Continuum Season 3

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

The basic formula for Continuum in the first two seasons has been reasonably consistent – a technology-suited cop from the future is out to prevent a terrorist group while trying to get back to her family. Each week promises a little romantic subtext with her cop buddy, some new gadgets on the robo-suit, a couple of action sequences and all in all it’s a good serialized sci-fi drama.

Reading between the lines, series 3 apparently wasn’t supposed to happen but SyFy made a push for more episodes, leaving the writers looking for a new direction to expand into over several seasons if necessary. The new opening sequence is a prelude to a totally new approach to the story which reduces the significance of the Liber8 terrorist group, completely drops the hero’s desire to get home to the future and minimizes the character interplay with her cop partner. It brings in many new characters and moves to blur the lines completely on their motivations.

Most importantly, this season introduces time travel in a major way which has given the writers the ability to work with multiple time-lines, add duplicates of characters that are good and bad, and bring back those previously written out. Where it’s less successful is that some of the episodes are extremely weak in dialog, action and general coherence in keeping the audience on track of where it’s going (check the ratings to see viewers falling away every week). This is especially true of the early parts of the season that are at times directionless and confusing.

On the plus side, if you’re willing to sit through the transition, there’s a payoff that hints at a much richer version of the concepts emerging. Continuum has always showed the antagonist and protagonist point of view without taking sides so season 3 now allows the lead character to start switching sides and struggle with multiple future possibilities where the villains aren’t so obvious and alliances change accordingly. There are 2 or 3 genuinely “wow” moments that make you realize the seeming randomness of the earlier episodes was building to something and with the new story arcs set up promises a gripping season 4.

Therein lies the rub of course since there may not be any viewers left to watch the next season and the ratings seem to indicate it might be axed. In the early part of this year’s offering, I wondered if I was watching another totally TV derailment like when Heroes and Lost imploded, but actually if you can persist, Continuum is one of the most interesting and daring sci-fi offerings currently on TV.

– James Beswick

It took us most of three seasons to recognize the major player in the story-line but it finally hit home. Fascinating central plot. Fast-paced storytelling, that still holds some things close to the chest. You are left continually wanting more. The cast has stronger and weaker members, but the story is good regardless. Trust is the most precious commodity and deceit the most common. The question of how public opinion is formed, and who forms it, is fascinating. The ethics of trusting too much in science, as well. The time travel element will capture some and frustrate others, but this show is a great pick for sci-fi lovers.

– Brian ORourke

The most fascinating thing about this series is how it began as a run-of-the-mill solidly written cop show with a sci-fi time traveling twist and evolved into a mind-bending epic about a few confused heroes lost in the complicated politics of trans-dimensional time travel. The show could have easily devolved into a soap-operatic us vs. them melodrama, good vs. evil, rich vs. poor universe with cookie-cutter action and suspense. Instead, all of that political circus has finally been revealed to be a mirage for something deeper and more profound. Our characters Kiera and Alec have cut through the red tape of an intricate sci-fi universe, and we are left with two confused and naked human beings struggling to discover themselves and save the ones they love.

When watching the third season, I’m constantly struck by the notion that the writers had intended to do this all along– that the first two seasons were written in the form of standard but solid time-tested television formulas just so that the writers could blow the top off of their viewership just as we settled into the familiar and the enjoyable. So far, each episode has been packed with profound political and metaphysical revelations, with heart-wrenching character development, and with a keen eye for action. Television hasn’t made me feel this way since the X-Files.

The show is certainly no Breaking Bad or Mad Men when it comes to dramatic complexity, but then, it’s not really supposed to be. Continuum knows where it belongs, it makes a home there in your heart, and then it explodes like dynamite. It is a fine successor to all of televisions great detective/cop shows just as well as it sits as one of the true great science fiction epics of television history.

– mahalo1984

DVD Wholesale Main Features    

Actors: Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen
Format: Multiple Formats, Box set, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. )
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 3
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Release Date: December 23, 2014
Run Time: 572 minutes