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Continuum – 2.03 – Second Thoughts – A to Z Challenge – Day 03

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“Clarity Is Priceless”

‘A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.’

― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile


Prologue
This episode falls firmly in the category of “Favorite”. I’m a math and science nerd and so naturally a show about time travel can give me hours of entertainment by way of theorizing what type of rules the writers are using for their particular time travel . The first season was brutal as it only had 10 episodes and left on a pretty cool cliffhanger. The second season really stepped up its game and this is the episode where a lot intriguing possibilities start to present themselves.

About the Show
Seasons: 3| No. of Episodes:26 |Premiere Date: May 27, 2012| End Date: N/A |Status: On-Air
Genre(s): Action, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Story in a nutshell: In the year 2077, eight dangerous rebels from the group Liber8, facing execution for an act of terrorism that killed thousands of innocents, manage to avoid execution by escaping into a time jump, transporting themselves from 2077 to 2012. In doing so, however, they also transport Protector Kiera Cameron, a law enforcement officer who tries to intervene and is sucked into the jump too. Soon after her arrival, she gets into contact with, and befriends, young Alec Sadler, the 17-year old who will one day grow up to create the technology that her world is built upon, and who will control future society.

Best Reason to Watch the Show: It’s a fast paced show with plenty of action, character development and twists and turns. It’s the perfect show to marathon on a long weekend. The characters are very intriguing and as the series goes along you learn a lot about each of their motivations.

Best Thing about This Episode: Kiera and Alec bonding time. The show lives and dies with the character interactions between those two. It’s a really cool and interesting relationship with lots of twists, turns and shocking revelations.
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Title: Second Thoughts | Writer: Sam Egan | Director: William Waring

Episode Summary: Liber8's internal power struggle takes a violent turn as Sonya and Travis recruit gangs as their weapons. Kiera investigates a new (to 2013) street drug that she recognizes from the future. The drug, called "flash" in 2013, is administered by eye drops and allows the user to remember vividly events from the past.

Alec is part of a group in a car in which the driver had taken the drug. It crashes and Alec ends up with an arm in a sling. He was also given a plastic ampule of the drug but had not taken it.

Kiera learns that Sonya is paying the gang she had recruited to kill Travis with flash. Kiera and Carlos track one of the gang members to the lab where it is being produced and a gunfight ensues in which many of the gang members present are killed. Sonya is there and targets Keira, but neither is successful in their attempts to kill the other.

Travis calls members of various gangs together for a meeting and presents them with the heads of their former leaders. He unites them to fight together.

Kiera is also meeting with Jason, the other time traveler she met in "Endtimes" (the final episode of Season 1), who tells her that there are other time travelers present and that they are trying to kill him.

Alec, desperate to remember something that his late father told him, takes flash, and sees his mother with his father, and when he turns around, Alec recognizes him as Jason.
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Awards

Character of the Night
• Kiera

Best Character Interactions
• Kiera & Alec

Best Line

•Sonya: We will use the weakness of the system against itself. We will expose corruption and hyprocrisy where it lives and we will sacrifice. But only when there is no other peaceful solution.

Best Scene
• The opening scene where future Kiera tracks down her younger sister who has a drug problem. Kiera’s sister is addicted to “flash” a street drug from the future. This apparently isn’t the first time Kiera’s little sister has succumb to the addiction.

That Awkward Moment Award
• That awkward moment when you discover your crack ship. This is the episode where my crack ship of Alec and Kiera began. She was so sweet and concerned about him, I just wanted them to do more than hug. Plus, now he is at least 18, so it's a little less creepy, right?

Highlights

Memorable Moments
1. Kiera tells Alec she’s glad he’s OK.
2. Kiera vows to destroy Kellog if he messes with Alec’s destiny.
3. Jason plays multiple games of chess in the park while simultaneously explaining to Kiera what freelancers are.
4. Garza and Travis have a heart to heart about the Liber8 split.

