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Blu-ray Review Continuum Season Three Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

Kevin EK

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Continuum Season Three Blu-ray Review

Continuum Season Three presents the penultimate season of the low-budget Canadian science fiction series on Blu-ray in the best manner it can. The picture and sound quality continue to be quite good, but the series has sadly descended into confusion at this point in its evolution. With the current season, a host of new ideas have been introduced, including multiple timelines and multiple versions of several characters, to the point that it can be difficult to keep track of what is going on. Fans of the series will likely enjoy this set, but casual viewers will find the latest season incomprehensible.



Studio: Universal

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 9 Hr. 31 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray

Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: ABC

Release Date: 12/23/2014

MSRP: $59.98




The Production Rating: 1.5/5

Continuum is literally running out of time in its run on Canadian television and the US SyFy channel. The show’s initial premise was a simple one – that Kiera, a cop from the future (Rachel Nichols) has been pulled back to present day Vancouver along with a group of dangerous terrorists from her time. Naturally, Kiera’s mission originally was to stop these people from doing any damage while struggling to find a way to get back to her own time. This was of course mostly cribbed from the 1990s television series Time Trax, albeit with a female lead this time around. Along the way, the show has allowed Kiera to work in concert with a present day Vancouver police unit, thus combining elements of science fiction and a standard procedural. Also thrown into the mix was the destiny of a young computer genius named Alex (Erik Knudson) whose future evil self (William B. Davis) may be engineering everything to ensure his own success. The cast, led by Nichols, Knudsen and Victor Webster, has been attractive and entertaining, and the show has made the most out of the local scenery. Over the course of the show’s first two seasons, Continuum worked to find interesting twists and complications that would keep the fans involved in Kiera and Alex’s eternal quest to figure out what the heck is going on and get Kiera home. With the new season, unfortunately, this has led the show’s producers to generate a kind of 52-Pickup scenario with the story. So for the third season, viewers have been presented with a multiple universe scenario, with dual versions of both Kiera and Alex, and multiple potential futures that could result depending on their actions. In the current situations, former villains become allies, former allies become villains, and former loyal viewers become extremely confused.

SOME SPOILERS: As we’ve discussed before, the initial premise for this series was fairly simple – a cop from the future tries to bust some bad guys from the future in the present day while trying not to let the natives know her secret and while trying to get herself back to her own time. There was probably enough material there to keep things going for about a season, maybe a little more. For the second season, the showrunners threw in multiple complications for the terrorist group “Liber8” and a whole different time travelling group called the “Freelancers”, stirring things up and resurrecting characters who have been killed in prior episodes. Other characters were revealed to be various characters’ parents or children, usually at the most outrageous moment. And just as Kiera thought she’d be able to use a time travel device to return home in the second season finale, young Alec used the device himself and jumps into their immediate past. This of course left poor Kiera in the hands of the “Freelancers” at the point the current season begins. But as this season gets underway, we quickly find ourselves dealing with not one but two Alecs, and not one but two Kieras. One Alec is the nice guy we already know, albeit a bit driven. The other one is already the evil Alec we’ve seen William B. Davis play in the future scenes. One Kiera is the one we believe we know right now. The other one is found dead in Alec’s lab, leading to another series of complications. And then there’s the “John Doe” character (Ryan Robbins) who turns out to be from yet another future, soldiers from which arrive in the present just as this season ends. Instead of enriching the story, the continuing complications only serve to convolute the plot. And even with the added complications, there continues not to be any “there there” with this show, and there are too many other, better options available to discerning sci-fi fans. It is therefore unsurprising that Continuum’s parent network in Canada has asked the producers to wrap things up with a short final season of 6 episodes that should air later this year. Simon Barry, the show’s creator, had made comments in the past about going seven seasons, but it’s clear that this idea did not come to fruition. It’s at least decent of Showcase and Shaw Media to allow some closure for fans of the series. In many other cases, fans have been left with shows that end on cliffhangers.

The Blu-ray set includes all thirteen episodes in 1080p HD picture and DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound, along with a greatly reduced spread of extra features from the last time around. This time, there are just two commentaries (for the season premiere and finale), a few additional scenes presented as webisodes and about 30 minutes worth of featurettes.


The discs’ contents are:

DISC ONE

“Minute by Minute” – The third season begins with all the characters discussing a classic Doobie Brothers album. Wait a second. Okay, they actually deal with all the time travel shenanigans that erupted at the end of last season, including two Alecs in a single timeline and a captive Kiera trying to find out what the heck has happened to her. A scene-specific commentary is available, with producer/director Pat Williams and producer/writer Simon Barry. Among other things, they discuss the logistics of the series, including how they could not bring back all of the Freelancers’ captives for the premiere, and how a major character on the series needed to be written out since the actor became unavailable. A webisode scene for this episode (0:57) is included on the disc.

