Friday, June 14, 2013

Take away the suit

I started watching season 1 of Continuum and the fourth episode, "Matter of Time," used one of my favorite television tropes: taking away the superhero's power and seeing what she is like without it.

The main character, Kiera Cameron, is not superhuman but she has a technologically-advanced suit that gives her an advantage over ordinary police officers. She uses the suit to run scans, look up information, and protect her from harm.

In scenes that take place in the future, the audience sees that police officers rely on technology to do their work. Optical cameras record everything the officer sees and the suit offers a variety of tools to fight crime. The police officers actually learn to repress their instincts and gut feelings in favor of gathering information through their enhanced suits.

Kiera operates in the same way when she travels back to 2012, but in "Matter of Time," her suit shorts out, and she loses access to the suit's capabilities. She tries interrogating a suspect and walking through a crime scene without her technological enhancements and finds that she likes doing the work that way. She says it "feels good" to act on her hunches and listen to her instincts.

Taking the suit away gave her the opportunity to see that she can be a police officer without the advanced technology (which is her superpower). She learns to adapt and becomes confident in her skills as an officer. The character learns about herself and the audience gets to see great character development.

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