The Zone Goes Back to the Future With Continuum and Teen Wolf

Sky’s new sci-fi/fantasy channel The Zone will premiere a couple of ageing series when it launches towards year’s end.

Continuum, which went to air three years ago in the US, and Teen Wolf, which has just been renewed for a fifth season, were announced today as the channel’s latest acquisitions, along with Supernatural and Star Trek: The Next Generation from the beginning, and season three of the original Star Trek.

If The Zone is in HD, as it probably will be, here’s hoping Sky’s acquired HD masters of the two Star Treks given both series have been out on Blu-ray for several years and isn’t sticking with the SD files they’ve been using for their Jones! runs.

As for Continuum, it concerns a policewoman’s efforts to thwart fanatical terrorists who are fugitives from the future.

Reviews ranged from lukewarm to encouraging.

“The pilot looks pretty impressive in the future, but after that, it’s a fairly standard cop show,” Variety reckons.

“Like many time-travel tales, Continuum — Syfy’s latest Canadian import — is sort of fun at the beginning, but doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.”

But the New York Daily News was more encouraging, calling it a smarter time-travelling cop show than Life on Mars.

“First, because the bad guys travel back to 2012, not to 1973, it doesn’t play as a period drama. That makes some things less fun, but it also eliminates distractions and gimmicks.

“Second, because it’s on a niche cable channel, it doesn’t need to reach the broader audience Life on Mars never quite found …

“If Continuum doesn’t aim to soar, it executes the basics well. Like its sister show, Warehouse 13, or all those USA and TNT dramas, it’s a little stripped down and better off because of it.”

MTV’s movie spin-off Teen Wolf is named after a high school student who develops super-human powers after being bitten by a wolf and becomes ensnared in a war between werewolves and werewolf hunters.

The good news is it earned better reviews than the 1985 Michael J Fox movie: “Not only is it really well thought out, but the good-looking kids in the show can actually act” (New York Post); “the only disappointment is the werewolf makeup, minimal enough that Posey could still blend in at the mall” (People); “cheeky new foray into supernaturalism” (New York Times).

But Time magazine observed: “It feels a little sad to see MTV for once chasing a popular youth trend here and seeming a few pawprints behind.”

And the Los Angeles Times quipped: “As a Michael Fox-loving member of the demographic it targeted, I most certainly saw the 1985 film Teen Wolf, but I don’t remember much save it was a comedy and not very good.

“Teen Wolf, which premieres on MTV, is also one of those two things and it is not a comedy.”