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. ]

So we're back and watching Continuum, Season 1, Episode 1. :)

Something's happened, and we see Kiera groggily waking up as her outfit flickers with blue electricity. That automatically means Cool Uniform, and I'm sure we'll see hidden capabilities being revealed as the show progresses. :)

She stumbles for a bit, and sees that she's materialized under a bridge which was hit by the blast. Lucky the falling pieces didn't kill her! :O

The first inkling she has that something is wrong is when she tries to communicate (apparently via some kind of implanted cell-phone-like device she can activate as needed) to CPS ("City Protective Services") and can't get a response.

And there's the familiar present-day loading cranes in East Vancouver in the present day \o/ If the premise hadn't been made clear before now it'd be obvious that time-travel was in some way involved in bringing Kiera (and presumably the other prisoners) to our time from 2077.

She spots a couple of the guys from the 2077 jail and they take off. Her gun's fancy electronics are on the fritz and she can't draw a good bead on 'em. She then spots one of the guys, Lucas Ingram, and begins chasing after him. Lucas, clearly hurt and disoriented, tries to get his bearings and escape from Kiera as well.

Kiera, following, tries contacting CPS again. "Central, this is Cameron. I need backup."

This time, this guy responds, clearly not the person she expected.

And he's naturally very suspicious, thinking Kiera's hacked into his super-secret communications network he's just starting to develop. We learn that he's set up an "experimental encrypted frequency", and he should be the only one on it.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Maybe he helped invent the communications network she uses in 2077? :D

The young man and Officer Cameron argue, then she spots Ingram again and takes off. Young guy begins trying to track the implant (?) in Cameron, and when he manages to get data from it he's incredulous: "it works!"

Hey, Ingram? You're fucked. :P This next part is SO FUCKING COOL I have to make a Youtube clip of the way Kiera's suit can make her invisible! :D

See it here!

She also apparently has a multipurpose drug-administering tool, since she sticks Ingram with something and he grouses about the "Torox", a truth serum. She then questions Ingram, and finds out that he, at least knew in advance about the escape using time travel via a "vortex". And the first inkling we get that something is wrong in a fundamental sense is when Ingram says "Should've been six years. Looks more like sixty."

Someone done fucked with the plan! :O

But why? And who stands to gain from it? Kagame? Or someone else?

Kiera, naturally, isn't pleased and wants to know how to get back to 2077, but it's not gonna be possible. Yet. And Lucas is determined to blend into the local 2012 Vancouver population and stay out of sight in order to help complete his agenda.

Kiera, on the other hand, has different ideas. A cop car is coming down the alley, and she sees her opportunity to shove Lucas out into the spotlight and get him arrested!

He tries to say there's a woman behind the dumpster near him, but of course, she's invisble, mwahahahahaha. X-D

Apparently public transit is so widely used in 2077, or other forms of non-ground transportation are used, that Ingram protests that he's "never been in an automobile". The cops aren't having any of it and tell him it's his lucky day.

It turns out the entire conversation between Kiera and Lucas was overheard by the nameless young man who seems to have become her unofficial Mission Control in 2012. He's already noting down details...

It's made clear that whatever Officer Cameron has that lets her talk to this guy, it's highly experimental in 2012, and he's wondering how she's got it. She's not ready to reveal all yet, but it's safe to say the dude isn't slow on his feet and probably has pieced together the basic story already, as weird and odd as it may seem.

Meantime, Kiera's getting stared at as she walks down Granville street, which she patches with a quick color-change function:

We then get a shot of a military surplus store, and sure enough the other criminals from 2077 are gathering, regrouping and deciding what to do next.

Missing is Lucas (since he got arrested) and Kagame; the apparent second-in-command says they'll be fine without him. The crew seems shocked and surprised at what the find in the military store, which suggests that whoever knew about the plan to change the downtime arrival, it wasn't these folks.

I suspect Kagame, but...

Back to the prisoners. We got a couple ax crazy guys in this group. One of 'em loves knives a little too much and the other one loves throwing them a little too much.

Then switch to Unnamed Guy and Kiera. They begin discussing her presence in 2012 and the reality of time travel. We learn Unnamed Guy is Alec! Kiera finds out Alec somehow can tap into her Lojack, and they're both like WTF HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE.

