Continuum: Season 3 (spoilers for Season 1 & 2)

[ctg]

Damn. Continuum did it again. This series has so much potential and it keeps delivering it time and time again. No pun intended. But when you think you got everything figured out and well...

... in this season, figuring what's what and who's holding the strings has been so difficult, and I seriously recommend everyone holding on patiently as you'll be surprised more and more as the series gears up towards the final.

You just don't know, but those who comes in the sledge later, will be positively surprised as Continuum is far better than any time-travel series or movies before, minus HG Wells original one. And I should warn you, there are new players in this season, and they drop in far more devastating or liberating reveals.

Like for example what happens in the future. Or should I say in both of them.

 

[Dave]

I really want to know Brett Tonkin's mission, but judging by the point at which the last episode stopped then I think I can guess what it was.

 

[Laeraneth]

I'm just going to leap right ahead and say it: That (Episode 10) was a bloody excellent episode and I can't wait for the next one.

Though from what I've seen online, it seems to have somewhat divided the fans...

 

[ctg]

Sometimes I have to watch the episode twice or three times because a) it's so awesome but also b) because there are bits that I don't get. Like for example in the last episode they revealed the traveller, and to be honest, it does kind of make sense, but in the same time it didn't as all of them are time-travellers, even dimensional traveller more than one way.

What I mean with the dimensional travel is that they've brought in the multiverse theory and twisted it so that every parallel time-lines are happening at the same time. And some poor scientists are probably loosing last of their hair because of it, as is it possible that all of these things, what we've seen, could be possible in the prime earth? In the prime timeline?

I mean there are, for example, so many instances of the "oriental assassin" that I have lost a way of knowing which one we're watching and who has died. And above all, I don't understand why he's so keen on assassinating the "traveller"?

 

[Laeraneth]

(Spoilers incoming, don't read if you haven't watched the newest episode yet! That's Episode Twelve just to be clear!)

Sometimes I have to watch the episode twice or three times because a) it's so awesome but also b) because there are bits that I don't get. Like for example in the last episode they revealed the traveller, and to be honest, it does kind of make sense, but in the same time it didn't as all of them are time-travellers, even dimensional traveller more than one way.

They didn't reveal who it was did they?... I mean, we hear a male-sounding voice, but that's about it, unless I blinked and missed something vital?... all I got was Kiera's assumption that it was the first freelancer who had supposedly travelled back a thousand years, and Chen's claim that they (the Freelancers) were his jailor, not his disciples. Hence his wanting to free him? (and working with Tompkin to do so originally I believe)

What I mean with the dimensional travel is that they've brought in the multiverse theory and twisted it so that every parallel time-lines are happening at the same time. And some poor scientists are probably loosing last of their hair because of it, as is it possible that all of these things, what we've seen, could be possible in the prime earth? In the prime timeline?

That's not how I've interpreted it (though there's no guarantee that I'm right )
To my mind, the best way to describe how it's working is...:
- There is only a single 'active' timeline at a time. including that timeline's future.
- Individuals from that current future can, and have been seen to, come back in time.
- Once they're back in time, they exist independently of the future. This is self evident in many places in the show - the mere fact that Kiera and Liber8 are still there for a start. The future they came from may disappear (shown early this season when Kiera sees the disintegrating timeline when she first hooks up with the Freelancers) but they will remain.
Think of it as a single time-line with turns in it, rather than the 'branching tree' that time travel plots usually use. Provided someone hops back along the line BEFORE the line is turned, they continue to exist in the past, even though the future they came from is gone.
It's a different style of time travel than is usually used in TV, and makes for a great refreshing change.
(It also makes things kind of complex... I suspect for example, that all the time travel devices currently existing in the 'current' time are the same one from different futures. Essentially copies of itself!)

Thus, people from various different alternate futures can all exist in the same time, even without their futures being there any more.

