I have been watching and mostly enjoying, but I feel like I've missed an episode (or at least part of one)
When did Alec's son join team timetravel? Last I saw he was having minor melt downs thanks to the Halo band so was limiting his time using it - but he was still team Piron.
And when did Alec make that fancy gold, sharp edged, non-EU safety compliant time travel segment?
Not that it really matters overall. It was still a pretty good season, though the 'big red reset button' ending was a bit of an anti climax, even with the arrival of presumably new protagonists.
And I have to say, I quite liked Rachael Nichols in Criminal Minds but thought she was treated pretty badly overall. So I'm absolutely made up for her that Continuum has been a success and she's been able to shine in a way CM would never have let her.
It did feel a bit like something got left out regarding the fake chocolate orange slice and Jason joining the gang.
Also, surely Kellogg would have watched their plans via Jason's glasses?
Pretty sure he did since he was certain the Alec's had swapped places.
They mentioned Alec had jury rigged a segment for the TT Device so I didn't have a problem with that suddenly appearing (though I was expecting something more makeshift) but yeah Jason being in the Sadtech Lab and in on the plot was a bit of a wtf moment.
I'm guessing there must have been a scene of Kiera recruiting him (like we saw with the Liber8 members) that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Pretty sure he did since he was certain the Alec's had swapped places.
They mentioned Alec had jury rigged a segment for the TT Device so I didn't have a problem with that suddenly appearing (though I was expecting something more makeshift) but yeah Jason being in the Sadtech Lab and in on the plot was a bit of a wtf moment.
I'm guessing there must have been a scene of Kiera recruiting him (like we saw with the Liber8 members) that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Glad I'm not the only one who has struggled hearing the dialogue - especially in the opening scene of this episode.
I got the feeling the production team had "hedged their bets" and prepared a tidy ending with nice Alec taking over Sadtech if the show was cancelled, but once it was extended the extra bits with Kellog and the Halo soldiers were included.
I'm not sure Jason really needed to be recruited, due to his experiances he's always been very wary of time travel and its possible bad outcomes - and I'm not sure its ever been revealed as to why Old Alec sent him back anyway.
Glad I'm not the only one who has struggled hearing the dialogue - especially in the opening scene of this episode.
I got the feeling the production team had "hedged their bets" and prepared a tidy ending with nice Alec taking over Sadtech if the show was cancelled, but once it was extended the extra bits with Kellog and the Halo soldiers were included.
I'm not sure Jason really needed to be recruited, due to his experiances he's always been very wary of time travel and its possible bad outcomes - and I'm not sure its ever been revealed as to why Old Alec sent him back anyway.
He'd seen some old episodes of the classic TV series 'Tropical Heat' (Staring Ian Tracey as Nick Slaughter's tennis pro side kick Spyder )
After a few eps filled with wait...what?! moments the ending set up the next season quite nicely.
btw: if I ever have to deal with x2 of the same person due to a time travel escapade I'm definately gonna mark one of them with a biro (or just cut them some place) so I don't need to go thru any "so which one are you again" moments.
Well in all fairness they did have Alex with a scar on his forehead. Which for some reason they kept forgetting in make up throughout Season 3 but was back around Episode 9 or so but for the finale was gone again.
When did Alec's son join team timetravel? Last I saw he was having minor melt downs thanks to the Halo band so was limiting his time using it - but he was still team Piron.
And when did Alec make that fancy gold, sharp edged, non-EU safety compliant time travel segment?
It's not just you, they both came out of nowhere with no explanation.
And what a shame too. Imagine they have condensed the storyline that wasted 12 episodes till they all discovered "we can't change the future" and devoted more episodes to the Episode 13 storyline?
Wouldn't that have been a far superior season back on track with the previous seasons and without so many empty episodes and "making it up as we go along" nonsense?
It's so frustrating because if the season had been planned better by the showrunners they would have known that Episode 13 was the better storyline for the season and far more worth spending time on. The questions we were asking at the start of the season is answered - they really don't have an overall plan.
And what a shame too. Imagine they have condensed the storyline that wasted 12 episodes till they all discovered "we can't change the future" and devoted more episodes to the Episode 13 storyline?.
