Contains only mild spoilers!

2023/04/01

Season 3:

In Season 3 definitely the characters definitely become harder, tougher to each other. And where in the first two seasons I find Alec to be a pleasant character, in the third season both versions of Alec aren’t particular pleasant. Kiera also toughens up, as also Carlos and their boss Dillon. For me this was one the big differences in comparison to the first two seasons. Where the first two seasons the focus was more procedural, in seasons three and four the time-travel bit becomes more important. Where in season two the freelancers were already present, in the 3^rd season there is also a lot of focus on them, which was interesting. Apparently, they see themselves as the keepers of time. One of them, now called the Traveler, sacrificed his life to go back in time a 1000 years to create a basis for this group of people. As we saw in the season two finale, Kiera does not get a chance to get back to her own timeline because Alec becomes selfish (can you blame him) after he has seen his girlfriend Emily being killed. Understandable is also that Kiera is very angry with Alec, both Alec’s in fact.

In the season opener “Minute by Minute” Alec arrives a week before to save Emily. So, in this period there are 2 Alec’s now. Kiera and most of Liber8 has been kidnapped by this group called the freelancers. When escape doesn’t work, she agrees to work with them. These people, guard time, 100 yrs after Kiera traveled back it was founded because right after she left, criminal organizations mis-used time-travel. One person volunteered to go back 1000 years to set up this organization. Kellog uses Emily for his own needs, Future Alec finds Kiera’s lifeless body!

In “Minute Man” Kiera doesn’t trust future Alec, she asks Carlos for help with her dead body. Liber8 kidnaps the mayor coerces him to give a negative speech big corporations. Kellog blackmails Emily about a killing, Alec learns that Jason is not his father! We also get to see how Kiera ended up with CPS, after contraband was found in her mother’s home.

In “Minute to Win” Lucas escapes the mental hospital in an ingenious way. Libert8 has a new toy where they literally control people. Carlos is having issues with Kiera’s death. Alec inherits Piron, he now knows the truth about Emily. Alec finds another secret about Emily, involving a murder in a jail. Kiera secures a strange object that looks futuristic, but she doesn’t recognize it, she brings it to freelancers HQ. In “Minute Changes” Carlos visits Kiera’s corpse to drink there. Betty is caught again, working with Liber8. Dillon becomes a board member at Piron, supporting Alec. Julian is on national TV, telling how bad the police is operating. The two Alec’s meet and Emily choses future Alec, for one because the original Alec dumped her.

In “30 Minutes of Air”, Liber8 hijack a popular talk show where Dillion is a guest. They want to hurt big corporation Fermitas. Carlos is in the lead, he sends in Kiera who saves Dillion who escapes with the anchor woman. Original Alec learns that Kiera knew about future Alec and breaks contact with her. Dillon’s daughter is caught doing a statement against the corporations, she and her dad concoct a plan where she infiltrates in Liber8. Note - Strange how both Alec’s are so completely different in that short space of time, no pun intended. 😊

In “Wasted Minute” Liber8 is busy trying to bring a devasting chemical attack on the city, Goal: Company Sonmanto will never be seen as the victor in any timeline. Using Travis' immunity to the chemical, Sonya intends to develop the antidote 50 years ahead of schedule. Kiera is told by the Freelancers she has to kill one Alec. Future Alec and original Alec get in a fight at Piron. Kiera intervenes, shoots Future Alec, brings him to the Freelancer compound. Kiera gets to see the CMR footage which shows the killer of her other self: Chen. Note – Directed by Amanda Tapping!

“Waning Minutes” is an episode almost completely set in the future! I remember from back then that was hoping for such an episode to come, and I was pleasantly surprised because it is a good episode! Chen accuses Kiera of being asleep in 2077, is not the first time she heard this. This activates her memory about something the experienced in the future where Jaworski said that to her too. When their chopper crashes, Kiera, who had Jaworski in custody, are being captured by Gleaners. People who live on their own, isolated, want nothing to do with life in the city. Kagame is their too, as also Sonya, who is his doctor at that point. Kiera is believed to be dead. Kagame decides the faith of the Gleaners. Kiera lets Catherine know she is awake now. Chen escapes shortly after his capture. Note – This episode has also been directed by Amanda Tapping.