I mean there are, for example, so many instances of the "oriental assassin" that I have lost a way of knowing which one we're watching and who has died. And above all, I don't understand why he's so keen on assassinating the "traveller"?

I think you've got that part backwards (though again, I may have blinked and missed something with regards to this traveller in the latest episode judging by what you said about him being revealed)
If memory serves me...
The original Chen, who travelled back with Liber8 right back at the start of the show, was killed, by Kiera, in a fight fairly early on. (Episode 5 or 6 maybe?...)
His body was picked up by the Freelancers, 'revived' (as we saw in flashback form in the latest episode) by some means, and recruited into their ranks.
(This part was hinted at before, but only now has it been shown to be true)
I don't think he got killed again...?
Now, it seems he has a connection/devotion to this traveller person. The details of which we are yet to discover fully.

 

[Lenny]

*Another post that needs a SERIES 3 EPISODE 11/12 spoiler warning*












Did Catherine, the head of whatever Freelance branch Kiera stumbled into, not actually describe time as a branching tree in episode one of the third series?

I'm inclined to agree with ctg, in that we have multiple, parallel timelines existing and progressing simultaneously.

I've sketched my interpretation to help my explanation:

Four timelines: T0 ("Initial"), T1 ("New"), T2 ("Alternate"), T3 ("Current"). ● is a jump from that timeline, ■ is an arrival in that timeline.

NB: Every new timeline, when created, is a copy of the timeline jumped from.

T0 is our initial timeline, that Kiera is trying to get back to. The big time event in 2077 sent everyone (Kiera's partner Elena, Jason and the Freelancer Warren, Liber8 and Kiera) back in time together, thus creating a single new timeline: T1. Elena ended up in 1975, Jason in 1992 (possibly with Warren? I don't think we've been told where he ended up), and Liber8 and Kiera in 2012. After the time event in 2077, T0 pootles on regardless, with everyone who jumped simply not existing in the timeline.

T1, from 2012, plays out over the first two series. Alec's jump back at the end of S2E13 creates T2, which Kiera then jumps to (it's strongly suggested that Kiera jumps to Alec's new timeline, rather than her jump creating a new timeline) before T1 collapses. BOOM!

T2, which was created from T1, plays out far into the distant future, with two Kieras and two Alecs. I'm not sure we actually see T2 on-screen, but it doesn't matter. As established in S3E11, Liber8s actions in T1 were successful, which leads to the Corporate Congress never being created. Instead, we get the Corporation Wars, and humanity splitting into clans, one of which Kellog heads. T2 is the timeline that Brad exists in, and he jumps from 2039 to just before the "cataclysmic time anomaly". Brad's jump creates T3. As with T0, T3 pootles on regardless, just without Brad.

T3 is the timeline we've seen in the third series - the one in which Brad kills T3Kiera, T1Kiera turns in T1Alec to T3Freelancers, T3Alec uses T1Kiera's CMR to accelerate Halo, and so on.

I don't think T2 == T3, because of what has been happening in the third series. T3Alec became aggressive with Piron because T1Alec angered him. He was then able to accelerate the creation of Halo using T3Kiera's CMR, which is only available because Brad came back. We know that Continuum deals in multiple, parallel timelines, so it doesn't make sense for the writers to implement a Terminator-style time event.

 

[Laeraneth]

I guess we're not going to know for sure until someone tries to jump forwards... to my knowledge, no one has tried to do that before now.

But... I took the scenes of the decaying/imploding/whatever future at the start of Season 3 (with Kiera and the Freelancers) to be a cast iron indication that a dead future is just that, it's dead. Once the past is changed, that's it, it's gone.
By extension, I assume that the original timeline we saw (ie, Kiera's original life in 2077) is long gone, replaced by the various other futures we've now seen.
The main one being the one Brad Tompkin came from, which is probably still on track, given the current events.

 

[Lenny]

*SPOILERS FOR S3E13*




Eee, I did enjoy that!

