This overlooked sci-fi series quietly delivered one of TV’s smartest time-travel stories — and it still deserves a rewatch.
Nowadays, there are more sci-fi shows than you could probably count. In the age of streaming, plenty of one-and-done projects delve into dark futures, time-travel exploits, and moral questions about the use of technology, but few of them are perhaps as well-thought-out or presented as a lesser-known Canadian series that only ran a few seasons in the early 2010s.
If you've never heard of Continuum, which was created by Simon Barry — yes, the mind behind Warrior Nun, then it's time to jump aboard this four-season adventure. For those who remember this Showcase-turned-SyFy series, there is no doubt that this one deserves a rewatch.
'Continuum' Is a Thoughtful Sci-Fi Series With a Deep Mythology From the show's opening moments, Continuum wastes no time throwing its audience headfirst into the exciting future of 2077. Set in Vancouver, British Columbia, the series begins with City Protective Services officer Kiera Cameron arresting a man named Edouard Kagame , who just so happens to be the leader of a terrorist group known as Liber8.
Liber8 aims to tear down the corporations that control this secretly dystopian future, though they kill thousands in their pursuit of these freedoms. Things get a bit tricky, however, when the Liber8 members sentenced to be executed by the Corporate Congress use a device that sends them back in time 65 years. Tragically, Kiera is ripped from her time along with them, waking up in 2012, where Liber8 aims to change the course of history.
The premise of Continuum alone is enough to pull most audiences into the series, but the draw becomes even more powerful when we realize that there's far more to the story. COLLIDER Collider · Quiz Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames.
Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → QUESTION 1 / 8INSTINCT 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them.
You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 8RESOURCE 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge.
If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust.
In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits.
The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 8THREAT 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 8AUTHORITY 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 8ENVIRONMENT 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement.
At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 8ALLIANCE 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life.
Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 8MORALITY 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen.
Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed.
I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers.
Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In… Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for.
This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The Resistance, Zion The Matrix You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. The Wasteland Mad Max The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break.
That's you. Los Angeles, 2049 Blade Runner You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. Arrakis Dune Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. A Galaxy Far, Far Away Star Wars The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ As Kiera settles into 2012, working alongside Detective Carlos Foneggra to track down Liber8, personal motives, histories, and ambitions begin to form. Liber8 members turn on each other, and others, namely Stephen Lobo's aggravatingly delightful Matthew Kellog, defect from the cause entirely.
Additionally, Continuum plays masterfully with various notions of time travel, as most of the characters are unsure if they are playing out events that have already been destined to occur or are creating an entirely new branch of history to rewrite the old one. The show is generally unafraid to explore the benefits and the severe complications that come with being stranded in another time.
In fact, the third season takes all of this a step further by introducing other timelines into the fray, pushing Kiera and her young companion, the boy genius Alec Sadler , to opposite ends of the board. One of the most interesting elements about Continuum is the way the show utilizes flashbacks .
As Kiera has already lived a life before her time in 2012, the series frequently calls back to her time in 2077, and the same goes for other characters as well, including Alec, who, in the future, is a much older man played by The X-Files' very own William B. Davis . Since most episodes are framed by the complicated context of the future — one that may no longer even exist — Kiera and the members of Liber8 wrestle with the choices they've made in one life while trying to inspire change in their new existence.
Along the way, some even change their perceptions about the future, while others fight for one of their own making. And this is where things get even more complicated, especially for the leading CPS"Protector.
" Rachel Nichols Shines as Kiera Cameron, Time Traveling Extraordinaire Aside from the clever writing, part of the reason that Continuum works so well is because of its strong cast. Stephen Lobo, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen, Dark Matter's Roger Cross, and Luvia Petersen, among many others, are all irreplaceable, and the show would not be the same without them in their respective roles.
But when it comes to a series like Continuum, it begs for a strong lead who can balance the emotional weight of its main character's loss with the mission she has sworn to see through. That's where Rachel Nichols comes in.
The most tragic part about Kiera Cameron's journey from 2077 to 2012 isn't simply that she's a woman out of time; that part is manageable; it's that she left behind her husband, Greg , and her son, Sam , who is only a boy back in the future. Nichols offers a powerful performance throughout all 42 episodes as she expertly mixes Kiera's grief and desperation with her drive to see Liber8 stopped, if only to prevent them from changing her future and ensure that her return is possible.
Related 12 Must-Watch Sci-Fi Shows, Ranked The truth is out there. Posts 4 By Jiminna Shillingford Despite that, we see very early on that even when Liber8 engages in events that profoundly shape the future she left, she attempts to stop them and save lives, knowing that this may impact her chances of getting home.
The Season 1 finale,"Endtime," is a great example of this, as Kiera attempts to stop a pivotal, 9/11-like event from taking place in the heart of Vancouver, regardless of how foundational said moment is to her time. Even when Kiera allows her own desires to return to 2077 to cloud her judgment, she still aims to do the right thing, and it's the tug-of-war between her convictions as a law officer and her responsibility as a mother that makes her such a fascinatingly dynamic character.
In addition to this, her working relationships with those she meets in 2012, specifically Carlos and Alec, shape her view of this time period, and remind her that Liber8 isn't just manipulating history, but harming those she now cares about. Kiera's complicated relationship to 2012 and its people is in part why Continuum is such an engaging series.
We know her desire, her need, to get home to her family, but we know that she must stay to see this through.
'Continuum' Ended Too Quickly, but At Least Got to Finish the Story Unlike so many science fiction giants, Continuum is a rare series that sticks to the landing. For a while there, fans were worried that the show would end before its time.
Plenty of other shows of this era of television, such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the 2009 V reboot, and the SyFy hit Alphas, all got the axe prematurely after two seasons, and it seemed that Continuum would suffer the same fate after Season 3. However, Showcase opted to renew Continuum for a fourth and final season of only six episodes.
That seems standard for many made-for-streaming series, but back then, the show's standard 10-13 episode orders felt too short. Indeed, creator Simon Barry himself once noted to Collider that they"had an arbitrary number of seven years" to tell the whole story. While it's a shame that the series didn't run longer, fans can rest well knowing that Kiera ended up where she was always supposed to, whenever that is.
There is so much more about Continuum that is worth noting, though time may be our greatest enemy. The way the show offers nuanced looks at both Kiera and Liber8's perspectives, criticizing the tactics of one and the beliefs of the other, is quite cerebral.
Indeed, the issues that spring forth regarding the use of technology and the responsibility of the individual to use it wisely, as well as notions about fate and destiny, are all elements that, when put together, make Continuum as unique as other sci-fi giants of its time, like Fringe. If you love time-travel shenanigans, healthy doses of socioeconomic commentary, and plenty of sci-fi action and mystery, then Continuum should be your next binge.
Continuum Like TV-14 Action & Adventure Drama Crime Sci-Fi Release Date 2012 - 2015-00-00 Network showcase Directors Pat Williams, David Frazee, William Waring, amanda tapping, Mike Rohl, Jon Cassar, Simon Barry, Paul Shapiro Writers Sam Egan, Jeff King, Jonathan Walker, Jonathan Walker, Shelley Eriksen, Denis McGrath, Jeremy Smith, Matt Venables, Raul Sanchez Inglis, Sara B. Cooper 5 Images Close Cast See All Powered by Expand Collapse
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