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quantumreality[ A note about the Youtube clips: I've stripped the sound to cut the video file sizes down. If anyone really really really wants audio in the clips, I'll leave it in. ]
Also, because of the image-heavy exposition, I'm going to split this into two parts. The first will cover the episode up to the time travel incident, and the second will cover the episode from that incident to the end.
Now, let's begin! :-)
We open on a blurry image of a man with some kind of necklace. The first indication that we're seeing a technology advanced beyond our own is when he taps a desk, and all sorts of cool graphics appear. What's even neater is he can send the images off his desk and onto his wall.
He begins speaking:
"Twenty years ago, when corporations bailed out our failed governments, they sold it to us as salvation. Now we've seen we have paid for that rescue with our freedoms. We have awakened to the truth. We have become slaves to the Corporate Congress. Today, all that changes. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that we have passed the torch to a new generation unwilling to permit the undoing of human rights and dignities. And let every corporation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."
We see that he is speaking in Vancouver! (As a resident, I immediately went \o/ THIS IS SET IN MY CITY THIS IS SO COOL.)
We also get a date: 2076.
Usually, in my experience, futuristic settings placed in well-known cities try to make them look a little bit like the places they "used" to be (i.e. what they looked like in the present). That's normally averted here; that background view? I don't recognize it. All I know is that the man is probably in the West End somewhere, but hell if I know what street or building.
We hear a pounding on the door, and BOOM cops bust in! This is where we first meet Kiera Cameron, CPS officer. We learn that the old man is named Edouard Kagame.
That futuristic gun! Whoa. You need to srsly see it actually putting itself together:
We also learn that Kagame is the leader of the "Liber8" terrorist movement, and just as he's taken away from the room, BOOOOOOOOM a building explodes! The way the buildings collapse in this futuristic scene clearly evokes the 9/11 destruction and collapse of the World Trade Center, and is meant to signify to us just how far this movement will go to accomplish their objectives.
Click here to see the clip.
We flash to six months later, which, if we assume it means 180 days exactly, fixes the date at May 4, 2077. We see Cameron, her husband, and a group of her friends debating the Liber8 attacks and what their "manifesto" really amounts to.
The guy her arm is around is her husband. :) (He's kind of cute. :P)
One gentleman notes that Liber8, in fundamentals, wants an end to the "corporate dictatorship" that runs the North American Union. We learn some back story, that in about 2050, governments the world over simply financially collapsed. Corporations stepped in, offering generous loans and terms in exchange for complete control over the government.
Kiera sardonically notes that he is "still free to speak his mind". Cue mass beeping of a bunch of some pretty cool wrist phones! We see the Liber8 symbol pop up again, as well.
And then, a few minutes later, harsh white lights surround the apartment, and they step onto the balcony.
We hear of a "Call to Arms on the eve of the executions". Kiera's son, Sam, comes out into the hallway and he gets reassured by his mother that the "bad guys" won't win.
We learn it's the first execution in 40 years, which is how seriously the government is taking this terrorist group (and it also means that at some point, Canada reinstated the death penalty).
The relatively low budget of the series shows up as we move into a public transit vehicle which is still recognizable as a heavily done-up Skytrain car. :P
Cool HUD is cool! It turns out, in this and future episodes, to have a lot of augmentations that give her a decided advantage. It can scan people's biometrics, and cross-correlate them internally or against an external database - and that's just for starters.
It would seem that the cops of 2077 all have these to easily identify and track suspects. Kiera efficiently bags and tags these guys after learning they're suspects wanted on a theft charge - she's good at hand-to-hand combat, and that fancy thing she's wearing gives her a few upgrades, as it turns out.
That all-purpose gun I showed a picture of above? Doubles as an actual tagger; she marks one of the suspects (which puts Lojack on him) and tells him to report for booking... or "face the pain". I assume this means the tag could administer some kind of chemical or electric shock if the suspect fails to turn himself in within a specified time interval.
