Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Simon Barry
Directed by Patrick Williams
The first season of “Continuum” has been, on the whole, fantastic, so the season finale has a very high bar to clear. It continues the grand tradition of focusing on the strong characters and treating the subject matter with intelligence, but one gets the sense the show is banking on a second season because too much of the resolution is put off and too many new mysteries are introduced. It’s a great episode, but as a conclusion, it doesn’t work as well.
When Kiera learns that a terrorist attack from her history is about to take place in Vancouver, she tries to intervene and change the past. Meanwhile, Alec winds up on Liber8′s radar as he tries to track down his step-brother. Most of the episode is fantastic as it brings all the characters together, gets stuck into the key concepts that have defined the series, and delivers a big, hard-hitting set piece. But it’s only most of the episode: “Endtime” falls prey to Smallville Syndrome, with a lengthy opening act and too much screen time devoted to the post-climax.
The possibilities of time travel are front and center again. The flash back/forwards and the frank discussions are all done with a level of intelligence that’s refreshing and doesn’t treat the viewers like they’re idiots. Little details are used to help keep track of things, but the audience is expected to keep up. Better still is that it’s all grounded in the characters and their arcs. Nine episodes of showing us Kiera’s heroism, Alec’s cleverness and potential for guile and Kagame’s fanaticism turns the science fiction into a conflict and interplay of personalities, rather than just talking abstractly about the potential of time travel.
It was another great episode for Alec, who manages — through time travel — to be both a straight-up good guy and a very enigmatic presence hanging over the series. Eric Knudsen continues to impress, especially the scene where he holds his ground against Tony Amendola. There was also more focus on Alec’s role in the larger temporal shenanigans of “Continuum” and further integration of Julian into Liber8 and the myth arc of the show. William B. Davis returns for another brief scene and between his fantastic performance and the implications of what he says, it makes for riveting television.
But it wasn’t a totally flawless finale. Too many characters were sidelined after being built up over the course of the season. Kellog’s weaselly con-man charm was sorely missed for much of the episode, and Carlos was reduced to being Kiera’s yes-man once again. To the writer’s credit, this is preferable to shoehorning characters into a story where they’ve got nothing to do, but that there wasn’t a big part for them to play still felt odd. The new characters felt too much like person-shaped plot devices, and while it’s implied they’ll show up again, their two-dimensional appearances in “Endtime” don’t make that a huge plus.
The thing that rankles most about the finale was how incomplete it seemed with regard to the overarching questions and stories. Very little was resolved, yet more questions were asked and plots introduced; this certainly helps get enthusiasm up for a second season (though as of writing this, there’s been no renewal announcement), but that lack of resolution is palpable in the final scene. Too much of what we wanted to know was pushed back, and the new mysteries and concepts — like Mr. Escher and the freelancers — were too vague to totally compensate.
What it boils down to is that “Endtime” doesn’t quite carry off the dual burdens of a season finale. The episodic elements of “Continuum” are all excellent, but there’s very little in the way of resolution and that’s disappointing. The result is a finale that comes off as just another episode in the chain, albeit one with a bigger budget than most. But it’s still an episode that lives up to the high standards of “Continuum”, rounding out a great first season and leaving the audience looking forward to the next season.
Score: 8/10
(Season 1 Final Score: 8.1)
