538 replies to this topic

[The Mad Maple]

Premiering May 27th on Showcase (the network that gave the world Lost Girl), comes Continuum,
a new show starring Rachel Nichols as a cop from the year 2077, stuck in the present day (in an unnamed city, but really Vancouver), tracking down a group of escaped terrorists from her own time.

I know, I know, it sounds a lot like Time Traxx. But y'know what? I liked Time Traxx. At least the first season. So shut up. ;)

Besides, the ads are pretty cool. :)

[ElymianDucat]

I'm really looking forward to this show. I adore Rachel Nichols and having the chance to have her on my TV on a regular basis is something I'm not going to pass up.

[mustbekarma]

I know, I know, it sounds a lot like Time Traxx. But y'know what? I liked Time Traxx. At least the first season. So shut up. ;)

I fudging loved Time Traxx.

[caper24]

Reminds me a lot of Adrian Paul's series Tracker except it's time travel instead of aliens. Still, I like Rachel Nichols, and I've enjoyed Victor Webster's work since the good old cheesy days of Mutant X, so count me in.

[irishmaple]

Yeah, I'm in too. Showcase advertised this heavily during King and hooked me. I didn't recognize the female lead but I think I remember the guy from 24. Wasn't he one of Jack Bauer's doomed partners?

What's Time Traxx?

[redshirtx]

Time Trax was an old, kind of cheesy show from the 1990s with the same basic hook: time-traveling criminals and the cop who chases them. (And I suppose by loose extension this all goes back to the movie Timecop.) It's been twenty years. Someone had to go...back...there. :)

My only exposure to Rachel Nichols is from G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, so I have no idea if she can headline a show. No idea if or when we'll get this Stateside, so I'll probably just have to take our friendly northern neighbors' word on whether or not this turns out to suck...

[mustbekarma]

I've enjoyed Victor Webster's work since the good old cheesy days of Mutant X, so count me in.

Oh hell, I'd watch this just for the eye candy. Him's real purty.

[FurryFury]

Rachel Nichols? The name sounds familiar, yet I'm too lazy to google - was she in Alias season 5?
Anyway, I'm a sucker for almost anything sci-fi with a female lead, so I'm definitely going to check it out, even if I don't particularly like the premise.

[FoolishWanderer]

Yes, that's her. Also, GI Joe, Conan, and Star Trek. The show is certainly worth a look.

[ElymianDucat]

She was also in a season of Criminal Minds, if that is any help.

Or, if you need a shallower reminder, she was in a movie called P2. If you saw that movie, even if you never learned her name, you will remember her… and that white dress. [snip]

Edited by TWoP Howard, Apr 21, 2012 @ 12:18 PM.
Boards on boards

[SerenitySky]

Is Lexa Doig (Andromeda, SG1) going to be in this too? She was tweeting about it I think last night.

[ElymianDucat]

I think so, although I don't know if she's a regular.

Then again, it’s a genre show that’s being shot in Vancouver. If the show does well, we’ll probably end up being able to throw a dart at random at any episode cast list and hit someone from Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

Edited by ElymianDucat, Apr 18, 2012 @ 10:55 AM.

[Webbermon]

ElymianDucat said
Then again, it’s a genre show that’s being shot in Vancouver. If the show does well, we’ll probably end up being able to throw a dart at random at any episode cast list and hit someone from Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

LOL. well we're already there. Roger Cross-seen in the 2nd promo link in the original post and indeed, one of Jack Baur's CTU comrades, also guest starred in a couple of early SG1s, appeared on Andromeda. and co starred in First Wave.

There should be a drinking game for spotting Stargate vets. Just stay away from the Lifetime Movie Network...I'm always spotting SGers when passing by it. Heck, Cross was even in a movie on there tonight.

[ElymianDucat]

OK, looking at these promo pictures, it seems that Lexa Doig will be a regular.

[Tricksterson]

Is it me or has Canada become the go-to place for really good low budget sci-fi and fantasy?

[caper24]

We are indeed. :P

[ElymianDucat]

Some sneak peeks:

Promo 1

Sneak peek 1

Sneak peek 2

ETA: And the website: Continuum The Series

Edited by ElymianDucat, May 15, 2012 @ 3:08 PM.