We see that Kiera is at the "Vancouver Distrist Prison". As you can see from the heavy CGI, East Vancouver's container port is barely - just barely recognizable as the setting for this futuristic prison.
The prisoners themselves are lined up and the supervisor, Hobbs, reasonably advises the prisoners to behave on their way to the execution.
We then learn Liber8 may attack the execution chamber itself. Security is thus beefed up, and Kiera is assigned to watch over the execution chamber.
In the chamber itself, there's an audience, and we see Kiera's husband Greg, next to an old man whose name we don't learn yet. He sardonically wishes that the execution was "a little less public". However, the "surviving members of the Board insisted", from which I take it to mean that the corporate-backed government is headed by a Board of Directors, and their word is final law in the North American Union. (I am, admittedly, tickled pink that Vancouver may well be the new capital of the NAU)
The list of names of the other prisoners is read out, and we learn their names (full list on the Wikipedia entry for Continuum, but watch out for spoilers).
This little scene was so quick I actually missed it on my first viewing! It becomes crucially pivotal as the story unfolds in later episodes, so I'm going to show the snapshot now and note that this implies that at least one guard is doing something he shouldn't.
LIKE WHAT IS THAT THING???
Then Greg notices his wife's in the chamber itself, and he's all like NO YOU CANNOT DO THAT I WANT HER OUT. The guy, Hobbs, stands firm and won't relent.
Meanwhile, it appears that all the prisoners know something, because as the scene proceeds, they nod to each other as they surround the execution device. Kiera starts noticing something, but isn't sure what it is yet.
The light from the center pole comes on, and then Kiera realizes they may be trying to escape! She runs up to them, just as they all do... this:
They all had pieces like that one guard had, and it causes an explosion!
Click here for the clip.
Everybody who was within the blast radius of the explosion disappeared utterly! People are panicking, and milling about - except for the old fellow.
He's sitting there, smiling! He knooooooooows something! :O
And that's it for 2077! Cut to black, and we go to the opening credits.
Next entry, we'll see what actually happened to everybody!
It was the aftermath - when the characters are time-displaced and how they react to it - that really "sold" me on this series. So hopefully you'll stay tuned for part 2. :)
Also, because of the image-heavy exposition, I'm going to split this into two parts. The first will cover the episode up to the time travel incident, and the second will cover the episode from that incident to the end.
Now, let's begin! :-)
We open on a blurry image of a man with some kind of necklace. The first indication that we're seeing a technology advanced beyond our own is when he taps a desk, and all sorts of cool graphics appear. What's even neater is he can send the images off his desk and onto his wall.
He begins speaking:
"Twenty years ago, when corporations bailed out our failed governments, they sold it to us as salvation. Now we've seen we have paid for that rescue with our freedoms. We have awakened to the truth. We have become slaves to the Corporate Congress. Today, all that changes. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that we have passed the torch to a new generation unwilling to permit the undoing of human rights and dignities. And let every corporation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."
We see that he is speaking in Vancouver! (As a resident, I immediately went \o/ THIS IS SET IN MY CITY THIS IS SO COOL.)
We also get a date: 2076.
Usually, in my experience, futuristic settings placed in well-known cities try to make them look a little bit like the places they "used" to be (i.e. what they looked like in the present). That's normally averted here; that background view? I don't recognize it. All I know is that the man is probably in the West End somewhere, but hell if I know what street or building.
We hear a pounding on the door, and BOOM cops bust in! This is where we first meet Kiera Cameron, CPS officer. We learn that the old man is named Edouard Kagame.
That futuristic gun! Whoa. You need to srsly see it actually putting itself together:
We also learn that Kagame is the leader of the "Liber8" terrorist movement, and just as he's taken away from the room, BOOOOOOOOM a building explodes! The way the buildings collapse in this futuristic scene clearly evokes the 9/11 destruction and collapse of the World Trade Center, and is meant to signify to us just how far this movement will go to accomplish their objectives.
Click here to see the clip.
We flash to six months later, which, if we assume it means 180 days exactly, fixes the date at May 4, 2077. We see Cameron, her husband, and a group of her friends debating the Liber8 attacks and what their "manifesto" really amounts to.
