a teen in our time.

The show is not only filmed in Vancouver, it's set in Vancouver too.  The main characters are conflicting at first, since the future's a dystopia where corporations have become the government, you're not sure you want everything to stay the same.  This feeling is compounded by flashbacks of Kiera's life over the course of the season that show just how corrupt the future is.  Her character fights to keep things the same, though that requires her to make difficult, and often morally ambiguous decisions in the present.  She even joins with the terrorists in one early episode when they claim they can take her back to the future with them.

The acting's pretty good and, with a few cheesy exceptions, the special effects decent.  I did wonder that the police accepted Kiera's cover story so easily, even with the fake file Alec Sadler (her tech contact, played by Erik Knudsen) set up.  Her police partner puts up with a lot of lies, half truths, and evasions, which surprised me as well.

All in all it's a fun show that questions the power corporations have, a gutsy move given the power corporations have.  You'll recognize a few actors from X-Files (Cancer Man and Alex Krycek).  Given how well done the show is on the whole, I'm surprised how little I've seen about it online.