Continuum Season 3: An Overview

By Stacey Gillard

I’m going to admit off the bat that I’m very confused by Continuum; time travel and alternate timelines have always taxed my poor brain. Something about the writing of this fantastic sci-fi show, though, enables me to be completely drawn in to the storyline and the characters without necessarily following along with which timeline we’re in, whose future is being affected and who the bad guys really are.

The explosive ending to season 3 epitomised what the show has all been about, relationships between the characters and several factions fighting for what they believe in. I cannot tell you how happy I was that Kiera (Rachel Nichols) finally started working with Liber8. Her statement that she couldn’t condone their actions but understood their motive was something I’ve been saying from the very first episode. Kiera was practically brain-washed into believing the people she worked for in 2077 were the “good guys” and it took her some time in the present day to understand that the people she trusted the most were the ones manipulating her and the future of our world.

I want to think that her introduction to Brad (Ryan Robbins) this season helped her come to terms with how she felt about her former employers. Being able to converse with someone who had seen a different version of our future, seeing how things can be so much worse in the future just by making a simple decision in the present, allowed her to question everything she was fighting for and justify what she was willing to sacrifice to protect what she knew to be right. The chemistry between Nichols and Robbins was amazing from the minute they met in his hospital room and their unique ability to relate to each other’s situation meant a romance was inevitable. She has always struggled to make people understand what losing her family has meant to her and she’s been torn between needing to get back to them and knowing that everything she does in the present affects her ability to do that. Brad lost his family before he even came back to the present so he not only could empathize with her situation he also gave her hope that if she accepted their loss she would continue living.

I’ve always liked Kiera and Carlos (Victor Webster) together, but with the death of Carlos’ version of Kiera and his descent into disillusionment with his job I felt their relationship waning. We knew he would help in the kidnapping of Alec, he has always come through for Kiera no matter how he’s felt about her, but I was glad Kiera kept him out of the involvement with Liber8. It gives him plausible deniability and moving forward he can be a very useful ally without jeopardizing his position within the police force. With Dillon (Brian Markinson) incapacitated indefinitely after Sonya’s (Lexa Doig) sacrifice it appears that Carlos will stand in for the Inspector as a liaison between the Vancouver Police Department and the corporations. I’d like to think that where Dillon saw a collaboration as inevitable Carlos will use his knowledge of Alec Sadler and Kiera’s future to stymie their attempts at a co-dependence.

Erik Knudsen did a fantastic job playing the two versions of Alec Sadler, to the point where it was easy to tell which version was which just by recognizing the nuances he brought to the dual role. The climactic rooftop Alec vs Alec fight scene was not only brilliantly acted but, as we’ve come to expect, the stunt choreography was genius and breathtaking. Future Alec may never forgive Kiera for betraying him to the Freelancers and subjecting him to the subsequent captivity but it was heartwarming to see him put their differences aside, sacrifice his ability to be with Emily (Magda Apanowicz) for right now and join Kiera in her crusade.

And then there’s Kellogg. Stephen Lobo has created an intricately woven character, straddling both sides of the proverbial line, sometimes good, often bad, but infinitely lovable. His removal from association with Liber8 as soon as they arrived in present day Vancouver immediately gave us a sense of how everything Kellogg does is to benefit Kellogg and he’s helped both sides over the past 3 seasons. At the end of season 3 we saw him take control of SadTech after manipulating present day Alec into signing portions of the company over to him and having future Alec whisked away to who knows where. It’s unclear, however, if this was to run SadTech into the ground and protect any potential future timelines from the fate of the few that we have already seen, with corporations dominating a regressing landscape, or to force a future that we glimpsed in Brad’s memory when Kellogg appeared to be the man everyone looked up to. The conundrum here is that in Brad’s memories, Kellogg was shown to be at an advanced age and it had always been insinuated that Brad’s future was not yet as far forward as Kiera’s; but Kellogg came back with Kiera which can only lead us to conclude that the Kellogg Brad knew was actually the same one we’ve been following in the present day. How, then, did he know to reach out to Brad in the present when he should seemingly have no knowledge of who he would meet in the future.

We have to think that the strange being released by Curtis Chen (Terry Chen) from where it was being held by the Freelancers has more than a small role to play in this as the organization appears to be able to manipulate timelines and has intimate knowledge of multiple possible futures. With Brad’s beacon summoning strange armored people from the future as the electricity across the city failed, a cruel last minute cliffhanger after a perceived happy ending as Kiera and Brad held hands and walked across the beach, we can only hope we are offered answers to our many questions if and when this fantastic show is renewed for a 4^th season.