Continuum (UK)

[The Wormhole]

Kegg wrote:

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the gun Nichols was carrying. Why does it unfold like that?

Because it looks cool?

[Starkers]

I thought the first episode was quite good, certainly enough there to keep me watching, and I liked the Terminator vibe it had going. Not the greatest cast in the world, but I like Nichols and there seems to be enough mystery there.

[Guy Gardener]

It only unlocks for a registered user. If an unregistered user tries to use it when it is unlocked they get fried. We saw some one get fried in an early episode.

[Kegg]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Because it looks cool?

Well obviously. It's just one of those things that look cool until you wonder what the point of it is.

And as far as the cast goes, re: Judge Death... they're getting the job done. I can buy Erik Knudsen as some socially inept technical wiz (is it just me or does he look kinda like Frankie Muniz?), I can buy Victor Webster as the male rugged cop guy probable romantic lead, and Rachel Nichols is solid as the ass-kicking future cop. They're recognizable TV types, executed pretty well.

I suppose the only weak link this episode for me cast-wise was Omari Newton, who got just a little hammy in his self-satisfied explanation to Kiera what was going on.

But again, this really was a pretty good start. It could be the best sci-fi pilot I've seen since Caprica, to be honest... not that that is a competitive field.

[Kegg]

Most recent episode, that is, the second episode of the show:
*Between the wiz kid who developed the technology that pretty much defines the basis of Kiera's job and this week's scientist guy whose university experiment has the potental of time travel (and also, it's briefly stated, is research into faster than light potentialities) Vancouver is quite the scientific mecca so far. It's easy to see why the city is a kind of an implied focal point of the North American Union over in 2077.

*The dissenter in the group kind of has a point. If you're going to try and change the future by going back into the past, a time when corporations have significantly less power - rather than just a couple of years in the past, which seems to be the original plan the rest are sticking to - is just a better starting point for them.

*While the show hasn't really done anything with it, yet, I like the implied moral ambiguity. Corporations being malevolent organizations that curtail human liberties and act with amoral indifference is hardly a new idea, it's not even unusual in the very specific niche of Canadian science fiction televsion (it was a major plot of the earlier Canadian-South African series Charlie Jade). But the show has set up the generic evil corporations dystopia, and then has thrown all its sympathy on the side of one of a cop working essentially for that corporate agenda against the terrorists, who are our main villains so far. The show hasn't shown much promise that it's going to have particularly nuanced writing, but - assuming Kiera doesn't just Realize Corporations Are Bad But Terrorists Are Also Bad And I Will Find A Third Way - there's real potential here.

* Romantic triangle. Because. This felt like kind of the most extraneous bit of the episode; a character who would have otherwise existed just to give exposition at key moments in your usual cop show kind of way is also the third wheel of our romance spoke because uh... why not.

[Guy Gardener]

The Future is a Utopia with a price, not a dystopia with a price.

Would you rather be a wealthy citizen of Rome in 60 BC, or a some what average Russian Citizen in the 1950s?

Every citizen has to pay for the right to have children and then those children are born with a "life debt" against their identity of millions(?? the actual sum wasn't disclosed but it's not a little number, kiera had to be a soldier for ten years to clear hers.) of dollars, and I'm assuming that interest is constantly ticking up if you even think about ignoring your lifedebt and something bad happens if you piss off your loan officer or hit some too ridiculous number in the red. The life debt is how the government is still paying off the multi multi quadtrillion (I'm making numbers up again.) financial bailout form the Corporations to dodge the world depression that saved the planet from a new dark age after the balloon went up.

[Starkers]

Second episode not bad, I'm hoping the 'bad guys' get a bit more ambiguous cos at the moment they just all seem quite murderous--and what happened to their leader? You know, T'ealc's mentor

Nice to see woman from SGU whose name I don't know but I think is quite cute

[Kegg]

^
Only cast member I recognize is Lexa Doig, aka Rommie from Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda (this week, the member of the gang that Keira held hostage). And she's looking great.

[Guy Gardener]

She was always present in the series of Stargate universe... But if you downloaded the Kinosodes (WEbisodes)she had a prominent role as the town bike. The girl reeeeeeeeeallly expressed her right to diversify her catchment of simultaneous sexual partners. They were doomed. It was her coping mechanism. Funny.

[cylkoth]

Lexa never appeared on SGU. She was the SGC doctor from season 9-10 though. The SGU character you're referring to was named Park, and the actress who played her is Jennifer Spence, who is the female cop here...

[Guy Gardener]

What I said was in reference to Judge Deaths comments about Jennifer.

There are a number of polite reasons I could have accidentally ignored what Kegg said about Lexa up to and including that it took me an hour to write my post because I was putting the garbage out or dealing with telemarketers and never actually saw kegg's post because it didn't exist when I began typing.

I can tell the difference between Jennifer Spence and Lexa Doig.

[Starkers]

cylkoth wrote:

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Lexa never appeared on SGU. She was the SGC doctor from season 9-10 though. The SGU character you're referring to was named Park, and the actress who played her is Jennifer Spence, who is the female cop here...

That's the one

[Kegg]

So, Episode 3.

Speaking of actors I recognized, Hiro Kanagawa! He plays Doctor Gibson in this episode, the guy Keira grills on the sperm donor patients. I knew him as Cyrus Xander from Caprica. That actors from other Canadian-shot sci-fi shows appear is gonna be inevitable, obviously, but he's the first one I actually remember having been in the BSGverse.

As for the episode itself, the series seems to kind of set up a rather obvious connection between Alex's family life and the general story, since his stepfather is anti-corporatist (ah, resentment of a stepfather, there's a novel idea). The series also invests a fair bit this episode in the conflict among the Liber8, but honestly since we barely know these people - at this point the smarmy Kellogg is probably the best defined - it doesn't carry a lot of weight. I spent more time making sure I knew who was who then actually connecting to any of it.

Still this is another solid episode. The action scene at the end was good, the use of future tech wizardry by both criminals and cops enlivens the whole procedural stuff, and so on. Looking forward to where we're going next, why not.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Guy Gardener wrote:

---

The Future is a Utopia with a price, not a dystopia with a price.

Would you rather be a wealthy citizen of Rome in 60 BC, or a some what average Russian Citizen in the 1950s?

Every citizen has to pay for the right to have children and then those children are born with a "life debt" against their identity of millions(?? the actual sum wasn't disclosed but it's not a little number, kiera had to be a soldier for ten years to clear hers.) of dollars, and I'm assuming that interest is constantly ticking up if you even think about ignoring your lifedebt and something bad happens if you piss off your loan officer or hit some too ridiculous number in the red. The life debt is how the government is still paying off the multi multi quadtrillion (I'm making numbers up again.) financial bailout form the Corporations to dodge the world depression that saved the planet from a new dark age after the balloon went up.

Geez. If it's like that, why would anyone have children at all?

[Guy Gardener]

How often do you think about the interest wracking up on your student loan?

Or your mortgage?

it's the government not the mob.

Nothing bad happens.

Besides debt is an asset your creditors can borrow against.