I think Relic Hunters had a few episodes that delved into the mystical or paranormal.
Continuum (US) Season 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers)
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I think Relic Hunters had a few episodes that delved into the mystical or paranormal.
^ Add "The Listener" to the list. It had a brief summer run on NBC during it's first season and was yanked before completely airing all 13 episodes. CTV continued it-the 3rd season was on last year, and IIRC was renewed for a fourth. With it's production company owning the cable network that's airing it, there's hope that if Continuum continues to perform well in Canada-and in other countries, it won't get canned just because it failed to gain traction in America.
One can examine Showcase's track record for their original first-run produced shows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showcase_%28Canadian_TV_channel%29#Original_programming
For the most part, very few of Showcase's original shows have lasted more than 3 seasons. The few exceptions are:
- Trailer Park Boys (comedy/mockumentary - 7 seasons)
- Kenny vs. Spenny (comedy - 6 seasons)
- KinK (sex documentary - 5 seasons)
Of their present shows which remotely resemble sci-fi/action/fantasy, there's "Lost Girl" (season 3) and "XIII: The Series" (season 2).
Quite a few of the canceled one-season shows, were first-runs within the last 5 years or so. Many of the canceled three-season shows, were first-runs from the early and mid-2000's era.
It would be great if Continuum lasts three seasons (if not more), regardless of Showcase's past track record.
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Actually, Flashpoint is still showing new episodes in the US, it just moved to a new network, Ion. I've never seen it myself, but they advertise it a lot during their syndicated reruns of Psych, Leverage and Monk.
This week's ratings from futon critic.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratin...teen-mom-2-leads-demos-788511/cable_20130121/
Continuum - Syfy
1.279 million viewers, #21; 0.463 million adults 18-49 (0.4 rating), #29
In comparison with other Syfy shows on Monday, it's almost neck-in-neck with the Lost Girl episode this week, but not quite as good as Being Human.
Lost Girl - Syfy
1.075 million viewers, #27; 0.537 million adults 18-49 (0.4 rating), #25
Being Human - Syfy
1.169 million viewers, #25; 0.593 million adults 18-49 (0.5 rating), #22
Looks somewhat better than last week.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratin...teen-mom-2-leads-demos-788511/cable_20130121/
Continuum - Syfy
1.279 million viewers, #21; 0.463 million adults 18-49 (0.4 rating), #29
In comparison with other Syfy shows on Monday, it's almost neck-in-neck with the Lost Girl episode this week, but not quite as good as Being Human.
Lost Girl - Syfy
1.075 million viewers, #27; 0.537 million adults 18-49 (0.4 rating), #25
Being Human - Syfy
1.169 million viewers, #25; 0.593 million adults 18-49 (0.5 rating), #22
Looks somewhat better than last week.
Liked episode 2, although the completely evil, neck-snapping black villain lacks dimensionality. Why not just incapacitate the mall cops? Love the lead actress, although hopefully there won't be too much more blubbering tears about life left behind. Liked the flashbacks to the future when she's getting her cop credentials.
Will keep tuning in...
Will keep tuning in...
Umm, the whole reason the Liber8 members were on Death Row was because they murdered 30,000 innocent bystanders in a series of terrorist bombings targeted at a few dozen corporate leaders. It's a given that all of them embrace extreme violence and have no qualms about inflicting collateral damage.
They're soldiers not generals.
They have no idea how to fight a war or even recognize the new shape of the war they are in.
In the real world, Roger Cross has been working constantly for the last 20 years, even if because he's the size of a line backer the lad might be typecast as a thug with a gun, you have to assume that if he's given a part with range that he can full up all that potential because it's rude not to.
Roger's Character is a thug, which means that he probably has to subtract from who he is as a real person to create he illusion that he is a drug controlled genetically augmented dog soldier.
A couple more episodes and you'll see WHY liber8 should have been trying to mass wealth and take over the world rather than pull everything down like rancid terrorists since because they have enough foreknowledge these time travellers should have the rest of the world at a distinct tactical disadvantage.
They have no idea how to fight a war or even recognize the new shape of the war they are in.
In the real world, Roger Cross has been working constantly for the last 20 years, even if because he's the size of a line backer the lad might be typecast as a thug with a gun, you have to assume that if he's given a part with range that he can full up all that potential because it's rude not to.
Roger's Character is a thug, which means that he probably has to subtract from who he is as a real person to create he illusion that he is a drug controlled genetically augmented dog soldier.
