Tonight, the season two premiere of “Continuum” airs at 9:00 PM on Showcase in Canada. The time travel scifi action adventure also airs on the SyFy Channel (debuting on June 7, 2013), and stars Rachel Nichols in the lead role of future law enforcement officer Kiera Cameron.

I recently had a chance to sit in on a interview session with Rachel and ask a few questions. We’ll have portions of that session and more, with part one of our interview with Rachel Nichols, after the jump.

Continuum

Cop Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) lives in the dystopia of 2077 Vancouver, ruled by corporations, and under constant surveillance, this police state is very different from the world we know today. Enter time travel. When fugitive freedom fighters/terrorists called Liber8 escape to the year 2012, Kiera follows them, involuntarily, but still in hot pursuit.

In 2012, Kiera joins with Vancouver detective Carlos Fonnegra (played by Victor Webster) and teenage computer nerd Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen), pretending to be a deep undercover Fed, to pursue Liber8 and their leader, the show’s big bad Edouard Kagame (Tony Amendola).

Things get complicated when it turns out Liber8 has returned to the past to prevent the rise of the powers that be that rule their world in 2077. Even worse, Kiera learns that young Alec grows up to be one of the big bads in her future. Yeah, it’s one of those do-you-kill-Hitler-as-a-baby conundrums.

Shades of Grey

During the interview, Rachel Nichols was asked specifics about her character, Kiera Cameron. Melissa Girimonte of TheTelevixen.com asked, “I recall chatting with you last season about how Kiera came from a point where everything was very black and white and good and bad and we saw that change in the first season. And we see that in the second season it gets off to that start where nothing is no longer clear cut for Kiera. How much more of that are we going to see in this upcoming season and how will that carry over to the rest of her life, not just in everything with Liber8.”

Rachel Nichols: “Right, great question. We spoke about it before many times but you know, in 2077 she knows who she is. She knows what she’s doing. She knows that she’s on the right side of the law. She’s the good fighting the bad. It’s very cut and dry. She comes back in time and in 2013 over the first season there’s a blatant recognition of the idea of the gray area so it’s not so black and white.

“Season 2 obviously yes, she still wants to get home. It’s a primary goal, nothing has changed there. Season 2 is very much about responsibility and when I say responsibility I mean the end of Season 1 Kagame gives a speech and we used some of his speech as sort of a tagline for Season 2, which is you know if you drop a pebble in the ocean on one side of the world does it become a tsunami on the other.

“So season 2 is very much about the things that Kiera is doing well here in this time. Her acknowledgement of the responsibility that she holds and so does everybody else, how they affect the future and how they affect where she’s from and how maybe the decisions she’s making here in this time are actively sacrificing the future that she’s so trying desperately to get home to and because she’s here fighting the good fight and doing what she was doing in 2077 anyway.

“Is she actually jeopardizing her family, her husband, her son. Could she possibly do something that can cause her to never be born, in the future? And so yes, it’s the black and white is not so cut and dry this season and there are a lot of questions she have to ask herself. At the end of last season, if she had prevented that building from blowing up, what would that have meant for the future? And these are questions that are very prevalent in season 2.”

Returning to Continuum

Matt Carter with CarterMatt.com asked Rachel, ” One thing I was kind of curious about is just going through the first season of a show obviously it’s a new experience and you feel the new cast, new career, new personality. So how has that changed you think your preparation going into this new season? What was the environment like? Was it kind of like a family reunion, sort of going back and meeting old friends, seeing some new faces along the way?”

Rachel Nichols: “Yes. I – you know, between when I was on the inside and when I did “Alias,” when I did “Criminal Minds,” I’ve never done a season 2 of a show and coming back to do this show, to have a second season, was obviously such a gift and I was so pleased and honored and thrilled the show was received so well. And we were given the opportunity to come back and play again for another 13 episodes. It’s the best gift, showing up on set and coming into town.

“I was supposed to come into town on January 20 but the Patriots were playing the Baltimore Ravens and I wanted to watch it in L.A. so I came on January 21 instead even though the Patriots lost, which was horrifying. And immediately landed on January 21, spent whatever amount of time at the airport getting my work visa approved and then came to a cast dinner. Got picked up and driven directly to a cast dinner to read the first two episodes and it is going – coming home to this great family and everybody that was back and the crew is the same way when I show up for day one of shooting and 90% of our crew is back this year.

“It feels great. It feels great because you know that they wanted to come back. They could’ve said no but everybody has that shorthand already and you can really hit the ground running which frankly given the time we started shooting this year and the turnaround for episode 1 airing on Showcase, we really needed to already have that shorthand going and we really needed to have those relationships already forged. And it was so nice to just come back and say, hey family. What’s up? This is great. Let’s do season 2, you know, let’s start now.

“I can’t say enough good things about it actually. It’s really something that I hold very near and dear.”

Cop and Mother

Katie Nohr of Press+1 asked, “You’ve spoken a lot before about the duality of Kiera as a character, the cop and the mother. Going into the second season, are these two sides of her still pretty much equal or do they clash at all, if you can tell us?”

Rachel Nichols: “You know what? That’s a great question because they do clash more because in the second season there is – the more prevalent idea in the second season is everything Kiera does now in the present is costing her something potentially in the future. So she is a cop here, a protector in the future.

“She’s a mother in the future. She has a son that she wants to get home to and a husband that she wants to get home to. But while she’s here in this time period she wants to do everything she can to uphold the law, do what’s right by the people. So there is that question and it’s very prevalent in the season.

“The longer Kiera spends in the present, the more quickly the future starts slipping away and it’s a risk that she kind of doesn’t really have a choice. It’s not as though she’s going to say all right, well then I’m done fighting crime in 2013 and I’m just going to go home and knit for a while until someone gets me on a time travel machine back to the future. It’s not really an option, so she has to interact with the people of today. She has to make decisions. She has to be proactive. She causes change. And she knows she’s causing change but it’s a very difficult choice for her because of the fact that she is very aware of the idea that changing things in the present day may be potentially deleting her family from the future or maybe even her herself. Maybe some of the stuff she’s doing in 2013 is going to prevent her from ever being born in 20 – whatever year she was born — sorry, my math is not going to work right now — but yes, that psychotomy. The pull is still there and it’s even stronger because it’s a reality that she may be sacrificing everything that she’s fighting to get back for by fighting for the common good in this time.”

More to Come

Wow, that’s a lot to think about. Please tune in to Showcase tonight at nine and check out the season two premiere of “Continuum.” And we’ll be back next Sunday with the rest of our Rachel Nichols interview, talking a little more “Continuum,” more on her career, and I might even get to ask a question or two.

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