Jumping right in: Alec was not quite the "cataclysmic time anomaly" you were looking for. Well... Original Alec's jump did put in motion the events that lead to Escher's death, which opened the door for Kellog to take control of Piron, but at the end of the day, Kellog was the threat, not Paranoid Alec (as Emily/Maya calls him) and Halo. Did not see that coming... which I kind of think we should - right from the very first episode of the third series, Kellog has been scheming to get on top. He didn't know at the time that Alec would inherit Piron, but we've seen how quick he is on his feet. And twenty-five years in the future, Clan Leader Kellog is still scheming, sending Brad Tonkin back in time with a mission that Kellog knows will help 2014 Kellog's cause. That is cold.

I think we can safely say that the writers aren't going to try and pull the old 'evil doppelganger masquerading as the good doppelganger' card. The surviving Alec didn't have the RFID chip (do Americans/Canadians really pronounce it "arfid", rather than spelling it out?), he changed office, and he didn't try and fight Kellog - PAlec obviously had the chip, would have stayed in his lab, and would have fought Kellog and vowed to destroy him. In some shows it works, and in some it doesn't. I don't think it would work in Continuum.

I can't make up my mind as to whether I'm shocked by Kiera's change of heart. The foundations of her character are built on her wanting Big Brother to succeed, so she can be reunited with her son. It's a short list the people who are rooting for Big Brother, but we can ignore that part of her because her goal is to get back to her son. The character has definitely changed over the past two years, and she's been thinking with a clarity that wasn't possible in 2077 (hey, that flashbackforward episode is starting to make sense!), but has she really changed to the point where she would sacrifice her only reason for continuing in 2012 for the greater good? Does Brad really mean that much to her that she would choose him and a possible future over Sam and her future?

And finally, Continuum has it's very own Brotherhood of Steel. Cool! We're going to have to go back to the drawing boards to determine which timeline they're from, and what that means for the current timeline**, but I'm glad to see that the writers are totally committed to what they've already written. Simon Barry thinks we'll hear about a renewal in July, which would be good, because I'm excited to see the possibilities that await us in the fourth series of Fallout Continuum: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I wonder how the fact that two whole TTDs, a 2014-engineered TTD segment, and a time beacon are in play is going to affect things moving forwards. Any up for setting the beacon in 2014 as a home base, and using the TTDs (and maybe engineering more whole ones?) to jump around to see what's cracking?





**For the record, I, er... don't know. My gut feeling, based on my interpretation, is that our armoured friends are from Brad's original timeline (going back to my diagram: T2), having jumped between timelines the same way Kiera did at the start of the series, and that the future of T3 is still in flux, in which case, Brad's assumption that nothing responding to the beacon is a good sign is wrong. Horribly wrong.

Either that, or what we see when the soldiers arrive is the beginning of T4 - off-camera, Brad set off the beacon in T3, nothing happened, and time continues to 2039, where the technology is developed to 'hear' the beacon. The signal is picked up, and soldiers jump back to when the beacon is activated. Their jump creates a new timeline, T4, which is picked up on camera immediately following the jump.

The question then is: is Brad an unreliable narrator with the wrong idea about time travel (I think his assumption is that time is a single, dynamic timeline, that he went back to a point on the same line, and that any changes he makes change the future... hence the idea that he can "prove" change with the beacon), not realising that his old timeline still exists and that the beacon will be picked up by them, or are the Freelancers wrong with their ideas about time travel being a branching tree? Of course, throw in the idea that timelines die and are replaced by newly created timelines, and a whole extra level of complexity is added!

Because it's so much easier to follow, I'm going to interpret it as the soldiers turning up in T3 from T2. It sucks that Brad might have doomed this timeline with his incorrect notions, but that is price we have to pay. That said, in my interpretation, the show has already done an off-camera timeline with T2, so having T3 play out off-camera isn't beyond the realms of possibility, and I like the idea of following existing examples.

 

[ctg]

Even though I can say Wow at the moment, I have to watch it and the previous episode again, before I comment on the final one.