The guy her arm is around is her husband. :) (He's kind of cute. :P)
One gentleman notes that Liber8, in fundamentals, wants an end to the "corporate dictatorship" that runs the North American Union. We learn some back story, that in about 2050, governments the world over simply financially collapsed. Corporations stepped in, offering generous loans and terms in exchange for complete control over the government.
Kiera sardonically notes that he is "still free to speak his mind". Cue mass beeping of a bunch of some pretty cool wrist phones! We see the Liber8 symbol pop up again, as well.
And then, a few minutes later, harsh white lights surround the apartment, and they step onto the balcony.
We hear of a "Call to Arms on the eve of the executions". Kiera's son, Sam, comes out into the hallway and he gets reassured by his mother that the "bad guys" won't win.
We learn it's the first execution in 40 years, which is how seriously the government is taking this terrorist group (and it also means that at some point, Canada reinstated the death penalty).
The relatively low budget of the series shows up as we move into a public transit vehicle which is still recognizable as a heavily done-up Skytrain car. :P
Cool HUD is cool! It turns out, in this and future episodes, to have a lot of augmentations that give her a decided advantage. It can scan people's biometrics, and cross-correlate them internally or against an external database - and that's just for starters.
It would seem that the cops of 2077 all have these to easily identify and track suspects. Kiera efficiently bags and tags these guys after learning they're suspects wanted on a theft charge - she's good at hand-to-hand combat, and that fancy thing she's wearing gives her a few upgrades, as it turns out.
That all-purpose gun I showed a picture of above? Doubles as an actual tagger; she marks one of the suspects (which puts Lojack on him) and tells him to report for booking... or "face the pain". I assume this means the tag could administer some kind of chemical or electric shock if the suspect fails to turn himself in within a specified time interval.
We see that Kiera is at the "Vancouver Distrist Prison". As you can see from the heavy CGI, East Vancouver's container port is barely - just barely recognizable as the setting for this futuristic prison.
The prisoners themselves are lined up and the supervisor, Hobbs, reasonably advises the prisoners to behave on their way to the execution.
We then learn Liber8 may attack the execution chamber itself. Security is thus beefed up, and Kiera is assigned to watch over the execution chamber.
In the chamber itself, there's an audience, and we see Kiera's husband Greg, next to an old man whose name we don't learn yet. He sardonically wishes that the execution was "a little less public". However, the "surviving members of the Board insisted", from which I take it to mean that the corporate-backed government is headed by a Board of Directors, and their word is final law in the North American Union. (I am, admittedly, tickled pink that Vancouver may well be the new capital of the NAU)
The list of names of the other prisoners is read out, and we learn their names (full list on the Wikipedia entry for Continuum, but watch out for spoilers).
This little scene was so quick I actually missed it on my first viewing! It becomes crucially pivotal as the story unfolds in later episodes, so I'm going to show the snapshot now and note that this implies that at least one guard is doing something he shouldn't.
LIKE WHAT IS THAT THING???
Then Greg notices his wife's in the chamber itself, and he's all like NO YOU CANNOT DO THAT I WANT HER OUT. The guy, Hobbs, stands firm and won't relent.
Meanwhile, it appears that all the prisoners know something, because as the scene proceeds, they nod to each other as they surround the execution device. Kiera starts noticing something, but isn't sure what it is yet.
The light from the center pole comes on, and then Kiera realizes they may be trying to escape! She runs up to them, just as they all do... this:
They all had pieces like that one guard had, and it causes an explosion!
Click here for the clip.
Everybody who was within the blast radius of the explosion disappeared utterly! People are panicking, and milling about - except for the old fellow.
He's sitting there, smiling! He knooooooooows something! :O
And that's it for 2077! Cut to black, and we go to the opening credits.
Next entry, we'll see what actually happened to everybody!
It was the aftermath - when the characters are time-displaced and how they react to it - that really "sold" me on this series. So hopefully you'll stay tuned for part 2. :)