Alec's last name is Sadler, and he invented the entire technological basis for the fancy computer network the police use in 2077! HOLY SHIT.

Alec then offers to get Kiera money and a place to stay, but she's worried about temporal paradoxes and stuff, plus being a stranger in a strange land she's not totally disposed to just trusting some random voice in her head claiming to be Alec Sadler, even if he did obviously invent, in 2012, the working prototype for the communications system that still exists in 2077.

Kiera apparently can turn off the comm-tech when she wants, because she cuts Alec off in the middle of a convo and proceeds do to a little unauthorized ATM access:

See the clip here for more of her awesome suit's capabilities!

What doesn't that suit do, I wonder???

The military-store prisoners, hiding out and gathering uniforms 'n stuff, get told by one of them, Kellog, that maybe it's too long between 2012 and 2077 for what they want to do to have any impact. Given that Liber8 obviously hates the corporate-dominated government of 2077, it stands to reason they want to prevent it happening, although the original plan seems to be that going back to 2070 or 2071 would have given them time to accomplish their goal while not being too badly temporally displaced.

Bottom line: Kellog seems to be having second thoughts. Travis, the new de facto leader, isn't impressed and intends to continue to do their thing: "The war begins now."

Kiera ends up at the Columbia Hotel, which, in real life is located at Cordova and Columbia, which is kind of in the Gastown/Downtown East Side area. She gets a room for the night, and as she unwinds, she and Alec talk again.

He notes that either:

1. Kiera is part of a stable time loop, or
2. An alternate timeline has been created.

Either way, what's done is done and she may not see her child again. :(

A side effect of whatever implant Kiera has in her head is that Alec can see all and hear all. He sees her face in the mirror and admits she's cute, to which she responds, reminding him about boundaries.

She begins sending the video and sound from her implant (CMR, it's called - "Cellular Memory Review") to Alec's computer, stating that in her time this is a routine practice CPS officers use to store all visual and auditory evidence for later retrieval in criminal cases.

"Soy-moo, AGAIN?"

After the download is finished, Kiera unhappily remembers her husband and son, while Alec spots something interesting in Kiera's record: His company's logo! SadTech!

He realizes just how much of a famous mofo he probably is in 2077 now XD

The next morning, we find out Alec lives in a barn in the suburbs, probably rural Surrey or Langley. It's established he sleeps in the barn quite a bit, and given his obvious techno-wizardry, he's a pretty busy guy. He leaves the barn and enters the house proper, in which we see a small meeting of people.

The brown-coated guy standing on the far right is his step-dad Roland Randol; the teenager next to the step-dad is his step-brother Julian, and the woman at the island table is his mother, Ann Sadler.

The group is apparently a left-wing anti-corporate kaffee-klatsch, and the speech being made is this:

Julian Randol: "They catch an employee, they call him a rogue trader, they throw him in jail."

Roland Randol: "My son is right. When the bank CEO does it, they bail him out with our money. How is that justice?"

Alec doesn't seem too enamored of the group, and begs off, citing the need to shower and change clothes. But what I find interesting is how the show manages to juxtapose the themes of the acceptable, even admirable, motive of Liber8 (rooted in present-day anti-corporatocratic feelings in the population at large) and their deplorable, dangerous and unacceptable terroristic actions - and we'll definitely see more of this as the show proceeds.

Kiera, meantime, is watching TV and fiddling with her fancy self-assembling gun. She then injects herself with some kind of drug from her multipurpose drug tool, and finds a convenient place to hide her futuristic stuff.

Next scene: Carlos Fonnegra. Say hello, we'll be seeing more of this guy. :P

The Vancouver Police Department is obviously very curious about what went down at that bridge, but don't have much to go on. There was apparently a bomb, but no fragments. Kiera's there, and Fonnegra, naturally suspicious of an apparent non-cop prowling, tells her to leave the scene. She claims to be investigating a new gang, refers to Lucas's arrest, asks if anyone else got arrested. Answer: No, not yet.

Kiera: "... And this isn't my jurisdiction."

Heh, no shit :P Temporally, it sure ain't.

More of the amazing capabilities of Kiera's expanded cognitive functions! In her flashback to the TV news she was watching, she remembers, with perfect clarity, Detective Linda Williams's name and badge number, allegedly from Portland, Oregon.