It does seem to be the pattern, though. We get so many changes in direction with the show that last a few episodes or half a series. And with the show burning many of the characters that they have spent time (and presumably money) building up - then introducing news ones out of thin air - beardy guy: literally out of thin air .
The only explanation that makes sense is that the writers have an ending in mind that they can "pull the trigger on" at any time. So until the show gets notice of cancellation, they'll just keep coming up with new adversaries, new adventures and a loose sense that whichever characters they haven't killed off will play the major roles.
While that makes for a good "romp" / monster of the week, episodic, kind of show, it doesn't inspire confidence that there's any direction or depth to the stories. That worked OK for Star Trek which we all knew was a story-of-the-week show, but Continuum set out its stall as having a story to tell: not just a series of adventures. So it doesn't encourage getting particularly invested in the stories or the characters, knowing that whatever gets set up will be wiped clean whenever it suits.
When this show first started I was hoping it would not be too formulaic and end up 'time righting of the week' type show, like 'Time Trax' or 'Time Cop the series', but the trouble is it seems to have very little direction and seems all over the place in terms of motives and characterisation.
Whilst I don't want to be spoon fed the plot it would be nice to have some idea of what is going on.
For instance they didn't make it very clear if the flash forwards we were seeing this season were from an alternative timeline or not. We know know they were but it wasn't very clear.
I also feel they spent too long making Liberate come to some sense after being nasty terrorists for way too long.
I hope they use the next season to clear things up.
And I'm glad they used the suit a bit more this season.
Initially it started out as a "Liber8 conspiracy of the week" and it was pretty good at that stage, the first Season had some excellent work on tension within an episode and making Keira sympathetic and helped the viewer invest in her.
The overall arc that she was going to end up being wrong and Liber8 were going to be right should have been at the end of Season Two. They dropped the ball right there. They also wrote themselves into a corner with the time-shift. Especially as Rachel Nichols never got to act Orphan Black and Erik Knudsen wasn't close to being as good as Tatiana Maslany.
So when we got to Season Three, we had the two Alex which were completely indistinguishable and a completely ****ed up timeline with no explanation on the change of the flash forwards. It's tied up with the complete and obvious lack of arcing by the showrunners. It's such a complete shame because this series has some really good things going for it.
Ironically, Episode 13 was good enough to get me back next year. I just pray that the showrunners actually start plotting out what they want to do, highlight the good, remove the bad and don't end up with another Season Three which very nearly killed the series.
[..]and I'm not sure its ever been revealed as to why Old Alec sent him back anyway.
In the future, at the execution, Jason was sent down to increase the power to the anti-matter McGuffin. Someone appeared the tried to stop him, resulting in him getting caught in the time bubble and sent back to a different time zone.
I don't think Alec ever meant for him to go back.
In the future, at the execution, Jason was sent down to increase the power to the anti-matter McGuffin. Someone appeared the tried to stop him, resulting in him getting caught in the time bubble and sent back to a different time zone.
I don't think Alec ever meant for him to go back.
I think the thing with Jason was; he was loyal to his father. BOTH of them.
I can't explain the new piece to the device. Something so complicated and advanced being fixed in an off-hand reference, especially after so much hassle with it just seems really odd, like something really was cut.
Other Alec going so corrupt so fast was...it didn't feel believable. The time travel one only had like a week or two of experience on him. Kira and co not explaining to "evil" Alec about the future the tech Halo tech would cause seems daft, as he'd been with her up to this series and surely would have listened as soon as he knew it would lead to such a mess. It's one of those situations writers force for dramatic purposes by deliberately writing characters out of character.
So...we've got some mysterious dude who's been held captive for 1000 years by those that protect the timeline. First, this shows us his tech can keep him alive for at least 1000 years, possibly immortal. Second, it shows that those that protect the timeline have possibly had duties for at least 1000 years. Have people from the future been attempting to change things allover for the last 1000 years? Thirdly, mystery dude has inbuilt tech that can revive people from the dead. Clearly mystery dude is from further along the timeline than Kira, OR some timeline where the technology is much more advanced. Then at the end we get super advanced killbot armour/mechs come back, clearly from this guy's timeline.