[The Mad Maple]

Inner Space, on Space, is doing a feature on Continuum Monday night. (Which is odd, 'cause the show's airing on a Shaw station, while Space is Bell....)

[caper24]

Well, they kinda have to. It's Canadian-shot, mostly Canadian-made (I think Nichols is the only non-Canadian in the cast) and it's sci-fi. If InnerSpace doesn't do a feature on it, it looks... odd. Note that they're doing the feature *after* the show airs... they're not helping out with advance publicity much.

[hardy har]

I'll echo the Rachel Nichols love. She's always so charming and adorable in interviews . . . I can't help but like the woman. Plus, she was the lead in The Inside which was awesome and the show got royally screwed by FOX (shocking, I know) which still pisses me off. Seriously. It was this dark and fucked up dramatic crime show with Nichols, Peter Coyote, Adam Baldwin, Katie Finneran, Jay Harrington and Nelsan Ellis that the network decided to premiere in the bright and shiny Summer tv season. Oh, jeez. We have a crime drama about murderers, serial killer, kidnappers, and more. Let air episodes when it's still light outside! Idiots.

I'll have to check this out. I'm sort of hot/cold with scifi shows, but there's a female lead so I feel obligated to check it out . . . if it ever becomes available stateside. Also: the guys are hot so yay for shallow tv viewing!

Edited by hardy har, May 27, 2012 @ 4:53 PM.

[pyralis]

I think my trope metre broke about 40 minutes in.

I'll need another episode before I decided yes or no. And is that suit powered by her own body's electric charge or does she plug it in every night?

[WileyCoyote]

Is it me or has Canada become the go-to place for really good low budget sci-fi and fantasy?

Its just you!

Kidding. I think this has been a generally acknowledged thing for many many years now. This process started like 15 years ago and has been in full swing for at least a decade.

==========

re: the actual episode

Okay, so if I'm getting the sequence of things correct, the old corporate guy knew about these escapees and manipulated our heroine being inside to close whatever time loop existed (because he's the same person we later meet as the teenager in the past). But what I don't get is the role of the husband. Clearly the argument with the boss means he knew something was going on. The question is what he thought was going on, and why.

Also, there's an implication that she probably will eventually be able to make a pretty good guess at what oldAlex did. We know something she doesn't, since if she saw the argument it was out of the corner of her eye, but given her ability to rewatch stuff like that its bound to come up.

Edited by WileyCoyote, May 28, 2012 @ 1:38 AM.

[TV Anonymous]

I am waiting for Bell Fibe to come and change my system so that I can watch Showcase in HD. Therefore, I have not watched the first episode. So my question is, how do you find the show so far? Is it worth following during the summer? Because for me I do not like to watch on piecemeal basis. Either I follow a show for a season or I do not watch it at all.

[WileyCoyote]

It had a few big ideas, although its true they were mixed in with a bag full of cliches, as pyralis implied.

The effects were minimal, but probably all that were necessary. The tiny bit of future tech we see is reasonably well done, and neither over the top nor overused.

The sets (so far) were good for a Vancouver show, where its often the same three streets and two warehouses people are running around in (only time will tell if THIS show has its stars running around the same places, but so far they aren't the exact same ones from every other show). The acting was a bit undelwhelming--the main star is okay and the teenager kid seems okay, but the baddies and cops seem stiff as boards so far. The dialogue was kind of hoary, but not beyond redemption.

Only time will tell about their use of time travel/paradox and whether its addressed at all. They dropped some big hints of complexity with the fact that the kid later turns out to be the same old guy who manipulated our heroine into being in the same room to go back in time with the baddies, and complementing that they opened the door for some potential character/story complexity with the fact that our future cop heroine and Alex, the teen, are already holding secrets from each other about stuff, but I've seen some pretty bad shows setup moments and character notes like that and totally drop them or exploit them badly.

There are some dumb story/logic leaps. Future cop successfully impersonating a cop from Portland, simply because a crisis comes up at the moment the local Lieutenant asks her for her bosses' phone number to arrange her as a formal liason, and eventually he bellows "take care of it yourself". Stuff like that.

It has promise, but honestly its hard to rate this at this stage.

[ruths]

I too am usually a sucker for cheesy time travel sci-fi and female heroines but the apparent politics of this show may make it impossible to watch: are we supposed to be rooting for her to safeguard a "bright shiny future" where corporations run everything and personal liberty is treated as a joke that only self-indulgent ivory tower academics care about? If so, this series is unfortunately not for me....

