History Series / Continuum

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: The future apparently has a serious problem with even the most iconic fiction franchises. Kiera fails to pick up an obvious Franchise/{{Batman}} reference in the season two premiere. Alec is actually surprised when Kiera makes a modern-day pop culture reference. Games such as RockPaperScissors and paintball have also [[LostCommonKnowledge faded into obscurity]]. Justified in "Minute Man", where it's revealed that the NAU had basically all pre-NAU material labeled as subversive contraband.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Emily, Alec's love interest, has bright red hair.

** In the final episode it's revealed that [[spoiler:Kagame becomes Alec's best friend rather than his nemesis in the new utopian timeline]].

* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:Emily skips town midway through the last season, having become convinced that she and Alec were never meant to be]].

* WrittenByTheWinners: In "Time's Up", it's mentioned that the corporations prevent anyone from learning about their history. Kagame is old enough to have been taught prior, and Kellog seems to have at least a working knowledge of that history. Invoked in "Seconds", where Carlos (accurately) notes this might be the case with the "official history" that Kiera knows.

** [=Liber8=] is a group of murderous, violence-addicted terrorists... who are fighting against the world's oppressive corporate overlords in order to restore human rights like freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right to peaceably assemble, and pretty much the rest of the Bill of Rights. And remember... the hero of this story, [[ActionGirl Kiera Cameron]], is trying to '''''stop''''' these rampaging democracy-advocating, liberal-minded monsters out of a combination of loyalty to the job and a fear that their meddling may negatively affect her personally.

* TheAtoner: Future Alec makes a few allusions to being this and to the time travel plot being a BenevolentConspiracy to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, but whether this is true is debatable so far.

** On the opposite end, [[VillainProtagonist there's Kiera herself]]. She starts out as a willing enforcer of the corrupt corporate dystopia in 2077, and for her original motivation is the selfish desire to go back to the future as it was when she left it, contrasting with [=Liber8=]'s more radical designs. Despite this, she's not someone who's cruel for the sake of being cruel and develops more heroic ambitions as the series goes on.

** On the opposite end, there's Kiera herself. She starts out as a willing enforcer of the corrupt corporate dystopia in 2077, and for most of the series her goal is the selfish desire to go back to the future as it was when she left it, contrasting with [=Liber8=]'s more radical designs. Despite this, she's not someone who's cruel for the sake of being cruel and develops more heroic ambitions once her initial plans fall by the wayside.

* AntiVillain: The WellIntentionedExtremist organization [=Liber8=] [[VillainHasAPoint is actually quite right]] about how bad the totalitarian NAU government is. Flashback sequences also give several members sympathetic backstories.

* NippleAndDimed: It received several forms of censorship for the American Creator/{{Syfy}} broadcast, including this; see SexyShirtSwitch, below. Surprisingly, despite that example being censored, Sonya got away with being braless while dressed as a HotScientist.

* ShowSomeLeg: In order to get access to Piron's servers, Sonya walks in dressed as a HotScientist and flirts with the maintenance guy, getting him to walk out so they can have coffee later.

* {{Nerd}}:
** Betty, especially in episode 8, where she practically begs to go with Kiera and Carlos to a video game company that's involved in the case that they're working on.
** Notably averted by Alec. In spite of spending his life coding in his hacker cave, he dresses and behaves normally and has no apparent interest in stereotypical geek culture.

* AuthorTract: The series is already pretty {{Anvilicious}} with its RippedFromTheHeadlines plots, but the [[spoiler: Zero-growth economy utopia in the form of the CrystalSpiresAndTogas Vancouver at the end]] takes the series' AuthorTract elements UpToEleven, recalling Edward Bellamy's ''Literature/LookingBackward''.

* HollywoodNerd:
** Betty, especially in episode 8, where she practically begs to go with Kiera and Carlos to a video game company that's involved in the case that they're working on.
** Notably averted by Alec. In spite of spending his life coding in his hacker cave, he dresses and behaves normally and has no apparent interest in stereotypical geek culture.

* AdultFear: Kiera has no idea how time travel works in her universe, and is therefore constantly terrified that she's going to wipe her son from existence. Doubly so in season 3, where [[spoiler:Alec's trip through time carries the very real possibility that her future is outright gone. In "3 Minutes to Midnight", following the revelation that Brad is from a different time, she's pretty much accepted that she can never go home.]].