If from what I'm to gather; those that protected the timeline didn't seem to care what timeline existed. Did they know about mystery dude's timeline, which is why he was a prisoner? Did they not care what timeline existed...as long as it WASN'T his? Was mystery dude's timeline the original one, and they have kept him prisoner, gleaning information and altering the timeline for over 1000 years so we never get his future?
During the first few seasons it was implied old Alec chose Kira for a reason. Had events already happened for him, had a Kira been sent back before, possibly by accident the first time and interacted with young him? Things didn't work out how he wanted, so when it got to the point in the future again he deliberately orchestrated the time travel to go off again, this time with the message in her suit for young Alec? (who he knew she'd meet, by the way). Was he altering of her memories/mind so she'd interact differently with young Alec than she did in his timeline in his youth? The time protectors knew about the time travel in old Alec's time and tried to prevent it there, knowing when it would happen; further implies this starting timeline had already had a time travel in it to the point they knew when/where it would happen, adding weight to the above theory.
As for how this is going; I see Kira/beardy/Liber8 as some sort of new timeline protectors. Not a specific one, but just there to alter things to stop a bad one from existing.
I originally saw this as pre-destination due to certain things, until Kellogs grandma (?) died. Then it branched. Or maybe it branched when they came back, if they weren't meant to come back. I have a feeling that maybe this new mystery dude is from the very first timeline, and even the starting one we see isn't the original. People keep going back each new timeline trying to make things better over and over again. Each new timeline going backwards or forwards on the "bad-good" ratio. That's what I see anyway. We start off on A timeline, A guy goes back in time, creates B timeline, someone in B timeline's future doesn't like this world so B guy goes back in time and creates C world, someone in C world's future doesn't like this world, so C guy goes back in time and...you get the picture. Now here's what i think; somewhere in there is the perfect future and it's evil twin future. The final ever episode will have some massive unravelling of the whole mess at its source, leaving the perfect future only(which isn't the one the show started on). With the way the characters have been talking these last two episodes; no perfect futures, people just changing history whenever they want, it definitely adds weight to the "A>B>C>D>E and so on" theory. Who knows how long the constant rewriting has been going on...?
I hope I got that stated plain and clear as I feel a bit crappy at the moment (I probably made some mistakes. Sorry!)
Of course, reading some posts has left me disheartened knowing that the writers are just making it up each season as they go along. It makes sense why some story-lines were just abandoned then. I hope even though they are making it up as they go along, that they still put effort into making it all fit together in the long run.
I think the thing with Jason was; he was loyal to his father. BOTH of them.
So...we've got some mysterious dude who's been held captive for 1000 years by those that protect the timeline. First, this shows us his tech can keep him alive for at least 1000 years, possibly immortal. Second, it shows that those that protect the timeline have possibly had duties for at least 1000 years. Have people from the future been attempting to change things allover for the last 1000 years? Thirdly, mystery dude has inbuilt tech that can revive people from the dead. Clearly mystery dude is from further along the timeline than Kira, OR some timeline where the technology is much more advanced. Then at the end we get super advanced killbot armour/mechs come back, clearly from this guy's timeline.
He is a god-in-the-machine type figure, fixing things. I would ask him two
questions.
1. What happened to that missing scenes/episode?
2. Are we going to get a 4th series?
I've just finished watching Season 3 on Netflix. It did become a bit of a chore towards the end and that's without mentioning how the bloody plot gave me a headache half the time.
The show’s official Twitter feed recently announced that series creator Simon Davis Barry would be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) in the near future — “as a thank you” to the fans.
A follower asked if this “thank you” was meant as a goodbye to the series. The response was “Hell no! ”.
In the past several weeks, Barry and writer Denis McGrath have both indicated that a decision would be coming “soon.” Hopefully “soon” will be soon.
My guess and this is pure speculation is that Syfy (U.S) have decided not to bother with buying a 4th season (they do seem to have a lot of new shows in development) and Showcase (Canada) aren't prepared to go ahead unless they can sell it to another U.S channel.
Comments
When did Alec's son join team timetravel? Last I saw he was having minor melt downs thanks to the Halo band so was limiting his time using it - but he was still team Piron.
And when did Alec make that fancy gold, sharp edged, non-EU safety compliant time travel segment?
Not that it really matters overall. It was still a pretty good season, though the 'big red reset button' ending was a bit of an anti climax, even with the arrival of presumably new protagonists.