In “So do Our Minutes Hasten” Libert8 is believed to responsible for the killing of 12 people but Garza comes to Kiera to tell her it wasn’t them. Kellog has convinced Jason to go and work with Alec at Piron, Jason becomes an unknowing spy. A mercenary is suspected to have done the gassing, even Garza tries and beat it out of him, while he is brought in for questioning, he leaves behind a listening device. Kiera and Carlos unsuccessfully try to convince Dillon that one of the big corporations is behind it, not Liber8. Betty’s parole is over she loses the ankle brace. Kiera trusts her, while trying to get info, Bettie gets in the firing range of the mercenary!

In “Minute of Silence” Carlos shows Alec Kiera’s body. Without Carlos knowing it, Alec goes back later to cut out Kiera’s CMR so he can use this technology for his HALO project. A guy in the hospital, no memory, only knows Kiera’s name and requests for her. Kiera takes him with him because she trusts him somehow and he speaks things like he is from the future. They walk into Chen and it shows that he can fight. Carlos seems more open to the ideas of Liber8, The Mercenary is caught, Alec is angry at Kiera and has an attitude. Kellog sues Alec for breaching contract, he wants in at Piron, Alec lets him.

In “Revolutions Per Minute” it is Alec who takes Kiera’s dead body, Carlos is furious. Most likely reason to hide that he cut out the CMR for his own gain. Dillon is worried about his daughter, who works for Libert8 at a small company. Kiera knows for sure Liber8 has plans with this company who are testing a cure for Alzheimer’s, but it’s based on the drug flash, from the future. Alec offers Julian a job. He accepts, he is also writing and shows it to Sonya who recognizes Theseus’ words. Alec discovers footage about the man in Kiera’s apartment, he killed Kiera! Jason is testing the HALO device, it seems okay but then he gets aggressive. With Escher’s time-travel device they annihilate Kiera’s body. After Kiera tells him she knows he took the CMR and that she is sick of looking at him right now. Alec doesn’t tell her about her about who actually killed her. John Doe remembers his name with flash: Brad Tonkin.

“3 Minutes to Midnight” Kiera learns who killed her. The Halo device is flawed. Jason turned violent more than once at this point. Liber8 catches Kiera and Brad, when Brad tells them he is from 2039, from yet another timeline they are from, and that it is perhaps even worse as in their time in 2077, they all get disillusioned. It seemed like Liber8 only made things worse. In Brad’s future Kellog is also some kind of leader. Note – I have to say I was really getting annoyed with the Travis character, so much violence, a fighting machine.

In “The Dying Minutes” we start 3 months earlier when the Freelancers pick up the Chen’s body at the morgue. His reanimation by a mysterious ancient man called The Traveler. Catherine informs Chen that he’s been “merged.” Kiera and Brad are going to break-out future Alec from the Freelancers compound. She realized that the other Alec is steering in the wrong direction. Chen kills Catherine and goes to the Traveler. Trying to sabotage the Halo device, Sonya is caught by Carlos, in the police station she sacrifices herself and takes Dillon with her, who lies in a hospital after being critically wounded. Chen promises to Kellog that a great day is coming. Kiera finds Brad, Alec and Emily camped out in a remote cabin in the woods. The two admit that they’ve forged a strange surrogate family. In the morning, Alec and Emily head off of their own life together. Alec is grateful to Kiera for rescuing him from the Freelancers. Brad and Kiera stay behind at the cabin to explore their own relationship. At PIRON, Halo is basically ready to launch. Kellog, in yet another attempt to reign control of the future for his own power, reveals to other Alec that Alec is back… and that Kiera has switched sides, picking future Alec as the version that must survive instead of him.