A couple more episodes and you'll see WHY liber8 should have been trying to mass wealth and take over the world rather than pull everything down like rancid terrorists since because they have enough foreknowledge these time travellers should have the rest of the world at a distinct tactical disadvantage.
Persuading yourself that a single decaptiation strike on the corporate heads is worth the collateral damage just isn't the same as wanting to personally kill a victim with your own hands. In the first case you can easily ignore the reality of other human beings dying. It's like having no problem with drone strikes. In the second case it a matter of reveling in it. It's like taking fun photos at Abu Grhaib. The mentalities are emotional opposites.
Also, the elaborately militarized tactics Liber8 uses require extensive training and combat experience. In the nature of things it is not yet obvious how the members could possibly have acquired this in the corporate future.
Willing suspension of disbelief is a tricky beast. It wants to be fed, because it's hungry for story. So at this moment (second episode in) I'm happy enough that Kiera gets caught out as not really being Linda Williams. Brian Markinson not taking her word for it and never talking to Portland is just too in your face to easily accept. (Unfortunately the issue of the US-Canada border doesn't go away till the corporations take over. But still....)
But the big problem for the Liber8 members is not their attitudes to and capacities for violence. The big problem is they planned on getting caught, relying on someone they had no reason to trust, to help them escape.
Also, the elaborately militarized tactics Liber8 uses require extensive training and combat experience. In the nature of things it is not yet obvious how the members could possibly have acquired this in the corporate future.
Willing suspension of disbelief is a tricky beast. It wants to be fed, because it's hungry for story. So at this moment (second episode in) I'm happy enough that Kiera gets caught out as not really being Linda Williams. Brian Markinson not taking her word for it and never talking to Portland is just too in your face to easily accept. (Unfortunately the issue of the US-Canada border doesn't go away till the corporations take over. But still....)
But the big problem for the Liber8 members is not their attitudes to and capacities for violence. The big problem is they planned on getting caught, relying on someone they had no reason to trust, to help them escape.
All your concerns are going to be addressed if you pay attention.
But we already figured out in the pilot that Old Alec needed Kiera to go back and meet himself in the past while staying ignorant that she was being manipulated and that together they would hunt Liber8... So yes Liber8 needed to be caught after the bombing, otherwise they couldn't drag Kiera downstream who wouldn't be there in 2012 to supply L'll Alec with tech, adventure and the lessons as to how he should grow up to be the man the world needs to save it.
What should be clear from episode two is that the members of Liber8 who backstepped have no idea that they are patsies or their role in the greater game.
But we already figured out in the pilot that Old Alec needed Kiera to go back and meet himself in the past while staying ignorant that she was being manipulated and that together they would hunt Liber8... So yes Liber8 needed to be caught after the bombing, otherwise they couldn't drag Kiera downstream who wouldn't be there in 2012 to supply L'll Alec with tech, adventure and the lessons as to how he should grow up to be the man the world needs to save it.
What should be clear from episode two is that the members of Liber8 who backstepped have no idea that they are patsies or their role in the greater game.
I don't understand this line of debate. People are questioning why the characters who were introduced as violent bad guys are still being portrayed as violent bad guys? The whole point is that they're ruthless. The cause they fight for is one most of us would support, all else being equal; what makes them worse than Kiera is the extreme and brutal methods they use.
And come on, anyone who's willing to kill 30,000 people to strike down a mere 20 corporate heads is already "reveling in it." There are plenty of more surgical, targeted ways to take out a select few targets. Causing that much mass death isn't about strategic precision, it's about destruction for its own sake. It's about making yourself feel powerful by causing major destruction and spreading terror far and wide. Drone strikes are a terrible analogy because those are much more surgical, specifically designed to minimize collateral damage. Liber8's actions were designed to maximize it. We're talking about acts that killed one thousand five hundred innocents for every one "guilty" target. That's excessive by any standard.
And come on, anyone who's willing to kill 30,000 people to strike down a mere 20 corporate heads is already "reveling in it." There are plenty of more surgical, targeted ways to take out a select few targets. Causing that much mass death isn't about strategic precision, it's about destruction for its own sake. It's about making yourself feel powerful by causing major destruction and spreading terror far and wide. Drone strikes are a terrible analogy because those are much more surgical, specifically designed to minimize collateral damage. Liber8's actions were designed to maximize it. We're talking about acts that killed one thousand five hundred innocents for every one "guilty" target. That's excessive by any standard.
Real drone strikes are not as surgical as propaganda would have you believe. It is rather offensive to pass off the many murders by drone as mere surgical strikes.
