Overview

Keira Cameron is a police officer. It’s a pretty advanced time, the year is 2077. While she is overseeing the execution of 8 domestic terrorists, they activate a time travel device that sends them all back to the year 2013. She arrives with a bunch of her high-tech police tools — a special suit with lots of functions built into it, weapons that are keyed only to her DNA, and communications equipment to allow her to connect directly to her HQ. Except her HQ doesn’t exist in 2013. Nevertheless, she is a police officer and sworn to apprehend the 8 suspects aka Liber8, so she infiltrates the local police to work with them in combating whatever mayhem Liber8 is going to start as they try to change time and prevent a future ruled by corporations…which would also inconveniently wipe out all of their timelines, including Keira’s son and husband.

Episodes That I Liked

The first episode, A Stitch in Time, sets the show up almost perfectly. It shows Keira in her element in the future, struggling with some of the ways in which the world works but generally moving from a view that everything is black and white and she’s one of the white hats towards something a bit more complex or nuanced. When she arrives in 2013, someone contacts her over her headset — a kid named Alec Sadler (hey, just because he shares my last name isn’t the reason I love the show, but it was a perk) who goes on to become the Steve Jobs of the future, well beyond phones and music players. He has a prototype for a different kind of comms network, i.e., the one that eventually becomes the basis for the suit she’s wearing, and so they accidentally “meet” over the comms line. She eventually has to explain to him the situation — stuck out of time — and they start working together. Through subsequent flashbacks, you see how certain elements tie together through time. The show is basically TimeCop but with no redos, and no way to return home. I was in like Flynn.

The fifth episode, A Test of Time, is time travel at its most nerdiness. They want to test their paradox vulnerability — if someone kills their parents before they’re even conceived, will they disappear? There are multiple twists and turns to test the theory, with threats to multiple time travellers and even to those who aren’t skipping through time. The dialogue has some uber time travel theories built into it, and the twists and turns establish the basic rules for the show. One of the best time travel episodes of any show anywhere.

The season finale, episode 10, Endtimes, blew up the premise of the show big time. Some of the elements introduced kind of confuse things later, but at first, it’s amazing…up until this point, the assumption is that the Liber8 crew plus Keira are the only time travellers. But what if there are more? Including a crazy homeless guy who recognizes Keira as a futuristic cop. Mind blown, I couldn’t wait for the second season to come.

Episodes 2 (Fast Times), 3 (Wasting Time), 6 (Time’s Up), 8 (Playtime), and 9 (Family Time) were all episodes that I rated four stars as they dealt with an attempt to go back home, one of Liber8 wanting to play profiteer in the past, early signs of Liber8 taking on big companies who are doing bad things, the dangers of VR technology, and the origins of Alex Sadler, tech mogul.

Episodes That Were Watchable

There were only two episodes of the season that I rated at three stars, and it was more because they were setups for other episodes rather than full episodes on their own. Episode 4, A Matter of Time, has one of Liber8 arrive “late” to the party (time travel didn’t work as expected for him) and episode 7, Politics of Time, bogged itself down in union politics issues.

Episodes That I Didn’t Like

None, it was a great first season.

List of Episodes from Season 1

The Bottom Line

Keira’s past looks surprisingly like our present