[BeenHere]

I too am usually a sucker for cheesy time travel sci-fi and female heroines but the apparent politics of this show may make it impossible to watch:

When the first scenes were shown and the old guy was talking about the evil corporations, I was about to turn it off because I aren't ready to be lectured about the evil corporations and the greatness of democracy which is good but has led to too many countries being attacked because they don't follow the rules of the first world countries. So for the Cigarette Smoking Man, young Alex and supercop, I will give it another chance, but if they start their one sided politics, I am out.

[WileyCoyote]

I too am usually a sucker for cheesy time travel sci-fi and female heroines but the apparent politics of this show may make it impossible to watch: are we supposed to be rooting for her to safeguard a "bright shiny future" where corporations run everything and personal liberty is treated as a joke that only self-indulgent ivory tower academics care about? If so, this series is unfortunately not for me....

To be fair, so far it hasn't come down on either side.

And it gets credit for raising the issue AS an issue at all. It could have just had generic terrorists from the future. They didn't have to have a legitimate point.

I don't like, so far, that the terrorists are super-violent and seemingly uncompromising, except for that ONE token guy who we see having second thoughts. Clearly the show means to exploit that guy's hesitance into a subplot though, which is good.

The show's website also CLEARLY describes the relationship between the Vancouver cop and our heroine as a battle of ideals between personal liberty and what the website somewhat awkwardly describes on her end as corporate idealism. Which won't apply in the show's current setting, before these futuristic megacorps even exist, so my assumption is that she will simply be shown as with the typical cliched positions like "a hard-line on crime", "not sympathetic to poor people who are forced to do stuff", "hates intuition and gut checks vs. procedure" and other hackneyed cop stuff. Since Vancouver Cop can't know about her background though, I hope there's still some entree into the subtleties of this suggested future.

[Dezdemona]

I too am usually a sucker for cheesy time travel sci-fi and female heroines but the apparent politics of this show may make it impossible to watch: are we supposed to be rooting for her to safeguard a "bright shiny future" where corporations run everything and personal liberty is treated as a joke that only self-indulgent ivory tower academics care about? If so, this series is unfortunately not for me.... - ruths

I enjoyed this premiere more than I expected to, and I have to admit the politics are what made it that much more interesting for me. Of course I'm rooting for the young protector who has become displaced in time and wants to get back to her family. OTOH, I have to root for the rebels as well. Major "criminals" in their time, they are trying to overthrow a government that is run by, and for, corporations. I'm curious to see what the Protector will make of the bad old days before the corporations took over.

I can forgive the clichés if they keep the characters interesting. In any case, it's nice to see Victor Webster back on my screen.

[Amelie06]

are we supposed to be rooting for her to safeguard a "bright shiny future" where corporations run everything and personal liberty is treated as a joke that only self-indulgent ivory tower academics care about?

I couldn't agree more. The show started losing my business around the time Cop Barbie started beating a suspect of a freaking property crime on the subway and then injected him with something. What the hell is with a future society that randomly injects people with crap all the time? I'm with the rebels on this one. I don't want to live in that future world. Of course, the show realizes this problem and made the rebels hyper violent so that the audience wouldn't be on their side. It doesn't really make sense. Didn't one of the rebels say they were only supposed to go back 6 years. You would think that they would take the time to consider their changed circumstances before they started killing cops for no discernible reason. They were way to quick to shout down the guy who seemed to want to take advantage of the 60 plus years they had to had off their dystopian futures. How long until they go after young Alex terminator style?

[FreshPez]

are we supposed to be rooting for her to safeguard a "bright shiny future" where corporations run everything and personal liberty is treated as a joke that only self-indulgent ivory tower academics care about?

Oh don't worry people. I'll bet everyone a bazillion dollars right now that the corporations end up being mostly bad and we're supposed to sympathize with the descendants of the Occupy movement.

This is a television show. The chances of it having any right wing sympathies are ZERO. I can't believe anyone is worried that this show will be pro-corporation.

And I say that as someone who really enjoyed the show. I enjoy it so much it's going to kill me when we start getting the non-subtle evil corporation kicks to the metaphorical guts.

Edited by FreshPez, May 28, 2012 @ 10:41 PM.