Behind the scenes with Simon Barry (center) during the filming of season two's "Second Guess." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
Change the past, change the future – that is the self-appointed mission of a group of convicted terrorists who, in the hit Sci-Fi TV show Continuum, manage to escape death row in 2077 Vancouver and travel back in time to 2012. The group, called Liber8, want to stop powerful and influential corporations from eventually taking over and running the world. Unfortunately for them, a CPS (City Protective Services) officer, Kiera Cameron, inadvertently came along for the ride to 2012 and her goal is to prevent Liber8 from successfully carrying out its plan.
In the show’s first season, Kiera, with the help of the local police force, including Detective Carlos Fonnegra, and a teenager, Alec Sadler, who knows a thing or two about computers, was able to stay one step ahead of Liber8. Their efforts were not, however, always successful. In the season one finale, the terrorists struck a crippling blow to the city, forcing Kiera to change her tactics as to how she deals with Liber8. It then fell to the talented minds of Continuum creator/executive producer Simon Barry and his writing team to bring that story to life for season two.
“When the writers and I were ‘breaking’ season two, we had to decide on the direction that we were going thematically with the series,” recalls Barry. “We wanted episode one of season two to reflect many of the themes that we would be tracking. The one thing we all agreed on was the idea that control, power and manipulation were the payoff of sorts for knowledge of the future as well as the ability to control time travel and things of that nature.
“Because of this, all the characters in the show would in a way be operating from a place where they could somehow take control of their own lives along with the situation, whether that be Kiera [Rachel Nichols], Alec [Erik Knudsen], the police or Liber8. So within our story, we wanted to kind of plug in these subtle reminders that that was the direction we were heading in when it came to the second season.
Detectives Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) and Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) in "Second Guess." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“The season opener therefore needed to pay off in all those ways, including how Sonya [Lexa Doig] was manipulating her own people with regard to what happened to Travis [Roger Cross], how Kiera was operating in sort of an uncertainty vacuum, and Alec having new information about what his future self [William B. Davis] had told him. So everyone was kind of reset, and with that reset came a bit of a vacuum and the question of who could take advantage of that vacuum and how. For us, that was the best way to launch season two – with the idea that pretty much everything was up for grabs and anyone who had the incentive could go after the power and control events.”
In Continuum’s season two opener Second Chances, Kiera goes rogue and attempts to fight Liber8 on her own, but despite her training and futuristic tech, she still needs backup. Our heroine eventually returns to the Vancouver City Police fold, but remains as cryptic as ever when it comes to where she gets her intel on Liber8. Meanwhile, Alec is facing some personal issues, and Kiera must initially tread lightly with him while keeping the teenager as one of her closest and most trusted allies. Over at the enemy camp, Sonya takes over as Liber8’s leader, but not before killing Travis, or so she believes. In the following episode, Split Second, he proves you cannot keep a genetically-enhanced super soldier down, at least not for long.
“Episodes one and two of the second season were actually shot as a block,” explains Barry. “When you consider both episodes together, we had a tall order insofar as the amount of action and overall scope of the show. We had a helicopter sequence as well as chase scenes and major gunfights. All that action had to be blended with the episodes’ character moments, which made for quite a dynamic production schedule in terms of what we were trying to accomplish for both episodes. So in some ways we tackled it almost like we were making a mini-movie.
“One of the most memoerable sequences for me is where Kiera beats up the guys at the beginning of Second Chances. With that, I happily wanted to wink at the notion that there was a superhero element at this point in the show. Although Kiera is not a traditional superhero, she has sort of been put in the position that the archetype superhero many times ends up in, which is having a responsibility that’s greater than they intended as well as having the ability to fight with an advantage. Even though we aren’t a straight-up superhero show, I wanted to tip our hats a little bit to that mythology in that opening scene involving Kiera and the Liber8 goons.
Continuum's Simon Barry. Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“Another scene that stands out for me with these first two stories is actually in episode two where Kellog [Stephen Lobo] approaches Alec to make his [business] overture. It was really important for that scene to play out in a way that we honestly believed that the young man would listen to and entertain Kellog’s point of view.”
Having laid the basic foundations for the heroes as well as villains and all those in-between in Continuum’s first season, how does Barry feel that the show’s characters have further grown and developed this year?
“We didn’t want the same structure of season one to repeat itself,” says the executive producer. “It may not be that apparent in the season two opener, but when you eventually look back at the entire season, I think you’ll see that we have definitely made an attempt to take as many characters that you thought you knew and understood, and kind of flip them, if you will. Without giving away anything juicy that is still to come down the pike, we wanted to keep their evolutions not only fresh but also existing in this world of grey morality we’ve created.