Notable & Quotable
1. Kellog: I use the Google.
2. Kiera (to Kellog): Because it’s lucrative. Because you have the morals of a sea slug.
3. Inspector Dillon: So on top of civil unrest and a drug epidemic, you’re telling me we have a gang war on our hands.
4. Sonya: Ideas are more powerful than guns. (You might have to be a Batman fan for that one to really reasonate).
5. Kiera (to Jason): We both sound like we’re off our meds.

Superb Scenes
1. Kiera confronts Kellog about her suspscions that he is the one behind “flash”.
2. Alec’s mother visits Julian in prison.
3. Kiera picks Alec up from the hospital and lectures him about drug use before she drops him off at home.
4. Alec takes “flash” and remembers a childhood memory that features Jason, which leads him to believe that he is his father.
5. Sonya and her new crew have a shootout with Kiera and Carlos.

Lowlights

• The bad guys are now split in two and causing even more havoc and have a huge lead on the good guys.

Miscellaneous

My Favorite Main Character
• Alec Saddler

My Favorite Side Character
• Betty

Least Favorite Main Character
• Matthew Kellog

Least Favorite Side Character
• Julian

Tasty Tidbit: Throughout the series, multiple theories are suggested as to the nature of time travel and its effect on the timeline of events leading from 2012 to 2077.

Side Notes: Series creator and executive producer Simon Barry has confirmed that the creative staff have established a set of "rules" for the version of time travel depicted, which will be further explored as the series progresses.
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Grade: B+
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Comparable Shows
If you like Sci-Fi & Fantasy shows with a strong female lead, I suggest that you check out one, some or all of the following TV shows: Alias, Haven and/or Lost Girl.
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Up Next: If you are a fan if the Whedonverse be sure to check out my blog tomorrow because I will be writing about the series finale of Dollhouse. .

Continuum – 3.01– Minute to Minute– Review: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

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‘There is a great disturbance in the Force.’


‘Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.’
― John F. Kennedy


Wow! That pretty much sums up the season three opener of Continuum. Am I right? This is the game changer that has reset the entire series. Or should I say, has finally made us privy to the big picture. I’m so excited for all of the possibilities this new chapter affords us.

I am kind of curious why this season’s theme aka the title episode structure is ‘minute’ and not a reference to the number three like season one and two had.

The Recap & Review

Title: Minute to Minute | Written by: Simon Barry | Directed by: Pat Williams

Synopsis: Keira Cameron's world in 2014 has disintegrated; Alec Sadler betrayed her best chance of getting back to 2077 and used the time travel device instead in hope of saving his girlfriend. It not only sent Alec into the near past, but condemned Kiera (and Liber8 itself) as prisoners of the Freelancers, a cult who 'collect' time travelers in order to 'protect' history's timeline. Carlos Fonnegra, Kiera's Vancouver PD partner, and Betty Robertson, computer whiz (and Liber8's VPD mole) are now allied with Julian Randol - the future Theseus - to fight Inspector Dillon, now gone rogue with Escher to create what will be the template for police state conditions in 2077 North America - CPS.
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My thought on this week’s writer…
I’m a fan of shows with short seasons, kind of but that is blog post for another day. Usually a show with a short season means that the creative team can be smaller, more connected and doesn’t have to come up with filler episodes so the story just flows better. It also usually means that the showrunner, especially if he is the head writer, can be heavily involved a lot more easily; as is the case with Continuum. You can always count on Simon Barry to bookend the season by writing the premiere and the finale. There is just something very poetic about that to me. But now I’m scared for the season finale because if this is what he wrote the premiere, I can only imagine what he wrote for the finale. This episode was fast paced, well plotted and even remembered to make room for some kick butt action sequences. Simon Barry definitely shook up the status quo and has now turned the show on its side and now we are really going to get a heavy dose of sci-fi as we explore the ramifications of changing the past and maybe quite possibly what happens when a person meets the other you in the same timeline. All I know is that Continuum gets better with every episode and every season the ante gets up. I think we are in for hell of rollercoaster ride this season.