And I have to say, I quite liked Rachael Nichols in Criminal Minds but thought she was treated pretty badly overall. So I'm absolutely made up for her that Continuum has been a success and she's been able to shine in a way CM would never have let her.
And her treatment on that other show is best described as criminal. :grrr:
Also, surely Kellogg would have watched their plans via Jason's glasses?
Pretty sure he did since he was certain the Alec's had swapped places.
They mentioned Alec had jury rigged a segment for the TT Device so I didn't have a problem with that suddenly appearing (though I was expecting something more makeshift) but yeah Jason being in the Sadtech Lab and in on the plot was a bit of a wtf moment.
I'm guessing there must have been a scene of Kiera recruiting him (like we saw with the Liber8 members) that ended up on the cutting room floor.
At least its not me having a senior moment
I got the feeling the production team had "hedged their bets" and prepared a tidy ending with nice Alec taking over Sadtech if the show was cancelled, but once it was extended the extra bits with Kellog and the Halo soldiers were included.
I'm not sure Jason really needed to be recruited, due to his experiances he's always been very wary of time travel and its possible bad outcomes - and I'm not sure its ever been revealed as to why Old Alec sent him back anyway.
He'd seen some old episodes of the classic TV series 'Tropical Heat' (Staring Ian Tracey as Nick Slaughter's tennis pro side kick Spyder
Well in all fairness they did have Alex with a scar on his forehead. Which for some reason they kept forgetting in make up throughout Season 3 but was back around Episode 9 or so but for the finale was gone again.
Very annoying and inconsistent.
It's not just you, they both came out of nowhere with no explanation.
And what a shame too. Imagine they have condensed the storyline that wasted 12 episodes till they all discovered "we can't change the future" and devoted more episodes to the Episode 13 storyline?
Wouldn't that have been a far superior season back on track with the previous seasons and without so many empty episodes and "making it up as we go along" nonsense?
It's so frustrating because if the season had been planned better by the showrunners they would have known that Episode 13 was the better storyline for the season and far more worth spending time on. The questions we were asking at the start of the season is answered - they really don't have an overall plan.
Such a pity when great concepts get wasted.
Overall though the best season for me, i thought the double-alex parts were the highlights of the season.
The only explanation that makes sense is that the writers have an ending in mind that they can "pull the trigger on" at any time. So until the show gets notice of cancellation, they'll just keep coming up with new adversaries, new adventures and a loose sense that whichever characters they haven't killed off will play the major roles.
While that makes for a good "romp" / monster of the week, episodic, kind of show, it doesn't inspire confidence that there's any direction or depth to the stories. That worked OK for Star Trek which we all knew was a story-of-the-week show, but Continuum set out its stall as having a story to tell: not just a series of adventures. So it doesn't encourage getting particularly invested in the stories or the characters, knowing that whatever gets set up will be wiped clean whenever it suits.
Whilst I don't want to be spoon fed the plot it would be nice to have some idea of what is going on.
For instance they didn't make it very clear if the flash forwards we were seeing this season were from an alternative timeline or not. We know know they were but it wasn't very clear.
I also feel they spent too long making Liberate come to some sense after being nasty terrorists for way too long.
I hope they use the next season to clear things up.
And I'm glad they used the suit a bit more this season.
The overall arc that she was going to end up being wrong and Liber8 were going to be right should have been at the end of Season Two. They dropped the ball right there. They also wrote themselves into a corner with the time-shift. Especially as Rachel Nichols never got to act Orphan Black and Erik Knudsen wasn't close to being as good as Tatiana Maslany.
So when we got to Season Three, we had the two Alex which were completely indistinguishable and a completely ****ed up timeline with no explanation on the change of the flash forwards. It's tied up with the complete and obvious lack of arcing by the showrunners. It's such a complete shame because this series has some really good things going for it.
Ironically, Episode 13 was good enough to get me back next year. I just pray that the showrunners actually start plotting out what they want to do, highlight the good, remove the bad and don't end up with another Season Three which very nearly killed the series.
In the future, at the execution, Jason was sent down to increase the power to the anti-matter McGuffin. Someone appeared the tried to stop him, resulting in him getting caught in the time bubble and sent back to a different time zone.
