Ho Hum "Continuum"

It's frustrating when you have a show with all the right elements in place, except for one big, inescapable problem right at the center. The new Canadian science-fiction series “Continuum” is nothing groundbreaking, though its effects are a notch higher than what you usually see on television. Its premise is pure pulp – in a corporately controlled cyberpunk future, a group of terrorists are condemned to death but escape to the past, which is our present day. They accidentally bring a lone policewoman with them, Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), who is intent on hunting down the convicts and returning to her own time. She quickly rounds up some allies, including a tech geek, Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen), who can appreciate all the spiffy advanced technology Kiera uses, and Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster), a police detective she cons into believing she’s a colleague from Portland.

So far so good, right? “Continuum” could be a lot of fun. It’s exactly the kind of high concept, techno-babble-heavy, cheesy sci-fi action show I loved watching as a teenager. However, that big problem I was talking about? It’s the lead actress, Rachel Nichols. She’s terrible. She has exactly two expressions, stoic and vulnerable, which is fine when she’s playing the one-woman army, but not fine when she has to interact with other characters. Kiera falls into the trap of being one of those morally upright, dedicated, professional women that we’re all supposed to admire for her skill and effectiveness, but who has no damn personality to speak of. She’s also a mother with a young son waiting for her in the future, which certainly gives her good motivation, but doesn’t automatically make her sympathetic or interesting. I tried to think of how Kiera might have come across differently if she were a male character, but I kept coming up with the same two descriptors – blank and humorless. A better actress could have made up for the deficiencies in writing, but I'm not optimistic in this case.

The plot has some interesting ideas, but I think the creators tipped their hands too quick, with all the harping on how the governments of the future are all controlled by corporations, and personal freedoms have been severely curtailed. It’s pretty much inevitable that at least some of the terrorists Kiera is chasing will turn out to have been the good guys all along, and Kiera will learn the error of her ways and switch sides after a lot of emotional turmoil about destroying a future she has a lot invested in. Or maybe not. The episode pointedly also offers up multiple theories of time travel, suggesting the possibility that Kiera’s intervention in the past may have created the future she came from. I don't think subtlety is going to be one of the show's big strengths.

What I did find impressive were the special effects, which feature lots of scenic CGI cityscapes, lots of augmented reality technology, and lots of little gadgets and crime-fighting apps that Kiera shows off over the course of the hour. Many of these are integrated into right into her uniform, which allow her to access funds from ATMs, to generate electric shocks, and analyze data with the results popping up on her sleeve instead of a computer screen. All fun stuff, all well-realized and integrated into the show. However, clothing and hairstyles don't appear to have changed much otherwise between 2012 and 2077, which dates it immediately. And considering how the show has been constructed, I don't see Kiera checking in too often with the future in the weeks to come. Well, a few glimpses of a certain mystery man played by William B. Davis aside.

Now "Continuum" and its leading lady have plenty of opportunity to improve. There have been some famously terrible pilots and even whole first seasons of genre shows like this, where it took a while for everyone to get their act together. While Nichols isn't inspiring much confidence right now, maybe some of the supporting cast will pick up the slack. The pilot didn't spend much time with the villains, if they are the villains, who could be the souce of more interesting material. I'm being harsher on "Continuum" than I probably should be because it does have a certain ambition about it and a certain potential that could yield some good television. For now I think I'd class it with shows like "The Cape" and "The Bionic Woman," that had good ideas but hit some major stumbling blocks in the execution.
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