 

[Laeraneth]

Excellent stuff.

I'm totally on board with Tompkin's "single changing timeline". I've been kind of working on that assumption for a while (which is what I tried to describe before )

On a general level, the episode was great, perhaps not quite as brilliant and shocking as the end of the first season, but still some darn good TV. (The Alec vs. Alec fight was fairly impressive, and somewhat more... 'juicy' than one might expect ;P)

I was sort of hoping they'd just leave the beacon alone, because to my mind, the ONLY thing that could ever cause would be disaster, frankly, and I'm surprised neither of the smart time-travelling people took a moment to properly think about it! On the other hand of course, it's an obvious hook into a future (no pun intended!) series, so... not surprised they DID do it.

What I mean is: Even assuming the current, new, future were to be perfect and idyllic (which it's obviously not with kellogg in charge) setting up a beacon to leave a signal that people could pick up in the indeterminate future would be able to be detected by any future civilisation with decent technology to pick it up. Whether it's a good one (that they're hoping for) the bad one that they're leaving, or some entirely new future (as this appears to be) is besides the point... it's like sending up a massive flare saying "come mess with the past! Here's the directions!"

So... traveller.
My theory thus far is:...
- There's an original 'untarnished' timeline (lets call it T0, to use your labelling ) that led to a future society that we know little about thus far. This 'traveller' came back into the past from there, set up the oddly named 'Freelancer' group. They (Catherine) claimed that he travelled a thousand years into the past and set them up to protect the timeline and keep things running the way they were meant to. I'm assuming he actually went back to set things up the way he wanted them to be set up.
- Whatever changes he made led to what we see as the 'first' future of 2077 (T1), with corporations, decent tech, corporate police, big-brother-ish state, etc. Kiera and Liber8 came back from that future, probably using the travellers own device (no one has ever given ANY explanation for where the time travel device even came from, or how Liber8 got hold of it... I'd love to hear more about that ) with their own plans.
(Quite how Alec's son, Jason, got sent back, I'm not yet sure... I don't think there's been any mention of how or when in the show, but I suppose it's possible he was just 'caught' in the travel of Liber8 and Kiera, just like her partner was.)
- Liber8 do their thing, things get changed, they blow up buildings, etc. We're now barrelling towards T2 (as in, Timeline. Not Terminator) to be honest, we don't really know what future this ultimately leads to. I assume largely the same as T1
- Alec and Kiera skip back a few days/weeks (via different methods) and that change sets the events of season three into motion. This leads to future timeline T3, which is the one Brad comes from, where Kellogg is in charge of at least some faction, and frankly, the future is bad.
- Now, 'evil Alec' is dead, Kellogg is in charge (potentially even earlier than before) and it looks like we're still largely heading towards the same future. But... there's one clear difference: If it WERE the same T3, then Brad's beacon would have alerted people that were waiting for it... not some uber-tech space-marines. Thus, to my mind, this is an entirely new timeline (T4!) that we're heading towards now, and Brad and Kiera firing off the beacon have basically invited anyone FROM that future to come back and affect the past at a known crisis point.
[edit]
Turns out I'm definitely wrong here: the writer had an interview and basically said that the soldiers are indeed from Tompkin's time. So the implication here is that Kellogg was always going to end up in charge. Either way, the future is still very much on track for something similar to the one Tompkin knows, so... T3 is still a go

 

[Lenny]

(Quite how Alec's son, Jason, got sent back, I'm not yet sure... I don't think there's been any mention of how or when in the show, but I suppose it's possible he was just 'caught' in the travel of Liber8 and Kiera, just like her partner was.)

One of the second series episodes dealt with this - Jason and Warren (one of the Freelancers) were beneath the execution chamber when Liber8 used the TTD. I can't remember exactly what Jason was doing, but it was under the orders of Old Alec. Possibly Warren was trying to stop the time event, and Jason was there to make sure it happened.

