Second Look: Continuum Season 1, Episode 4 – “A Matter of Time”

Continuum Season 1, Episode 4 “A Matter of Time”
Written by Sam Egan
Directed by Michael Rohl
Aired June 17, 2012 on Showcase

Continuum‘s fourth episode “A Matter of Time” is a neat bifurcation of the show’s two emerging identities; Continuum as a police procedural with some sci-fi underpinnings, and Continuum as a speculative fiction series, dipping its toes into deeper questions of purpose, destiny, and righteousness as it begins to grow into its larger story. The latter of these works wonderfully, offering Continuum its most satisfying third act yet; unfortunately, the procedural elements of the episode leading up to its most intriguing moments are stiff and mechanical, narrowing the show’s vision to focus on a mostly unsatisfying story of horny tech executives and the death of an ambitious, selfish professor. Thankfully, those final minutes are undeniably strong, recentering the series as it heads into the heart of its freshman season and smoothly recovering an episode that was quickly heading into forgettable territory.

“A Matter of Time” initially splits its focus between Kiera, trying to navigate the world without some of her advanced technology – while Kagame immerses himself in his old neighborhood in 2012, offering us a bit of insight into Kagame’s past and radicalization. I almost wish Continuum would’ve spent this entire episode following Kagame as he found his balance after time traveling 65 years into the past; really all we get is a great, short flashback to 2077, where Kagame addressed the first Liber8 followers in a place of worship (a Buddhist temple, specifically), talking about generational debt and the ever-advancing boot crushing the necks of regular people.

Unfortunately, “A Matter of Time” has a lot more plot to introduce, and quickly shifts its focus away from Kagame to Kiera and Carlos’s split pursuits of Liber8 and a potentially-related murder case, where professor Martin Ames was mysteriously murdered by a laser (that somehow managed to penetrate five floors of the building he was in, a plot point that’s mentioned and never explored again). “A Matter of Time” quickly lays out the stakes of its story – which features a grad student and Ames’s former colleague, who said grad student is secretly banging – and then spends a painstaking amount of time trying to convolute and hide what’s rather simplistic, straightforward procedural fodder; the only time the investigation finds interesting notes is when Kiera, suddenly light on technology, begins to embrace her instincts over her reliance on technology, after being challenged by Alec to trust her gut more often and not lean so hard (or completely trust) the technological advances, the kind that have clearly reshaped the paradigm of police investigations in the future.

With a script written by TV vet Sam Egan (writer and EP of Canadian drama series The Listener), it’s not a surprise “A Matter of Time” leans heavy into its procedural elements as a device to slowly unveil the larger themes of the episode. But during those investigative moments – like when, under Alec’s suggestion, Kiera stops using her technological advances – whenever it pushes up against something interesting, it immediately backs away to refocus itself on the developing web of lies between the student working on the vague clean energy project Calisto and the disgruntled business partner, which is too by-the-numbers and feebly delivered to properly set up the resolution at the episode’s end.

It’s even a bit of a rough ride to get there; “A Matter of Time” eventually pushes Liber8, Kagame, and Kiera together in a single location, where we even get a little hand-to-hand action between Kagame and Kiera (who insists Kagame’s appearance means immediate bloodshed) before Travis randomly runs up with a STRANGER’S BABY as a way to negotiate the release of Kagame into Liber8’s care. Yes, it is as ludicrous as it sounds; out of nowhere, Travis and company walk into frame with a random baby, which they use as a bargaining chip with Kiera (which… not really a great look for Travis, alongside being an entirely lame, contrived way to temporarily suspend their conflict), causing her to have a brief flashback to the night she started considering working for CPS.

It’s here where “A Matter of Time” suddenly becomes a much more interesting episode; in the flashback, Kiera and her family are sitting through a temporary blackout in the city, something that’s become a bit of a regular issue as Liber8 and other “terrorist cells” begin attacking Vancouver’s infrastructure. Her husband, a recently promoted SadTech employee, isn’t too worried about it, thanks to a deal they just struck with LaRoche Energy – which turns out to have been founded by Dr. Melissa Dobeck, the very person entangled in the murder investigation taking up so much space in the episode.

In 2077, Dobeck’s company has harnessed the technology whose genesis began in Dr. Ames lab; and when Kiera runs into her and her fiancee (whose last name is LaRoche) at an airport, presumably running away from the murder she conspired her grad student lover to commit, manipulating him to ensure the clean energy technology didn’t end up in the hands of Ames or the government, eventually making her and her company one of the most important technological land stones of the 21st century.

Not only does it teach Kiera an important lesson about the history being taught under the guise of the Corporate Congress – but when she decides to let Dobeck escape with the file for the Calisto project, she knowingly allows a murderer to go free, because of the supposed good she’s going to do with the technology she’s later going to create (forget that her time traveling may have changed the timeline… we’ll get to that idea later on, don’t worry). As Alec nervously points out – and as we see elsewhere with Kellogg, who becomes one of the richest people in the world with a few stock market moves, to the point he’s now living on a frickin’ yacht – Kiera’s knowledge of the future gives her an ability to manipulate and shape it to her liking, playing god by potentially causing ripple effects of those choices through time. It’s a great moment to end the episode on, and introduces Continuum to some of the larger ideas it would explore over its four-season run through characters like Kiera and others; are Kiera’s actions preserving the future she desperately wants to return home to, or is her very presence in 2012 causing a seismic shift that will change the future forever?

Though it takes “A Matter of Time” a bit too long to really push forward into exploring some of its more exciting ideas (and requires a whole lot of nonsense to get there, including some incredible leaps of logic by Carlos, in particular), when it finally gets there, it feels like Continuum kicking itself into a higher gear (Alec and Kiera meeting face-to-face at the episode’s close is also a pretty explicit sign of the show moving into its second act). As Kagame reintegrates back into Liber8, and Kiera continues to try and navigate her growing tangle of lies and conveniences, it’s clear the series is moving away from its preamble, and diving into the heart of its story – bit of a clumsy way to get there, but an effective ending nonetheless that appropriately raises the stakes for the second half of the season to follow.

Grade: B-

Other thougts/observations:

• The weed farm takeover and baby hostage are two really weird moments; I get the point is to show Liber8 straying from its goals a bit under Travis’s leadership, but the implementation of these elements is so clumsy and straightforward, it doesn’t have much impact.
  
• Some great camera work by Michael Rohl in the second half of this episode.
  
• Among Kellogg’s investments are synthetic food production and disaster insurance bonds… not suspicious at all!
  
• There’s a brief interlude where Kiera and Carlos think an activist group named Stop Mad Scientists are involved, a silly side bit I’m so happy the season doesn’t turn into a larger, more impactful element. It’s incredibly silly.
  
• Kellogg’s grandmother is understandably confused by the stranger who just shows up to buy her dresses: “You’re old enough to be my dad!”
  
• there’s a great shot of Kagame walking down 2012 Chinatown, picturing its growth over the decades until it becomes the futuristic landscape we’ve seen in background shots throughout the first season’s flashbacks.
  
• I really like everyone’s suspicions around the military’s attempts to seize the Calisto technology. Everybody, even Kiera, recognize they want to turn the clean energy into a weapon somehow, and it’s undeniably refreshing to see some good ol’ distrust of the military’s intentions. Another topic this series would have a lot to say about in its later seasons!