Second Look: Continuum Season 1, Episode 8 – “Playtime”

Continuum Season 1, Episode 8 “Playtime”
Written by Andrea Stevens
Directed by Paul Shapiro
Aired July 22, 2012 on Showcase

“If I were me, I’d want to have a contingency route.” – Alec

After a couple episodes expanding its story and philosophical thought space, Continuum narrows its focus with “Playtime”, an hour about light patterns, virtual reality, and mind control, complete with a hacker vs. hacker type-off for a climactic scene. And sure, that might be a slightly reductive way to describe the antepenultimate episode of Continuum‘s first season – but with most of the season’s running story lines halted for a one-off story about the chip in Kiera’s head and Liber8’s attempts to compromise it, “Playtime” is undeniably elementary. As the space between larger beats of plot and character, “Playtime” is certainly not a boring episode – but in its most critical, dramatic moments, reveals itself to be more of a thought exercise than something with any real narrative or dramatic weight.

The most interesting part of “Playtime”, which follows Kiera and Carlos as they investigate a pair of murder-suicides connected to a virtual reality development company, is Lucas, strangely enough. “Playtime” opens in the future as it usually does, following Kiera in her role as a CPS officer – except this time, she’s working as security for a demonstration led by Lucas, seen here as a researcher of advanced technology (specifically, using light and sound patterns to trigger mind control capabilities in humans, specifically a violent felon they chose for the demonstration).

Though the image of Lucas in the future is brief, it certainly paints an interesting contrast with the anarchist hacker we’ve seen in 2012; it not only fills in a bit of backstory about his technological skills, but also posits a deep chasm between the Lucas that was, and the one that exists in the central narrative of Continuum – a very literal reminder of how effectively Kagame can work to change minds, and how sometimes a person confronting their own supposed purpose in life is the only way for them to truly know themself, and take accountability for the actions (and specifically, the harm) they may have caused along the way.

I do wish “Playtime” spent even more time with Lucas, as he tries to hack into Kiera’s CMR; some of the reason it works is because its offered as such a subtle note, but seeing Lucas contend with the person he’s become would only stand to make him a more dynamic, relatable character. His slight detachment and pragmatism make for decent character traits, but they are slightly less interesting than a twisted hacker scientist-turned-revolutionary, who is willing to perpetrate incredibly violent acts (again, they work with the VR developer to brainwash two people into committing murder-suicides against CEOs) to support their cause. There’s an interesting dichotomy of morality to explore through Lucas, in ways characters like Travis and Kellogg don’t really offer Continuum – unfortunately, “Playtime” spends most of its running time digging through the details of an investigation that, in the overall scheme of things, don’t really matter all that much (unsurprising spoiler: mind controlling Kiera’s CMR is not a recurring plotline).

There are some interesting societal parallels to draw with some of the episode’s observations on the potential power of virtual reality or MKUltra-ish mind control experiments (and, of course, the infallible corruptibility of any piece of new technology), but “Playtime” mostly just nods towards these, its focus dead set on teasing bits of story to come without moving anything forward too far in the present. Some of this requires Carlos to be a bit dumb (after recognizing Kellogg, he buys his bullshit story about being Section Six hilariously fast), but it also gives the episode a bit of room to fill in some light shades of other characters: like Betty, whose fandom of Tendyne becomes a driving force when she takes an active part into their investigation. Or Alec, whose confidence in helping Kiera and defeating Liber8 at their own game manifests in him shit talking or having celebratory dances in his Extreme Nerd Control Center; though these little bits don’t do much to make the story of the episode interesting, they are accents of character and tone Continuum‘s needed when it’s not with Kiera and/or Carlos.

Of course, the most interesting part of “Playtime”, ultimately, are the bread crumbs it drops for future episodes; Kellogg’s slowly-developing plans, Carlos’s trust of Kiera’s “Section 6” nonsense – and most importantly, Alec discovering a letter he wrote to himself in the future, embedded inside the code of Kiera’s CPS suit. This happens but a few minutes after Kagame deduces the only person that would be able to defeat Lucas as they fought, cyber-hacker style, over control of Kiera’s CPS clip (“Playtime” also gives us a brief Kiera vs. Carlos fight, some satisfying, silly pugilism that belies just how silly and weightless this episode really is), another bit of preamble “Playtime” sneaks in just before the wire.

In a retrospective sense, it does make “Playtime” feel a bit more significant than it does in the moment; without a bit of that context, this hour just feels like an opportunity to make Betty nerdier and Carlos seem a bit stupider. But even as one of the season’s only throwaway episodes, “Playtime” does just enough to fill its running time – mostly with its strong fight choreography, and the goofy, aforementioned hacker-on-hacker remote battle – to keep from being an entirely forgettable chapter of Continuum‘s story.

Grade: C+

• You know we’re in for an exciting, relevant story when Carlos is telling Kiera “it’s not gang-related… but it’s interesting!”
  
• Carlos, to Kiera: “Despite what you want people to believe, I know you’re only human.”
  
• Ugh, the VR sequence of Kiera and Betty is rough, especially when they get into a “gunfight”.
  
• There’s a side bit about an outlawed energy drink named Torsion… it does not go anywhere.
  
• Just want to know this is the only TV episode I’ve ever seen with the phrase “cyber larping” in it.