---

Something we're both missing (and I'm also missing things like the Traveller), is Escher. We know he was part of the Freelancers (he's got the dots between his fingers), and I'm fairly sure we know he travelled back in time. If that's the case, then the timeline Kiera comes from (the one in which Alec Sadler is some Big Deal) is even further removed from the initial timeline - let T0 be the initial timeline, which is the Traveller's initial timeline. He jumps back, creating T1, and sets up the Freelancers. Escher joins the Freelancers at some point along T1, eventually jumps back and creates T2. In T2, Alec is born, grows up, creating SadTech (maybe even inheriting Piron at a point where he much better understands what he is doing), and the future that Kiera comes from.

So one extra timeline, at the very least. Who knows how many jumps Freelancers have made, and how many timelines that changed and created?

---

Do you have a link to the interview you mention in your edit?

 

[ctg]

I still believe Kira and rest of the people around here, include ghost of old Alec are in the primary timeline, and when the events like for example Brad's soldier appear, new timeline splits off and fires towards that outcome with the copies of the humanity and universe, while we keep watching the primary timeline (t0).

At times we get glimpses from Kira's and Brad's own timelines (t1 and t2), but we know next to nothing about freelancers, who might be living in all of them (t0 -> t2 ... tn) or then they are from their own one (t3), and the Traveller might be the Traveller, who has visiting all of them (t0 -> tn), but he is currently living at the present time, observing a fixed point in the (t0*), where (*) presents the notion of when Brad launched the beacon and allowed travellers from all time-dimension to travel if they're willing to do so.


Why I'm saying all of this, even though I'm a firm believer of the multiverse theory, is because if you look closely, and study paused pictures, you start to notice all sorts of weird little hints in the notion of a time-travel. And it is clear to me that the Traveller has visited all of them or at least a large number of time-lines to see all sorts of possible outcomes. And it was his decision to resurrect Ched and give him instruction to clear out last resistance from the Freelancer, who acted in the primary timeline as time-cops. And now that they're gone, everything is possible, and everyone who has a time-travel capability can travel towards the beacon to alter the course of their future.

So, in my mind, Kira and Brad could setup another location and fire the beacon again, if they wanted to do so, and this time, bring in their own futuristic battle-brothers. And they might do so as that would a create good drama, instead of using the single beacon location and sending in everyone that point of time.


Anyway, Continuum continues surprising everyone and it keeps proving time after time that it is one of best time-travel series ever come out on the small screen, and it is shame that there are a large number of people out there, who know nothing about it.

 

[Laeraneth]

One of the second series episodes dealt with this - Jason and Warren (one of the Freelancers) were beneath the execution chamber when Liber8 used the TTD.

Oh yes... I remember that now! Thanks for the reminder

I wish I could find the interview again (I only read it two hours ago!) but I can't for the life of me seem to find it now. I'm assuming i didn't just imagine it...

if I can find it later, I'll post it here.

Suffice to say, he all but confirmed the space-marine type soldiers were from Tompkin's time (he may be lying of course... if I were ever a show-runner, I'd probably lie my arse off about details like that, just to keep the audience guessing )

I think you make a good point about Escher. There is indeed every chance he was set there by the Freelancers (ergo, presumably, the Traveller) to push things in the direction he most wanted/needed.
Perhaps this season has been more about correcting the damage done by Alec hopping back a week (ie, Emily killing Escher) from the Travellers point of view, and installing someone of a similar mind at Piron?

 

[Laeraneth]

Ah, finally!

‘Continuum’ Q&A: Simon Barry on “Last Minute” : The Loop

 

[Lenny]

Whaddya know, that's an article I linked to a few posts above, regarding when we might hear about a renewal. I guess I must have skimmed past most of the content when I first, er, read the article.

 

[Laeraneth]

Ha, now _I_ feel stupid for missing that!

(in my defence, I was writing the post from work )

Either way, great show. I really hope they do get a fourth season, lots of potential for full on 'open' sci-fi now.