My thoughts on this week’s director…
Pat Williams is prolific director on Continuum. This episode marked his 10th time in the director’s chair during the series run. I really love his directorial eye and I think it’s him to thank for capturing the darker shift of tone that is sure to follow us for the rest of the season. He just had a way making everything seem so bleak, dark and dingy. He also really pulled out the best in all the actors. I also enjoyed how he captured some subtle nuisances and let the important scenes breathe for a beat.
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Here’s what I gathered from this week’s episode...

By the end of the season Kiera will have to decide which Alec to kill, which will likely lead into season and dealing with the ramifications of having to kill Alec and if she did indeed kill the right one and if not, how to correct it.

Alec is on a mission, with the help of his son no less, to save Emily. He plans on just taking her to Thailand and has avoid his past self while eliminating all the things that conspired to seal Emily’s death the first time around. But every small change he made has led to the death of Present!Day Kiera. Does this stop him in his tracks or does he keep pursuing this selfish agenda?

Garza is on loose once more after her swan dive to freedom and I think she is the actual wild card that will make all the difference in tipping the scale one way or another. I look forward to seeing her interactions with Kiera as well as what’s left of Liber8.

We learned about the Freelancers, finally and here’s the gist of it:
• Shortly after Kiera left 2077, criminals got a hold of the technology and decided to go into the past to change history for profit and other nefarious reasons. A man made a sacrifice to leave everything behind and travel 1,000 years into the past to establish the order we call Freelancers. Freelancers are not from the future. They weren’t sure what to do with Kiera and Liber8 because they are seen as anomalies but anomalies that can tip the balance either way.

• Those tattoos are actually hi-tech codes embedded in the skin.

• The Freelancers want continuity (This is kind of funny, when you put into the context of the sci-fi & fantasy genre because after a couple of seasons even the best shows in the genre tend to lose just that. May Continuum never suffer that fate.).

Awards

Character of the Night
• Kiera (like duh!)

Best Character Interactions
• Kiera and Garza

Line of the Night
• Garza: You don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with you

Scene of the Night
• Kiera and Garza kick some major butt

Lamest Lie Award goes to Alec.

Highlights

Favorite Moments
• Garza swan dives to her freedom.
• Kiera frees Garza
• Kiera gets a new, more advanced suit. Hopefully, we get another showdown between her and some rocking another suit before the season ends.

Favorite Scenes
• Kiera travel back in time and turns the tables on the Freelancers
• Future!Kiera and Future!Alec run into each other at the lab and see Present Day!Kiera’s dead body.

Biggest Surprises of the Episode
• Garza becoming a potential ally for Kiera.
• Kiera is now a freelancer for intent and purposes.
• The freelancers have been around for a very long time.

Miscellaneous

Fun Fact: Did you know that the director Pat Williams has worked on some other pretty awesome shows that I highly recommend you check out such as ‘The Secret World of Alex Mack’, ‘Aaron Stone’ and ‘Smallville’?

WTF Moment
• Present Day!Kiera is dead.

Burning Questions
1. Will Present Day!Alec and Future!Alec every meet? If so, what will happen?
2. Which Alec is the Alec that will still keep Kiera’s timeline intact, Present!Day Alec or Future!Alec?
3. Did Future!Kiera kill Present Day!Kiera to avoid the issues of creating even more paradoxes/branch timelines and or to manipulate Future!Alec into doing what she wants?

Side Notes
• The death toll was crazy and surprising in this episode, I mean we had Future!Garaza, Present Day!Esscher and Present Day!Kiera.

• The best thing about Continuum to date is how they’ve set up the rules of their universe and it appears that destiny isn’t a fixed factor, everyone has time to change and become something/someone different for better or for worse and that’s just a brilliant take on the time travel trope.

Grade: A+
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Well, now it's your turn to sound off in the comments section below. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

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