“We’ve further fleshed out some of the characters that you first saw last year, including Jason [Ian Tracey], the time traveler who arrived many years ahead of Kiera, and Gardner [Nicholas Lea], the federal agent who is investigating Liber8. Among the new characters we’ve introduced this season is Emily [Magda Apanowicz], a young woman who becomes part of Alec’s life. As a natural occurrence in any teenage boys’ existence, girls are often part of the formula, so we wanted to make sure that Alec is having that type of typical teenage experience as opposed to just being always stuck behind his computer.
Sonya Valentine (Lexa Doig) in season two's "Second Skin." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“I should mention, too, that Sonya’s leadership style with Liber8 is obviously going to be very different from Travis’. I think with the death of Kagame [Liber8’s original leader, played by Tony Amendola] looming in the background, Sonya struggles with having to lead based on his instructions or on her own intuition and instinct. She’s also trying to figure out where to find her leadership strength. Is it based on Kagame’s mentorship or her own abilities? That’s an interesting journey for her and one that plays out as she moves through season two.
“With regard to Rachel Nichols and her character of Kiera, there’s an episode this year called Second Opinion that was especially challenging because we really tried to make it a psychological journey for Kiera. It was a much more contained type of story, which meant that Rachel had to emotionally carry the episode in a way that was probably a far greater responsibility for her as an actor and just in general workload because she’s literally in every frame of the show.
“{Executive producer] Pat Williams did a fantastic job directing it, and that was helped, of course, with great writing by Jeff King. His script made it feel very much like a new episode for Continuum, but I also feel that it satisfied many things about the series that had been set up in the previous season as well as in season two.”
Barry had the chance to step behind the camera in a very hands-on type of way when he directed season two’s Second Guess. In it, Kiera and Carlos (Victor Webster) search for the individual behind a series of destructive cyber-attacks on Vancouver’s infrastructure. Their investigation leads the two detectives to suspect someone close to them.
Alec (Erik Knudsen) and Emily (Magda Apanowicz) in "Second Last." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“It was a wonderful experience,” he enthuses. “I was very aware that being a director required me to focus on an individual episode in a way I don’t normally have to be singularly mindful of as a show runner. In the latter capacity, I’m involved in every step of every episode. When you’re directing an episode, and certainly in prep, you really have to focus 100% of your energy on the episode in question.
“So it was a little bit of a change of pace and in some ways like a break. The pace of show running and the amount of information that you need to manage is excessive, whereas when you’re prepping an episode of a TV show, I think there’s a certain benefit to concentrating on that one story and its through-line. One of the nicest things, too, is that because I have such a terrific partnership with everyone on Continuum, the ability for me to focus on prep and to then actually shoot the episode was really enabled by the phenomenal team that I work with and their desire for me to succeed. Basically, everyone stepped up, helped out and made a big difference. So I had an incredibly supportive and creative experience and I think the episode turned out really well.”
Back in June, Continuum’s cast, crew and creative team were duly rewarded for their hard work on season two when the show was renewed for a third year. With the second season finale airing in Canada in just over a week, are there any hints Barry can give fans on what to expect?
“We knew before we started shooting this year how we were going to finish the season,” he reveals. “So in a weird way I’ve been dying to get the audience to the end of the season. It’s been burning a hole in my brain waiting to play out what I think is an amazing conclusion to year two and a really surprising twist to the show. So I’m super-excited for people to see the finale and hopefully be blown away as well as entertained and salivating for season three.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, all photos copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
What a great show and a great two seasons. I just watched episode 12 of season 2 via YouTube....but I'm afraid the creator
and producers are going to miss a beautiful opportunity. An opportunity
like TV has never seen before. Kiera, should be sent back to the future for a season or two. Liber8 has change things and her family is
gone or at least any resemblance of her family. Society has taken a full
swing the other way. It is now as out of balance as her world was
before, but the opposite. It's every man for themselves and total chaos. Now
it is clear she needs to get back to the pass in order to keep both
sides in check to have any hope of retuning to her family. Balance is
always the answer. The bad guys are on both sides of the spectrum. Total freedom is chaos with thougs and many dictators in charge and a total corporations world is a total dictatorship. Both are the enemy!
Posted by: Mike | 08/01/2013 at 02:43 AM