... I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that... but... I still want to see it

 

[Dave]

Excellent final episode. Just when it looked like they had succeeded and nixed the two dystopian futures for something better...

Some spoilers...

Trying to prevent technology being invented is rather Luddite and futile. As usual with this series, it makes perfect sense that whether Evil Alec or Good Alec or Evil Kellogg is in charge, the technology will still be there for Saotech to develop.

The future Warriors that Brad invoked would likely come from his own Timeline?? I'm confused as to why the freelancer 'time-cops' don't have more muscle and were completely absent from this episode (considering the amount of timeline changing activity going on.) And wouldn't future Alec have foreseen this possible likelihood when he sent back Kira to prevent Liber8 and have planned for something further to happen (or has that future [Kira's original future] been completely erased with the death of the first Alec?)

I'm looking forward to the next Season, but the series is beginning to have a very different feel. We are no longer living in our present day with a handful of people from the future, and with the odd piece of future tech. Now we have a whole cast of future players, soldiers and renegades, two time machines that could bring even more, two suits, various weapons, and a company making future technology headed by a man from the future.

It feels like the difference between Stargate Season 1 and much later Seasons when they got Asgard technology. I like series set within present-day boundaries and restrictions. Too much tech is like magic and the story plotting can suffer as very little is impossible any more. It is also very hard to remember everything that has gone on. Like Laeraneth a few posts back, I had forgotten how Jason had got there.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I've now seen all of the third season, so this is my take on it:

At long last the third season of the Canadian time-travel serial has become available on DVD in the UK. To refresh your memories, this follows the efforts of Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) a 2077 "Protector" (paramilitary law officer), thrown back to the present day in an incident which also sends back members of Liber8, a terrorist organisation. Liber8 is fighting to stop major corporations from taking over the country and turning it into a police state, and in fleeing to the past hope to change history by preventing this from happening. Cameron, who despite being the heroine is working for that police state, is desperately trying to stop them since, if they were to succeed, the future she had left behind would vanish, destroying any hope that she might some day return to her husband and child.

The first two seasons are full of plot complexities as the Liber8 members subdivide while Cameron (aided by some high-tech hardware) tries to establish a new identity in the present day as a detective, despite being regarded with suspicion by her new colleagues. Another key figure is Alex Sadler, who in 2077 is an elderly industrialist of immense power and who seems to have something to do with the time-travelling incident. Cameron comes across him as a young computer geek in the present day (Erik Knudsen) and they work together to hunt down Liber8.

In the third season, even more complexity is added by a further leap back in time of only a week by Sadler and Cameron, which results in two of each of them sharing the same timeline. Also featuring are the Freelancers, a covert group with knowledge of the future who act to police time travel in order to prevent the kind of changes Liber8 want to make, and someone who appears to come from a very different alternative future. The original Sadler has inherited control of a large corporation and is trying to establish himself by introducing far-reaching technical innovations inspired by what he has learned from Cameron, while his double from the near future has a different agenda. The complexities pile up and both concentration and a good memory are required to keep track of everything that is going on, particularly since the scenes keep jumping between the present and the future – the latter to fill in more of Cameron's backstory. Meanwhile Cameron seems to be no closer to getting back to her home in the future – and the moral ambiguity which underlies the story becomes more marked, with indications that she is beginning to feel some sympathy with the aims of Liber8, as even more ruthless criminals emerge to fight for the corporations. In the final episode there is twist after twist in the plot, setting up what should be a dramatic final half-season of six episodes, due to show on Canadian TV this autumn.

The standard of the previous seasons is maintained, my only complaint being the lack of any of the flashes of humour that the serial started with. Continuum is still the best TV SF drama since Fringe, and provides top-class entertainment.

(An extract from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/)

 

[Dave]

I've started a new thread for Season 4 here: https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/561340/

Just to keep the spoilers down. I've move some of your posts on S4 there in case you were wondering.