Continuum opens in Vancouver in 2077. Corporations have held power for over two decades after bailing out the bankrupt governments, ruling the world (or possibly just the North America Union; it doesn’t seem to be clear) through the Corporate Congress, based out of Vancouver (for reasons which will become evident later). Liber8, a terrorist organisation, intends to overthrow the corporations and blows up the building containing the Corporate Congress, killing many of the Congress’ members, as well as tens of thousands of others.
At the execution of those found guilty of the attack, they instead use a device which sends them back in time, sixty-five years into the past instead of the what is stated as the planned six years. Officer Kiera Cameron of the City Protection Service, seeing something odd just prior to the time travel event, rushes forward and is also sent back in time as well, to Vancouver in 2012.
With the assistance of the person who developed some of the technology she uses, Cameron integrates with the local police as an expert on a gang, or terrorist group, Liber8, who has just moved into Vancouver. This results in a combination of police crime drama and science fiction, although the science fiction element gets more pronounced as time passes. Kiera may be trying to stop Liber8, but she also wants to get back to the future where her family is, as she left a husband and son there.
Continuum tends to keep you guessing as to who are the villains and who are the heroes. The future is not as rosy as Kiera might think, in some ways it’s dystopian (strangely, companies tend to make programs showing a future where companies like themselves run things usually tend to portray futures that are dystopian in nature), but it could certainly be a lot worse (it’s okay for most people with jobs), and there are definite problems which Liber8 are right about, but their methods are definitely those of terrorists. They think nothing of killing people to achieve their aims – which are for the future to turn out better than it did. Changing history is their goal in the past.
Kiera Cameron is operating from the best of intentions, but what about the others? Even with her, the future she wants to restore is not a very nice one for many of those who live there. It even has problems for her, too. It’s so bad that one of the people who brought it about, perhaps the biggest influence in how it turned out, doesn’t like it. It is bad enough that Liber8 would seem to have a point, if they weren’t willing to kill tens of thousands of innocents simply as collateral damage when they aimed at a few. Many episodes have clips for the future in them, and one is set almost entirely in the future.
There are far more things going on that there appear to be at the beginning, and it starts off as what is rather like a police procedural, albeit one with science fiction elements, but as the series progresses it becomes far more science fiction and far less police. As this happens, the effects of time travel start playing a bigger role (time travel, once it is discovered, is often used by others), and things as a result get a lot more complex, with different groups all trying to influence how things turn out.
As events get more complex, alliances between the various factions shift and turn. Former foes team up to help defeat a common enemy, and split up again. The most constant is Kiera, and even she sometimes puts her own desire to see her son again before the needs of anyone else. As more is found out about the various members of Liber8 through flashbacks (flashbacks to events in the future, but their personal past), they often don’t seem quite as bad as they could be.
There’s something done in television, and film, that is sometimes called the Vancouver Method, where a program is set in one city, such as Los Angeles, but, apart from some skyline shots, is filmed in another, cheaper city, such as Vancouver. This entire series is set in Vancouver, both in the present and the future, but the present version of Vancouver feels and looks more like a city based in the United States rather than Canada, as the gun laws look a bit too unrestricted for Canada’s, with a few too many assault weapons around.
There are quite a few actors from other science fiction franchises with roles in the series. From The 100, Richard Harmon, who plays Murphy, has a major role and Alessandro Juliani, who plays Sinclair, has a minor role. Lexa Doig, who has a major role in Andromeda as the titular ship’s AI, a late role in Stargate SG-1 and a minor appearance in Eureka, has a major role in the series. Another actor from SG-1, Tony Amendola who played Master Bra’tac also has a fairly significant role. And from The X-Files, there is William B. Davis, the Smoking Man himself, as well as Nicholas Lea, who played Alex Krychek.