Continuum - Season 2 [DVD]

A three disc dvd box set containing all thirteen episodes of Continuum season two. A science fiction show set in present day [as it was when the show was on the air] Vancouver, it mixes police drama with time travel science fiction, as a police officer from the future pursues fugitives back in time.All episodes run forty minutes [approx]. As with season one, it does feature strong violence at times thus the 15 certificate.This is a not a jumping on point. New viewers should start with season one.This season picks up a short while after the end to season one. As Kiera continues her pursuit of the terrorists, the liberate group itself starts to fracture and a civil war among the members ensues. The law enforcers are caught in the crossfire.Meantime Kiera is still being investigated by the Feds. Alec gets something he never expected to have. But is it too good to be true? His brother has a choice of possible futures. And there are new players in town. What are their agendas?The season takes a couple of episodes to get going, because it stops having storylines of the week and starts to be part of one bigger story. It does click from episode three onwards, thanks to having a few storylines of the week for a while. But after a bit those are gone, and it is back to one bigger story. And it works perfectly from then on.Some episodes don't have quite as much development as others, but the show does always know where it's going. And does manage some strong emotional depth at times with a good few moral dilemmas as well. The coreography of the action scenes remains impressive. Since it's a bigger story it's also not afraid to change the status quo of the show if needs be. Which is always good to see.The last two episodes are quite gripping stuff, as the whole season comes together. you do get some answers. But you get more questions which set up what comes next. And an excellent cliffhanger as well.A very solid season of a good show that will leave you wanting to see what happens next.The discs have no extras at all.Language and subtitle options are:Languages: English, French.Subtitles: English, French, Dutch

I picked up Season 1 last year on a whim and enjoyed it a lot, so much so that I watched it again just before Season 2 arrived which I then watched (all 13 episodes) in a couple of days and enjoyed it at least as much.The premise is superficially simple. A group of terrorists in 2077 are about to be executed but somehow escape to the present (2012) dragging along a Protector (cop) with them. Their intent is to change the past so that their future never materialises. The cop wants to stop them and get back to her own time and her husband and son.The execution is far from simple. Our hero Kiera befriends Alec a teenage genius (who will become very powerful by her time), gets in with the local cops and partners up with good looking cop Carlos. Villains do villainous ruthless things except they think they're heroes and the problem is that they actually might be.There's a flashforward at the beginning of each episode which gradually reveals more and more about Kiera's world which starts to look more and more like a dystopia run by and for the benefit of mega-corporations. It soon becomes apparent that Kiera was set up to go back in time, possibly by the old Alec.The more the series goes on, the more devious it becomes. The bad guys turn on each other. Not everyone is what they seem. Not every thing is what it seems. Is Kiera there to stop the bad guys (Liber8) from preventing the future to happen as it did which does not seem to be a good thing? In which case she actually may be the villain. Or is everything pre-determined? And then, towards the end of Season 2, we get the appearance of a third party with a different agenda that suggests a different possibility.Basically this is really good intelligent,well thought out TV science fiction. There's plenty of action, plenty of character beats, more mysteries than you can count, and it's really impossible to predict what's going to happen next as revelation piles on revelation. In at least one case -mild spoiler warning- a man who is accused of murdering millions, and actually has done that, but the situation is far from what the viewer has been led to believe.How this series is going to end: the three possibilities.The scenario which annoys me the most: the closed loop. Everything is self-contained. The future dictates the past which makes the future possible. See also: Dr.Who-Blink, Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies". I absolutely hate closed loop stories because they depend on there not being a first cause which makes them logically impossible. It also makes the series totally pointless and if the series ends this way, fans will burn down the studio. I think it's the least likely option but I could be wrong.The past is changed, therefore the future is changed. The fun with this scenario is how the future is (being) changed. It makes everything open-ended.Changing the past does not change the future. It creates a new world with a different future; in other words, the alternate world shtick. This possibility is hinted at near the end of Season 2.I think that whatever happens, whichever of these three happens, Kiera will end up being re-united with her son and, possibly, her husband.I also happen to think that time travel is one of science fiction's most stupid tropes because on any logical level it doesn't make sense. Unless you accept that travelling to the past automatically creates a new alternate world. I'm not saying it doesn't make for entertaining and thought provoking stories because it most certainly does, as does the parallel/alternate world concept.Anyway, Series 3 will be on Sky later this year and I'll be glued to it. Unless, of course, the past is changed and the show was never given the green light in the first place and you never read this review.

In season two we re-join future cop Kiera Cameron as she continues to track down the `Liber8' group of future terrorists. She is, of course, still backed up by her increasingly confused police partner Detective Carlos and the geeky sidekick Alec.This season, however, is not just more of the same - there is a depth and cleverness to the writing and plot that were only hinted at in season one. Alec has thankfully moved out of his parent's barn so his rite of passage sub-plot is an enjoyable, though occasionally improbable, diversion. The Liber8 group are fracturing through internal squabbles, the splendid Kellog continues to manipulate the future in his own witty inimitable style, the Julian / Theseus thread expands satisfyingly while the mysterious Escher plays his own enigmatic game and who or what are the Freelancers?The whole season is overall more coherent than the first with a deep underlying sub-plot centring on the whole reason for it all - who helped the Liber8 group to go back in time in the first place and why and was anything else that happened an accident?One slight annoyance is the 2.0 stereo soundtrack - there's absolutely no excuse for that in this day and age. That notwithstanding, from its seemingly formulaic sci-fi / cop show fusion inception, Continuum has matured into a surprisingly clever, engrossing, complex and highly watchable show and roll on season three - hopefully we won't have to wait too long for a UK release as it premiered in March 2014 in the US. Hopefully, the wardrobe budget will be higher and they can give Kiera a choice of a few raincoats rather than that ghastly green thing she wears all of the time.