Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie Review

Not to be continuumed.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 25, 2016

The twisty-turny Sci-Fi time travel program Continuum comes to a close after three full seasons and a fourth that's less a "season" in a traditional quantitative sense of the term and more a miniseries that wraps it all up in six tidy episodes. The program, from Creator Simon Barry and originally aired on Canada's Showcase network, continues forward with the series' trademark web of complex, interconnecting timelines and time fractures but never takes a time out from offering audiences, at least those who have loyally followed all the way through, a fairly good time around the world of endless paradoxes, shifting identities, fractured futures, altered pasts, and distorted presents. Though hardly the last word in Science fiction on the matter of time travel, the show offered a hearty selection of brainy concepts-meet-regularly occurring action that may have lacked the sort of mind-bending nuance of the genre's best but that covered all its bases and proved unafraid to pile on and continue reshaping the landscape in an effort to keep an otherwise simple story as complex and dispersed as possible.

Where...when?

Official synopsis: Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols, 'Criminal Minds,' 'Alias') and the mysterious time traveler, Brad Tonkin (Ryan Robbins, 'Falling Skies,' 'The Killing'), must battle the Future Soldiers who arrived in a flash of light in the last moments of Season 3. Meanwhile, Kiera's alliance with he remaining members of Liber8 challenges her relationship with Carlos (Victor Webster, 'Castle,' 'Melrose Place') and Alex Sadler (Erik Knudsen, 'Jericho,' 'Scream 4'). Kiera must also face off against Kellog (Stephen Lobo, 'Arctic Air,' 'Smallville'), who is using every option available to him to become the ruler of a dark future built in his image. Ultimately, Kiera is put to the test when the dream of potentially reuniting with her family is reignited.

Season four soldiers through the permutations and settles the broadest story arcs, but it's not really until the very end does it really define itself and, more importantly, offer a full circle resolution that's in some ways as it should be and in some was as it should not be. Spoilers aside, the finale delves ever more deeply, and very personally and emotionally, into the mind-bending manipulations of time and the relative definitions of "success" and "failure" as they've been explored prior. The series leaves a few lingering questions, some small, some large, but as far as series-enders go, this one managed to offer a rather satisfying, if not emotionally charged, closure without betraying all the concepts and themes it introduced before.

Season four is comprised of the following episodes. Summaries are courtesy of the Blu-ray packaging.

Disc One:

• Lost Hours: Newly arrived time travelers threaten to destroy Kiera and her alliance with Brad. But can her reignited desire to return to her own time and son be reconciled with the threat they now pose?
• Rush Hour: Kellog leverages Alec by exploiting his weakness - Emily. Kiera attempts to negotiate with him unaware that Liber8 have other, darker plans. Meanwhile, Alec, tired of feeling helpless, impulsively sets off to save Emily on his own.
• Power Hour: Alec takes a definitive step towards shaping a positive future by joining Carlos and the VPD. Kiera and Garza form an alliance in order to recon the new Future Soldiers' compound and uncover their plan, but is Kiera's trust in Brad putting everyone in danger?

Disc Two:

• Zero Hour: Kiera and Brad's trust reaches the breaking point when he seems more instep with the Future Soldiers' plan than with her. Carlos and Kellog come to their own realizations about alliances and deception. A strange encounter forces Alec to reflect on his destiny and his ability to steer the path of history.
• The Desperate Hours: Despite sharing her agenda with her partner, Kiera pushes Carlos' patience to the limit as she pressures him for more time. Kellog faces unexpected peril. The Future Soldiers stage a daring raid to free their recently imprisoned leader.
• Final Hour: Kiera and Alec risk everything to stop the Future Soldiers and their devastating plan. Kellog, despite a loose alliance with Kiera, has plans of his own. All factions clash violently in order to determine which path the future will take.

Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Continuum: Season Four's 1080p transfer isn't particularly dissimilar from its more recent Blu-ray counterparts. The effortlessly and attractively sharp digital photography source yields a frame that's never wanting for definition or sharpness. Well-rounded textures are easy to come by across the board, including faces and clothes but also some nice contrasting clean lines and more rugged details as they define various locations throughout the six-episode run. Colors are well saturated, whether rich primaries, bright whites, or cooler grays and blues, all of which course through the season's palette. Black levels never stray too far from naturally deep but can be slathered in excess noise. Flesh tones are full and healthy. Trace banding crops up from time to time, but other maladies like aliasing and macroblocking are never problematic.

Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Continuum: Season Four features a solid enough DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The presentation never kicks into a seriously high gear. Its biggest action scenes deliver enough weighty oomph to demonstrate the power of time travel or gun blasts but not enough to truly feel the sensation or sonically inspect the effects in any meaningful manner. But basic definition is fine across the board. Music offers enough richness and clarity throughout the range to present a good, effective front. Ambient effects are nicely integrated, often up front but spreading into the back during busier moments. Whether light tapping on a keyboard or the whir of a hard disk drive, city din, office building clatter, or ambience at a party, the track always finds a way to make the little things an integral part of the listening experience. Dialogue delivery comes cleanly and accurately with constant center placement and prioritization.

Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Continuum: Season Four contains a commentary on disc one and a commentary and interviews on disc two.

Disc One:

• Audio Commentary: Creator Simon Barry and Director/Executive Producer Pat Williams discuss "Lost Hours."

Disc Two:

• Continuum: Behind the Scenes (1080p): A series of brief black-and-white interviews that feature cast and crew examining their work on the show or looking back on their lives and careers. Included are Simon Barry (2:50), Rachel Nichols Part 1 (3:36), Rachel Nichols Part 2 (1:40), Erik Knudsen (3:19), Stephen Lobo (2:41), Victor Webster (3:05), and Shelley Eriksen (3:02).
• Audio Commentary: Creator Simon Barry and Director/Executive Producer Pat Williams discuss "Final Hour."

Continuum: Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Continuum certainly had its ups and downs, its high points and struggles, but it ultimately proved to be a rather satisfying show that, rather than push the physical boundaries of the television medium, tested the limits of something far more significant by way of high concept drama and characterization. It wasn't always good at it, but sometimes the effort is worth more than the end product, and the ideas and feelings engendered within the audience more valuable than whatever's strewn across the screen. The condensed final season closes with a brilliant, fitting conclusion. Continuum: Season Four's Blu-ray release offers solid enough video and audio, paired with two commentaries and some cast interviews. Fans should rest easy in the decision to add these final six pieces of the puzzle to their Continuum Blu-ray collections, but newcomers, obviously, should go back to, and start from, square one.