Rent Continuum: Series 1 (2012)

Worst first episode I've watched for ages - Continuum: Series 1 review by SB

Where to start?

Firstly, the description drew me in - my type of thing, time-travel, police procedural, futuristic? What's not to like?

Actually, pretty much everything.

The lead actor was, firstly, FAR too young-looking for the role (we are told to believe she has a ? 10 year old son - only if she got pregnant at age 11) and couldn't have acted her way out of an open paper bag. The role needed gravitas, authority, believability - instead we got Pretty Plastic High-School Princess with the screen-presence of a fat-free yoghurt.

And then the script - I've never served in the police force, but I am rather fond of police procedurals, so like to think I know my way around the Way Things Are Done in the average fictional Police Department. When you're 20 minutes in and already rolling your eyes at the enormous yawning caverns of credulity-stretching plot-holes we (the audience) are expected to swallow ( mine rolled half-way across the country) and supremely unconvincing action, you can only conclude it was written by bored telesales marketers - I would have said schoolchildren, but kids would have more imagination and enthusiasm .

This extends to the characters (barely one-dimensional, no discernible motivation for their actions, no glimmer of intelligence), the action sequences ( violent but somehow unconvincing, with those vast yawning chasms of believability again) and well, the whole plot.

And lastly, you want to know what REALLY bugs me ?? To an almost elemental, molecular level?

Ok, kiddies, I'll tell you.

The action starts in Toronto, part of the 'United Superstate of America' or somesuch wording ( rather Freudian wish-fulfilment there, eh, Americans?) But yeah, fine, it's the future, whatever.

But in the here-and-now? It's actually still Canada. Which is not America. A different country! With different police! And laws! And culture!

So how come there is no trace whatsoever of this in the script? Do the writers actually believe that Canada is in the US? Do they KNOW it isn't the same thing? Why did nobody notice? Why be so blasé about a cop FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY just showing up at your crime scene? Canada IS NOT THE SAME COUNTRY, STUPID, WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY SEEM TO NOTICE??

My niece could do better - and she's 6.

It is said that good TV ought to provoke a reaction - but I'm not sure scorn is really what one should be looking for

Entertaining but they did not think through the time travel aspect properly - a wasted opportunity - Continuum: Series 1 review by MP

Time travel programs need to be very careful to avoid internal inconcistancies and this series blew that totally

Protagonists:

Main character is a problem so lets prevent her from ever being born. Lets do this by slashing her with a knife then comparing everyone with the possible surname with this DNA. Why not just slash the target a bit deeper/poison/gun etc to kill her instead of just taking the DNA sample and going through this convoluted and ineffectual way to prevent her from being?

They also kill the grandmother of a secondary character and nothing happens which proves that the future of the characters is not determined by this past but there is also a major last episode in S1 that shows that the future is determined by this past (character A talks to character B and this is referred to 60 years later).

I wanted to like it but time travel stories need very careful plotting. I would have stuck with it except that the last episode in S1 had the hero in her super suit show that it had basically unlimited powers (a force field to deflect a falling building). This is a terrible plot device as it can be pulled out from anywhere when things are bad to fix any situation.