She gets the chance to interview Lucas Ingram!

She asks Fonnegra to leave for a moment. Cue 2077-style techno-gadgetry usage! That suit of hers is really just amazing! She can disrupt electrical devices and shock people, too!

Ingram, under duress, explains that they're stuck in 2012. He does not deny having had help to get the time travel device.

Back story! Dude was a SadTech engineer and he knows what the hell he's talking about. He reasonably points out that given that 2077 is so far off, why doesn't she just live it up in 2012 and stay out of the public eye?

Her sense of duty, obviously, won't let her do that. She holds the specific status of Protector, which I assume is a special position within CPS whose duties are broader in scope than most other officers.

Since she has Alec in her head, she proceeds to do a little psy-ops on Lucas. He was born Lucas Talbot, and his dad went to jail, probably in the 2060s. She tells Lucas, bluntly, that she knows where his family is, and she's not opposed to doing a little surgical removal.

This rattles Lucas enough that he decides to start talking.

Fonnegra: "What'd you say to him?"
Cameron: "We talked about his future."

I LOLed. X-D

We then meet with Fonnegra's boss, who understandably isn't too pleased about the notion of a new gang setting up shop in Vancouver. His name's Dillon. He believes Kiera's part of a gang task force.

Kiera begins spinning a believable origin story for the gang - they're expanding their territory, are dangerous, etc etc. As she speaks, her voiceover complements a scene where the prisoners, now out of their reddish outfits, overpower a couple of cops and steal their weapons.

After we cut back to Dillon, he wants to know who to talk to in the Portland PD. However, just as Kiera is finished stalling for time, the phone rings. The first salvo in the new war has begun! Two officers down, the gang is now armed and dangerous. The VPD has to get on the move!

Bank alarms are going off, but it's a diversionary tactic. Kiera tells them to respond only to the last one.

(Aside: We're going to see more of that Asian IT lady! :) )

The VPD cascades down to the bank and surrounds it! Kiera wants a weapon, but Carlos says no. I don't know why he won't give a fellow cop a gun, but to be fair, her back story is kinda flimsy and he doesn't know if she's even authorized to be in Vancouver.

A shootout begins! However, after a lull in the shootout, Kiera gets her chance and rushes off down the back alley the gang sneaked off to, and Carlos is annoyed!

More Kiera-Vision! She spots where they've gone in.

Inside the building, she scopes out where the prisoners are, revealing that she can "see" through concealment and detect weapons:

(Incidentally, is it just me or do those boxes look like the Person of Interest boxes when we can see what The Machine sees? :P )

She gets into a shootout inside the building! She goes down - and is she dead?

HA NOPE! BULLETPROOF SUIT, SUCKERS! :D

That Kiera-vision thing is fucking amazing. She uses her abilities to help turn the tables on the criminals! :D

She can pick a special capability off the list and activate it! This is so cool :D

BZAP! Down goes Jaworski, the guy up there who liked knives a lil too much.

Even so she's not out of the woods yet, and she demands of Alec that he convince the local police to take these guys seriously, as she believes they will start an all-out war to try and keep the corporate state of 2077 from forming. She also tells him where she hid her futuristic stuff!

Jaworsky's not quite dead though, and he's about to knife Kiera in the back when Fonnegra caps his ass for good. Then someone bounces up and is about to shoot Fonnegra, when *BLAM!* Kiera makes him dodge!

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the bank "attacks" were themselves a diversion, not just from each other, but to draw forces away from the VPD HQ! And so Lucas Ingram is gone, having been freed by the other gang members not present at the shootout in the abandoned room.

Dillon's not pleased, and wants Kiera to stick around to help.

We get a scene near the end with Alec on his Bluetooth headset talking to Kiera. They discuss the "war" about to come. Alec, looking at his hand-drawn SadTech logo, notes that she never told him what happens to him, but he decides he doesn't really need to know.

Then we get a nice little superposition of the "present" of 2012 and the future of 2077!

Click here!

And then the DUN-DUN-DUN moment :D

In a flashback from prior to her temporal shift, Kiera and her family are meeting an old man!

IT'S ALEC SADLER WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

What does he knoooooow????? OMFG I was so excite when I saw this the first time, I was like AGH HE KNOWS SOMETHING I MUST KNOW MORE.