In the season finale “Last Minute”, Kiera and Liber8 are working together, Kiera admits she was asleep. Original Alec feels threatened by the fact that Kiera saved future Alec that he scares them (other Alec and Emily) with gunshots. The two Alec’s get into a fight of life and death and future Alec kills the other one, future Alec takes his place on Piron to tear it down. Kiera and Brad activate the device to find out if they’ve stopped the dreaded timeline, it seems like they’ve succeeded when nothing happens. Kellog has a surprise for Alec, for weeks now he has been letting Alec sign documents which gives him more power. In fact, future Alec has no power anymore and is being escorted out the door. Then we see light going out all over the place, we see the Traveler who says: It begins now. Strange looking soldiers arrive instantly at the place Kiera and Brad are.

Season 4:

After two “easy” renewals, with the 2^nd and 3^rd season, season 4 renewal was a bit more difficult, I assume this because the 4^th season was only renewed for 6 more episodes, so that the story could end in a satisfying way! For this I am very grateful by the way. I am not sure who was responsible for this but he or she or most likely they, made a lot of fans happy. Continuum has no filler episodes; every episode is a part of the whole story, but this is even more the case with season 4 when the show is concluded with a 6-part story. While, in my opinion, the first season it perhaps was more a procedural with a touch of SCI-FI, the following seasons it more and more became 50% procedural & 50% SCI-FI, but in its last season the SCI-FI element perhaps was even a bigger part of the show, which wasn’t a bad thing if you ask me. The 4^th and final season never gets below an 8 out of 10, these six episodes are rollercoaster rides, each one of them is making you sit on the edge of your seat. The series finale is damn near perfect, and if you are into this show, I bet you will have a hard time keeping those tears away! But why would you?

Episodes:

We see Liber8 and Kiera’s standpoints getting closer, although she still doesn’t agree with the way they are doing it. Brad Tonkin actually comes from a different future than Kiera’s, it’s even a worse future, possibly brought on by what Liber8 was doing, so they even make things worse instead of better. Brad is being split in the middle, his loyalties for Kiera and for the soldiers who came from his future. He is constantly walking on a tight robe. And this becomes even more difficult when he learns his people have something different planning than just save their people. Kellog’s true nature comes more and more to the surface in this short 4^th season. He really yearns for power, he isn’t afraid of killing, he is prepared to kill everyone who gets in his way, even someone very close to him, although he only knows how close right after he did the deed. Kellog also made sure Piron becomes his, he hustled the original Alec without him noticing it. When Emily learns she is not the mother of Jason, she figures she no longer needs to be in his life and leaves Alec. Kiera still wants to try and get home, even if there is only a small chance she will return to the future she came from. Alec and Carlos want to help her but by know they much rather want to keep her in the present time, because they have become friends, close friends. But Kiera wants to get back to her son.

When the time is there to send Kiera back home, Kellog wants to time-travel for his own purposes, he wants to get back to 2012, to the moment where they first arrive in the present, to take out everyone so he can build his empire with no distractions from Kiera or Liber8. Alec thought about this and changed the coordinates, he won’t be problem anymore…. Kiera steps through the portal and first sees Kagame, she figures, this is wrong, but when old Alec comes rushing in, explaining everything to her. The future she came from no longer exists, that future never came to be, so there was no time travel back in time to 2012, which is good news! But it also had a major downside for Kiera, who just arrived from our present day!

Final Word:

The last two episodes of the 4^th season are just brilliant, and as I said, the series finale is as it should be, a conclusion to a very entertaining TV show, of course, perhaps not an outcome time-traveling Kiera would have expected, perhaps the audience also did not expect the final outcome but it was very well executed and for Kiera as well for the audience and emotional ride. Continuum has a big rewatch value because it has a beginning, a middle and an ending and it is just one big story. You can rewatch it every few years and because the stories are so rich, I don’t think you will get bored with it easily!

Screencaps: Google search