Canada's time travel cop show Continuum is set for a second season, so we may actually get some resolution on the insane cliffhanger the show left us with. According to the Showcase channel, the show will have a 13-episode second season (up from 10 episodes for its first season) in 2013.
This is great news — and now let's hope the show gets picked up in the United States soon. It's already going to be shown by the U.K. Syfy channel, so how long before the U.S. version grabs it as well?
And let's hope, too, that the show takes some time to sort out its mythos. To be honest, the second half of the first season didn't excite me quite as much as the first half, and there were a number of things in the season finale that had me scratching my head.
Spoiler alert...
In particular, I was unclear on why Kiera was suddenly trying to change history, when her mission — as stated over and over on the show, and in the show's opening credits — has always been to preserve the timeline she comes from. Okay, maybe she was convinced by Kellogg that there was already no chance that the future she came from could possibly still exist, but I'd like to have seen more sign of that before she did a 180-degree change of direction. Yes, a terrorist bombing that kills tons of people is a bad thing. But if it already happened in Kiera's own timeline, then it's already history and she shouldn't even try to touch it.
Likewise, I was unclear on why Liber8 suddenly was so invested in making sure the timeline took place as history records it — if the bombing is already part of history, there's no need for Kagame to blow himself up in it. And if Alec's step-brother Julian is already destined to become the terrorist leader Theseus, then there's no need to make sure that happens. It would be like me building a time machine and deciding to go back in time and make sure John Wilkes Boothe assassinates Lincoln — if nobody's trying to change that piece of history, then there's no need for a time traveler to try and safeguard it. Plus the existing timeline is the one that leads to the dystopian future that Kagame and friends are supposed to be trying to prevent.
This sudden reversal in the season finale — Kiera trying to change history, Kagame trying to preserve it — felt like it came out of nowhere, and left me a little concerned about this show's direction. But maybe it'll turn out that Future Alec has some incredibly clever plan, and it'll all make total sense in season two. That's what I'm hoping, anyway. [Thanks, Hannibal!]