Episode Reviewed: Continuum: A Test of Time

Instead of the title/ joke you are no doubt expecting right now, I've instead decided to voice disdain for the show's intro; they need to scrap it.

In A Nutshell:

It's grandfather paradox time!!!! Well, it's technically grandmother paradox here, because Liber8 decides to take out Kiera's grandmother in hopes that it'll zap her out of existence. So, Kiera has to meet and protect her grandma, which is pretty awkward when you get to know grandma Cameron a bit. Well, it starts out awkward, anyway.

The Good:

I was glad that they decided to go for the Terminator thing and run with it a little bit, and was even happier when the writers decided they were gonna do something different with it. I can't tell you exactly how it plays out, but I can tell you that they give us some hints about the nature of the time travel this show is using. Nothing definitive, obviously (it is only episode 5, after all), but it's implied this might be even less straightforward then time travel usually is. Alec finally does something other then be Jarvis with a face, thank goodness, as we see more of the Sadler step-clan. It's an interesting dynamic that I'm hoping the writers explore it more. And, in another thank goodness, Kiera not only gets called out on her bossy-lady-with-a-gun-ness, but she does something other then it for once. Much-needed step-up from last week.

The Bad:

Some of the emotional moments between Kiera and her grandma were... sweet, I guess would be the word, but others just felt overwhelmingly corny and forced. That's partly Kiera just being an underdeveloped, somewhat inconsistent character, and partly the writers cranking out corny dialogue (nobody's getting off scotch-free here, folks). Beyond that, the episode itself was a good time.

 There's something I need to say while we're on the subject of Kiera being underdeveloped: something I've seen way to much of in genre TV shows lately is a show having these great, charismatic supporting characters/antiheroes/villains, and protagonists who just kind of flat. Grimm and Falling Skies both kind of started out that way, but the writers of both shows kind of realized that mid-first season, and corrected themselves (Grimm's writers made Nick more interesting, FS made the show more focused on the group as a whole rather then just Tom). Sadly, Continuum seems to be falling into that trend, and the writers make no signs of acknowledging their error.  

Final Rating: 88%