Continuum Season 4 Premiere Review

Continuum Season 4 Premiere Review

Continuum is finally back for it’s last, and short 6 episode season. Simon Barry’s show entered the ratings doldrums after the disappointing second season. Sadly, Showcase and Syfy saw no other choice but to end the series with a 6 episode run to tie-up the storyline and not leave fans in the wind. Continuum lost a lot of viewers when it become less focused. There were too many secondary characters, secrets organizations and sudden plot developments to keep pace. The first thing I noticed watching the premiere of the fourth season was how focused it was. There is no room for the show to flesh out side-stories. Instead all the focus is on Kiera, Alec and Kellog. All the secondary characters share this sudden focus and it made the episode a delight to watch. Read the Continuum Season 4 Premiere Review after the spoilers below.

Plot

The episode opens with a recap of the previous three seasons. After transitioning into the present we see good-Alec being reunited with Emily after he dropped the charges against her. She of course tried to kill the other evil-Alec. Only Carlos (Victor Webster) is aware of this situation. In return for the favor, Carlos asks that Alec gain Piron technology for the police department. Alec responds by explaining that Kellog has tricked the other him out of the company. As the other evil-Alec is dead he is by default the ousted-CEO of Piron.

Across town, Kiera (Rachel Nichols) and Brad activate Brad’s signal to see if they had averted his future. After some initial hopes a number of soldiers from Brad’s time suddenly appear and give chase to Kiera. Brad states he knows the soldiers and delays them long enough to allow Kiera to escape. One soldier eventually catches up to her and renders her unconscious. Alec and Carlos find her and take her to Alec’s house. While there, Kiera explains that with Liber8 effectively neutralized she must start thinking for her own. She intends to find her way home, Alec agrees to help. In the morning Kiera wakes to find Jason, Emily, Lucas and Alec working on a way to take down Kellog (Stephen Lobo).

While at the precinct, Carlos discovers that Dillon survived the blast that Sonya set off. Carlos is informed that Dillon is planning on leaving the VPD. Alec meanwhile goes to Julian with his plan to take down Kellog, to which Julian agrees to help. This allows Alec (Erik Knudsen) to successfully hack into Kellog’s system and retrieve the information that they need to send Kiera home. Meanwhile Carlos and Kiera question Kellog at a party about the armed soldiers he sent from his future. Kellog is evasive and Kiera understands Kellog will try to bring about his dark future at any price. Kiera’s only consolation is that Brad is now embedded with the super-soldiers and he may not share their ideology.

The next day, Kiera and Alec attempt to track down Brad and the soldiers. Kiera meets with Garza (Luvia Petersen) and intends to use her as back-up. But she wants to try and take down the soldiers herself first. After Kiera finds them, Alec and Jason have Kiera steal a small pen-like device. However, this causes suspicion from one of the soldiers, Vasquez (Kyra Zagorsky), who opens fire upon Kiera and reveals her position. After a brief fight, Kiera is rendered unconscious and then wakes to find herself on the edge of a building being questioned by the soldiers. They throw her off the building in order to complete their orders, but Kiera’s suit saves her form the fall. Garza arrives and covers Kiera as she climbs into the car before they escape. Meanwhile, Emily is attacked by unknown men and kidnapped. That night, Carlos and Kiera share a drink as they discuss her returning to her own time.

Review

This episode of Continuum, Lost Hours, is tightly written. It is probably one of the best episode of the series so far. The second half of season 3 got a bit sentimental as Kiera and Liber8 made an uneasy truce, but in this episode the at arms-length cooperation works well. It allows Kiera to concentrate on trying to get back to 2077. Meanwhile the members of Liber8 contemplate a future in which they are not terrorists. The introduction of the super-soldiers from Kellog’s dark future present a new element that is used to propel the story forward. During the last six episode Kellog is the villain whose ideas for the future are pretty much harmful to everyone, including himself. However, the super-soldiers enable the story to move at a quick pace as they appear to have a plan to bring about Kellog’s ideology soon. For this I am thankful because Continuum did suffer from too many detours in the past. I was also happy to see that no other than Helix’s lead actress Kyra Zagorsky is playing a super-soldier. A new but familiar face to Continuum is certainly welcome.

One of the issues Continuum has suffered from is the distance the audience feels to the on-screen characters. It feels as if we never get to know them. Kiera, Alec Sadler, Liber8 and Kellog always seem to have an inside track on how to resolve a situation. Events unfold like an Deus Ex Machina. This premiere episode, Lost Hours, feels very different. Kiera, Alec, Carlos and the others keep each other well informed. They work as a team, making events truly character driven.

However, Lost Hours does have a number of flaws. The dark future that Kellog will invoke if the season 3 finale is to be believed still seems murky. Why would Kellog be at all interested in that? Crowning himself king of all the ashes hardly seems his style. There are also issues with Alec’s girlfriend Emily (Magda Apanowicz). The fight scene before she was kidnapped was impressive, but who kidnapped her? It always seems Emily is sort of out of the loop. I hope her story will provide closure to her past, the audience badly needs it. This was Continuum Season 4 Premiere Review. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Source; http://www.showcase.ca/continuum/