By Jordyn Turney, 24, reporting from Nampa, Idaho, on a standout of a sci-fi show.
Talk about wishes for the New Year: Kiera Cameron is a cop from the year 2077 stuck in the present, our present, after getting sent back in time when a terrorist gang sentenced to death escaped by traveling to the past.
Now the only thing she wants is to get back home to her husband and kid. But if the villains who’re to blame for her wacky time-spanning adventures aren’t stopped now—you knew there would be this kind of catch—she has no idea what she’ll be going back to.
That’s the Canadian show Continuum in a nutshell. (And here’s a three-minute preview that might or might not make my synopsis make more sense.) Throw in a teenage computer whiz as Kiera’s present-day ally, criminals who aren’t as bad as we’d like to believe and judicious use of some very awesome future-tech elements, and you’ve got one of the best sci-fi shows I’ve seen.
There’s even an actual super suit.
Continuum exceeds expectations first and foremost with the fact that it’s a character-driven science fiction world. Kiera is a smart, fierce cop whose number-one priority is getting back to her home. But in spite of her single-mindedness she finds herself caught up in our time, and in the fact that a change in the present could alter—or destroy—the world she’s so set on returning to. With its intelligent plotting of a story that’s so much bigger than you imagine at first and a cast of characters who are all fighting hard for what they believe in, Continuum is a standout of a show, sci-fi or otherwise.
It’s currently between seasons, which means this is the best time to catch up with the first two seasons on Netflix before the third premieres in March (SyFy in the US, Showcase in Canada) this year. This year, as in 2014 that is.