A test of Time is the fifth episode of the first season of Continuum. In this episode Edouard Kagame plots to mess with Kiera’s time stream by killing her grandmother in the past to “test time” as the title suggests. Kagame’s intended purpose is to get rid of Kiera by wiping her out before she is born. In this episode Kiera is forced into meeting a younger version of her grandmother and protect her from the dangerous Kagame.
This episode of Continuum is quite well done and well executed both in its plot, its effects and again a very good mix of sound editing for this episode in the series. While I said in the previous review for “Matter of Time” that it was a great episode for the series in that it was as so, this episode is much more emotionally impactful. It deals with much more deeper themes than the previous episodes for the series such as starting a family, protecting family and the lengths people go to when those they love are endangered. It also has a teen pregnancy theme running through the grandmother storyline of Lily Cole and the dealings of discovery of that type of thing in one’s young life.
In terms of the plot I thought this was the best written the series has had so far. As an emotionally centric episode the dialogue was well fit to what was going on. This was particularly good for the Kiera to Lily Cole scenes and also the banter in the car between the two Lily Coles was a point of amusement. There was Kiera the granddaughter of one of the Lily’s in the back and she is the adult in this situation!
However other characters like Carlos in particular are still at the same uninteresting level they have been for the whole series. This to applies to the villains; I still believe the villains apart from a slightly more interesting Kagame are very two dimensional and obvious in what they are doing. It doesn’t seem like a far leap to speculate that Kagame may have a mutiny on his hands in the future as Travis appears increasingly disgruntled.
There was a little bit of a contrasting storyline happening with Alec Sadler in that in an episode about protecting and caring for family he completely rejected his own. He did not want to spend time with them and wanted to focus on his project. Maybe he was just pressed for time? But I think his character being a powerful future billionaire may be just a little bit cold.
Kellog an old villain turned into what appears to be a good person is further changed in this episode. He faces the unfortunate loss of his grandmother who he had been visiting in episodes such as “Matter of Time”. What is strange about Kellog’s character though is that I don’t really understand his motivations. I see him leaving the terrorist group liber8 not because he chose to, but because he was essentially kicked out. After this he just decided to be a good person. Motivated to help others? Wasn’t he some type of terrorist? He didn’t leave by his own will which makes me question his character choices so he seems odd to me.
In terms of acting the memorable performance again comes from Continuum’s lead actress Rachel Nichols who seems to have mastered her characters part in this episode while also having a good amount of range to work with. Kiera’s grandmother Lily Cole played by Katie Findlay was also very good in her role and played quite a convincing punk teen who was also pregnant. It might be good to see her return to the show in the future, but Katie Findlay does appear talented. Other actor’s didn’t really have any stand out emotional scenes to be remembered though, I guess because their characters aren’t really at that level yet.
What I would mention as the most notable thing in the episode was the sound and effects. In the action scenes sounds were loud and the theme’s volume was increased during the action. While in the emotional scenes there was just the right mix of sound choices and song choices that I thought matched perfectly with the scene. It was a good use of music to emphasise feeling and was very well directed. Action scenes too were well done, particularly the shoot out scene between Kiera and Jasmine Garza (Luvia Peterson). Also the added touch of Jasmine to wipe her blood from the car was just enough detail to elevate the episodes detail. You see a deal was made about DNA and using it to track grandparents to kill them during the early parts of the plot. Jasmine it seems is worried about that and wouldn’t want danger brought to her future/past family.
Overall this was very well done and an entertaining episode of Continuum. It seems the show has improved on last weeks episode and vastly improved on those from the beginning. I’m interested to see what happens next and what happens with this series as it progresses. Hopefully other characters can be more developed in a proper way because right now only really Kiera has been and appears the only character that matters to me. The rest just seem bland, but a bit of work on them and all should be good.