“Minute Man” – A webisode scene for this episode (2:38) is included on the disc.

“Minute to Win It” – A webisode scene for this episode (2:08) is included on the disc.

“Minute Changes” – A webisode scene for this episode (1:46) is included on the disc.

“30 Minutes to Air” – A webisode scene for this episode (1:57) is included on the disc.


Disc One also includes a Previews Menu, with trailers for the DVD and/or Blu-ray releases of Bates Motel, Grimm, Dracula, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, Covert Affairs, Alphas and Warehouse 13.



DISC TWO

“Wasted Minute” – A webisode scene for this episode (2:19) is included on the disc.

“Waning Minutes” – This episode mostly takes place in the future, in the period before the events of the series pilot began. A webisode scene for this episode (1:35) is included on the disc.

“So Do Our Minutes Hasten” – A webisode scene for this episode (1:51) is included on the disc.

“Minute of Silence” – This is the episode that brings Kiera into contact with John Doe. Webisode scenes for this episode (5:04) are included on the disc.

“Revolutions Per Minute” – A webisode scene for this episode (1:38) is included on the disc.


DISC THREE

“3 Minutes to Midnight” – A webisode scene for this episode (2:47) is included on the disc.

“The Dying Minutes” – This episode is directed by series creator Simon Barry. A webisode scene for the episode (2:01) is included on the disc.

“Last Minute” – The third season finale once again sees most of the major characters have their situations radically changed, as the two Alecs confront each other and Kiera gets to make some new future friends, in a manner of speaking. A scene-specific commentary is available, with Pat Williams and Simon Barry. The guys discuss how Williams was unable to direct this season finale since he was wearing more of the producer hat while Barry directed the second-to-last episode for the year. A webisode scene (2:02) is included on the disc.

A collection of featurettes is included on the third disc, with the cast and crew discussing their work over the third season. (See Special Features)



Video Rating: 4/5  3D Rating: NA

Continuum: Season Three is presented in a 1080p AVC transfer that accurately presents the HD imaging captured on the show. As with the earlier seasons’ blu-ray sets, detail and color range are strong, black levels look solid, and the occasional moments of high end CGI are relatively seamless.



Audio Rating: 4/5

Continuum: Season Three is presented in an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that mostly focuses on the front channels. Like the mix for the earlier seasons, this one has a satisfying amount of life in the surrounds, particularly during bigger action sequences or the CGI moments of the pilot. The subwoofer does get a little bit of life when things go boom.



Special Features Rating: 2.5/5

This year’s collection of Continuum is a lot skimpier on the bonus features than the prior year. First, there’s just the two episode commentaries I have broken down with the episodes. Then there’s the “webisode” material for each episode, which frankly reads as deleted and extended scenes being presented in a different manner. The third disc adds about thirty minutes of featurette material, which is half what was presented in the prior year. If anything, the reduced amount of content seems to reflect the lessening of interest in the series as the complications have taken their toll. I expect that the final season set will have the smallest amount of all.

DISC THREE

Continuum: Behind the Scenes (30:33 Total, 1080p) – This is a collection of four featurettes about the making of the third season. The first one, Point of No Return (6:47), includes comments by Richard Harmon, Erik Knudsen, Rachel Nichols, Luvia Peterson, Omari Newton, Brian Markinson and Jennifer Spence about the direction of this year’s stories. The second one, How Does that Sound? (10:37), focuses on the sound effects and music of the series, with contributions from Supervising Sound Editor Kirby Jinnah, Pat Williams, Simon Barry and composer Jeff Danna. The third one, Making the Cut (8:35) finds Pat Williams and Simon Barry in the editing room. The final one, Two Alecs (4:34), finds Richard Harmon and Erik Knudsen discussing the complexities of Knudsen playing two very different Alecs this season. The featurettes can be viewed on an individual basis or via a “Play All” option.


Subtitles are available in English for the episodes and the featurette. As with the earlier seasons, standard chapter menus are not exactly included here – instead, each episode is itself a chapter. There are chapters within each episode, but they are not itemized in a menu – which means you may have to hunt through an episode if you stop the disc and restart it later.



Overall Rating: 2/5

Continuum: Season Three unfortunately blows the momentum created from last season and winds up hopelessly convoluting its storyline. The cast continues to try to make this premise believable, but the sheer weight of all the added twists is too much for anyone to handle. Past the complications, there really isn’t much more to this premise than you can see on the surface, so adding even more side issues doesn’t solve the basic problem any better than the earlier seasons’ efforts did. The Blu-ray set offers the series in solid picture and sound, along with a reduced extras package. Unlike the prior seasons, it’s pretty much impossible to even offer this season to casual viewers who haven’t previously seen the show.


Reviewed By: Kevin EK


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