Just as you have managed to convince yourself that this is acceptable, Liber8's members could have convinced themselves it was acceptable. Especially since, unlike drone strikes that constantly take out alleged key leaders whose removal never turns out to make a damn bit of difference, Liber8 really did take out a substantial portion of the ownership in hopes of making a difference.
Also, the implicit notion that Liber8 should have used its own drones is preposterous. Really, the reason for targeting the whole building is because the real target is so heavily shielded that only an indirect attack can succeed. The declaration there are more targeted methods available to Liber8 has absolutely no support. Outrage at questioning the surgical precision of drone strikes has clouded your judgment.
None of this means Liber8 is correct in its judgments, any more than condemning drone strikes as murderous means the targets are correct in whatever they are alleged to do. But it does mean that if you convince yourself the casualties are inevitable collateral damage, then it feels different from killing someone with your own hands.
Just as you have managed to convince yourself that this is acceptable, Liber8's members could have convinced themselves it was acceptable. Especially since, unlike drone strikes that constantly take out alleged key leaders whose removal never turns out to make a damn bit of difference, Liber8 really did take out a substantial portion of the ownership in hopes of making a difference.
Also, the implicit notion that Liber8 should have used its own drones is preposterous. Really, the reason for targeting the whole building is because the real target is so heavily shielded that only an indirect attack can succeed. The declaration there are more targeted methods available to Liber8 has absolutely no support. Outrage at questioning the surgical precision of drone strikes has clouded your judgment.
None of this means Liber8 is correct in its judgments, any more than condemning drone strikes as murderous means the targets are correct in whatever they are alleged to do. But it does mean that if you convince yourself the casualties are inevitable collateral damage, then it feels different from killing someone with your own hands.
The Goal was for old Alec to amass power and not seem culpable.
To hit those twenty targets when they weren't together would have required the destruction of 20 buildings, that would have had to have been struck simultaneously or increasingly heightened security in the wake of successive attacks would make each target then more unhittable than the last.
To hit those twenty targets when they weren't together would have required the destruction of 20 buildings, that would have had to have been struck simultaneously or increasingly heightened security in the wake of successive attacks would make each target then more unhittable than the last.
The difficulty in watching Liber8's actions, is not in their ruthlessness, it's the sheer insanity of causing so many deaths in a time period they weren't expecting to back step to. The collateral damage they choose not to address to the future timeline-one that spawned them, makes their disregard of innocent lives in the present difficult to swallow. At least, you could assume they'd rationalize the deaths they caused back in the future as sacrificing people who participated or benefited from the oppressive corporate regimes. But here, it does come off as mindless, pointless violence in order to make Kiera's quest to capture them all the more heroic. If they showed them adjusting their tactics-as Kellogg tried to convince them, the group and their desire to thwart the coming corp-pocalyse would come off a little better.
Kellog is awesome.
Kieras heroism becomes more grey as the fabric of the future becomes clearer.
She's as thoughtless as liber8 in some ways.
Kieras heroism becomes more grey as the fabric of the future becomes clearer.
She's as thoughtless as liber8 in some ways.
Season 2 will start airing in April.
http://www.showcase.ca/blogs/528/continuum-in-production-for-season-two
http://www.showcase.ca/blogs/528/continuum-in-production-for-season-two
So has anyone else been watching this on Syfy? Season finale in next week. Of course, many of you have seen the Canadian broadcast in advance.
I like the show, it has kind grown on me (or is it Rachael Nichols hmmm). I do find the corporate revolution thing a bit to much though. Especially in Vancouver, a non-US city, if it took place in Washington D.C. or New York it would have carried more weight with that plot line.
I like the show, it has kind grown on me (or is it Rachael Nichols hmmm). I do find the corporate revolution thing a bit to much though. Especially in Vancouver, a non-US city, if it took place in Washington D.C. or New York it would have carried more weight with that plot line.
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I like to think that Vancouver as the world metropolis of future capitalism proves that wild-eyed scifi speculation isn't dead.
Yes, I've been watching. It appears they're opting for a causal loop instead of a temporal paradoxes, but it's still too soon to be certain. Liber8 at least is acting much more like a genuine revolutionary movement, albeit one of a highly Blanquist nature.
Also, yes, Rachel Nichols.
Yes, I've been watching. It appears they're opting for a causal loop instead of a temporal paradoxes, but it's still too soon to be certain. Liber8 at least is acting much more like a genuine revolutionary movement, albeit one of a highly Blanquist nature.
Also, yes, Rachel Nichols.
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