Coming around to the left, a little

Continuum

Well, the terrorists are still evil but the corporate rulers, or whatever they are, are starting to look bad, too, what with manipulating power outages and food supplies for reasons that are still mysterious.

All the same, nothing justifies the clichés of this Wikipedia description of the future setup as a “police state.”

The future of 2077 is a dystopian one in which world governments have collapsed and corporations now dominate the planet, instituting a high-surveillance, technically advanced police state and removing certain social freedoms, specifically criticism against the "Corporate Congress".

Actually that seems to be the only freedom they have interfered with.

There was something said about no more elections, but I suppose that goes with the wholly unexplained and even undefined “collapse” of world governments.

On the other hand, if there are no governments what does the "Corporate Congress" do, exactly?

The society seems relatively free, with a working class that enjoys a high standard of living in contrast with scenes of severe persecution upon a downtrodden people who cannot afford food.

In the most recent episode we first learned of the existence of people not being fed, and it looked like food was being withheld from some fairly small number, perhaps to secure obedience, rather than denied to a significant part of the whole population.

No hint of an oppressed and starved underclass.

The moral dilemma this presents is that the group of eight from 2077, while self-admittedly having killed tens of thousands of people as collateral damage, consider themselves to be freedom fighters against the Orwellian corporate regime that dominates their time.

That’s a “moral dilemma”?

Damned thin gruel, if you ask me.

So far, absolutely nothing in the story justifies so vacuous a use of “Orwellian.”

Not one thing.

And no hint of the real threat of unchecked corporate plutocracy, a lot fewer toasters and a lot more Bugattis.

Unchecked intensification of the class struggle, that is, with ever enhanced exploitation of the disempowered many for the enrichment of the ruling few.

Kiera's actions are primarily focused on preserving her timeline so that she can return to her family rather than considering the broader implications of her society.

She has already released a woman who committed a murder in the present because she would go on to use stolen technology to develop an efficient new power supply for the world of the future, but is otherwise willing to treat the crimes she investigates on their merits in the present rather than constantly worrying how they will affect her future.

It was an odd and questionable move, but no kind of political commitment, one way or the other.

For her, getting back to the future and stopping the terrorists are jobs one and two, though the order isn’t always clear.

Four or five episodes in and the alleged moral/political dilemmas are just bluff, so far.

Just another cop show.

A pretty good one, but that’s what it is.