I don't think Alec ever meant for him to go back.
I can't explain the new piece to the device. Something so complicated and advanced being fixed in an off-hand reference, especially after so much hassle with it just seems really odd, like something really was cut.
Other Alec going so corrupt so fast was...it didn't feel believable. The time travel one only had like a week or two of experience on him. Kira and co not explaining to "evil" Alec about the future the tech Halo tech would cause seems daft, as he'd been with her up to this series and surely would have listened as soon as he knew it would lead to such a mess. It's one of those situations writers force for dramatic purposes by deliberately writing characters out of character.
So...we've got some mysterious dude who's been held captive for 1000 years by those that protect the timeline. First, this shows us his tech can keep him alive for at least 1000 years, possibly immortal. Second, it shows that those that protect the timeline have possibly had duties for at least 1000 years. Have people from the future been attempting to change things allover for the last 1000 years? Thirdly, mystery dude has inbuilt tech that can revive people from the dead. Clearly mystery dude is from further along the timeline than Kira, OR some timeline where the technology is much more advanced. Then at the end we get super advanced killbot armour/mechs come back, clearly from this guy's timeline.
If from what I'm to gather; those that protected the timeline didn't seem to care what timeline existed. Did they know about mystery dude's timeline, which is why he was a prisoner? Did they not care what timeline existed...as long as it WASN'T his? Was mystery dude's timeline the original one, and they have kept him prisoner, gleaning information and altering the timeline for over 1000 years so we never get his future?
During the first few seasons it was implied old Alec chose Kira for a reason. Had events already happened for him, had a Kira been sent back before, possibly by accident the first time and interacted with young him? Things didn't work out how he wanted, so when it got to the point in the future again he deliberately orchestrated the time travel to go off again, this time with the message in her suit for young Alec? (who he knew she'd meet, by the way). Was he altering of her memories/mind so she'd interact differently with young Alec than she did in his timeline in his youth? The time protectors knew about the time travel in old Alec's time and tried to prevent it there, knowing when it would happen; further implies this starting timeline had already had a time travel in it to the point they knew when/where it would happen, adding weight to the above theory.
As for how this is going; I see Kira/beardy/Liber8 as some sort of new timeline protectors. Not a specific one, but just there to alter things to stop a bad one from existing.
I originally saw this as pre-destination due to certain things, until Kellogs grandma (?) died. Then it branched. Or maybe it branched when they came back, if they weren't meant to come back. I have a feeling that maybe this new mystery dude is from the very first timeline, and even the starting one we see isn't the original. People keep going back each new timeline trying to make things better over and over again. Each new timeline going backwards or forwards on the "bad-good" ratio. That's what I see anyway. We start off on A timeline, A guy goes back in time, creates B timeline, someone in B timeline's future doesn't like this world so B guy goes back in time and creates C world, someone in C world's future doesn't like this world, so C guy goes back in time and...you get the picture. Now here's what i think; somewhere in there is the perfect future and it's evil twin future. The final ever episode will have some massive unravelling of the whole mess at its source, leaving the perfect future only(which isn't the one the show started on). With the way the characters have been talking these last two episodes; no perfect futures, people just changing history whenever they want, it definitely adds weight to the "A>B>C>D>E and so on" theory. Who knows how long the constant rewriting has been going on...?
I hope I got that stated plain and clear as I feel a bit crappy at the moment (I probably made some mistakes. Sorry!)
Of course, reading some posts has left me disheartened knowing that the writers are just making it up each season as they go along. It makes sense why some story-lines were just abandoned then. I hope even though they are making it up as they go along, that they still put effort into making it all fit together in the long run.
He is a god-in-the-machine type figure, fixing things. I would ask him two
questions.
1. What happened to that missing scenes/episode?
2. Are we going to get a 4th series?
Was supposed to have been announced in August, but still no word.
I think that's a bad sign
There was meant to be an announcement in July and then August. They've said in the last couple of weeks there will be news soon
http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/continuum-not-cancelled-or-renewed-for-season-four-yet-33780/
My guess and this is pure speculation is that Syfy (U.S) have decided not to bother with buying a 4th season (they do seem to have a lot of new shows in development) and Showcase (Canada) aren't prepared to go ahead unless they can sell it to another U.S channel.