Dark Matter

Anybody else watching this? Space opera based on graphic novel tie-in.

Pretty good production values (team related to Stargate). Kind of Dirty Dozen meets Lost (in Space) with an intriguing, somewhat paranoid amnesia setup. Decent bunch of actors, each with their own fairly familiar trope. No more than a few annoying things per episode, but one has the sense it could degenerate, although it seems to be holding its course so far.

It’s got the “ship is home” (there’s a ship set) and a bit of the “whacky family” vibe of Firefly too - not nearly as good, but reminiscent in some ways.

It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.

I’ll continue watching it, and I also like the production values, but it feels like it hasn’t moved on from the past.

It has the same feel as the dated efforts of the past Stargate or Farscape or Andromeda so far. People chucked together on a ship, go voyaging and wacky adventures ensue at every port. It worked for Star Trek and Red Dwarf back in the 90’s. It was long tired by the time Star Trek Enterprise was doing a rehash of Beauty and the Beast, at one stop off.

What I liked about Stargate initially, was the humour. The limited and repetitive stories were just a backdrop. These days with shows like True Detective, Lost, Prison Break (season 1), Game of Thrones, and so on… we’re used to better quality. Stargate Universe for me was an imperfect, but acceptable attempt at something like that. This (so far) seems like a regression.

The crew casting is interesting. One from Continuum and one from Lost Girl. I think they’re both doing a pretty good job so far, and it’s paid off to recycle some proven talent.

Two episodes in and I’ve enjoyed it. I like that they had a decent reveal at the end of the very first episode instead of dragging it out, and that reveal has driven the main plot ever since. There is still some mystery as to the who and why, and what the deal is with the one member of the crew as yet unidentified. As was mentioned, decent production values go a long way towards making it palatable while we wait for the characters to become likeable and the overall tone of the show to settle in. It could be fairly decent if they go the Firefly route, make the crew basically good but with a relaxed moral code that allows them to get into interesting situations. Hopefully they don’t fall back on the “all-powerful universal threat” trope anytime soon, I would rather enjoy a show about space mercenaries that are trying to equalize their karma more than a show about space mercenaries trying to save the universe.

On the good side, they’ve moved forward quickly on the amnesia thing. On the bad side, the characters still feel a bit cardboardy, especially Mr. Guns Solve Everything. I’m also wondering if the writers will get lazy and have the android bail them out of all sorts of troubles. It look set up that way with her being super strong, self-repairing/healing, and tied directly into the ship’s systems.

I’ve watched both episodes and it’s entertaining enough for me to keep watching. I did pass on Stargate/Farscape/Andromeda and most of the others of that ilk, so that’s probably why this doesn’t feel too much of a been there/done that show to me.

I think the cast is better than the material so far. The acting in the ‘should we help them or leave them’ scenes was more compelling than the writing they had to work with. It’s very simplistic in the writing so far, I’d like to see them get a little more ambitious in that area. “There are some nice things here” “I can see that”- come on!

I will keep watching, because SPACESHIPS, but god damn did the last half of the 2nd episode have some bad moments. Rock music montage, stupid unearned tender love scene, bad - and I mean bad - fight choreography, etc.

It made playing the corporations off against each other seem like intelligent writing, so there is that I guess.

Hmm, so what do we think? Some kind of “safety clones” of the bad people, put on the ship in stasis (maybe by the girl)?

Did not like it much. But maybe thats a good thing? It don’t look like a interesting world, and the protagonist are pretty faces, they look like hollywood actors, and not like pirates/mercs

I am guessing that the necklace #1 found in his room which corresponds to the one the supposed savior of the miners on the first planet gave to the girl there means that #1 is actually the savior guy. His plan to save the planet was to assume the identity of Corso (the real, and still evil, #1), infiltrate the ship and wipe the memory of it’s crew. He didn’t plan on his own memory getting wiped though, and now it looks like the real Corso is on their trail and not at all happy about being left behind. If he’s the only doppleganger, and the rest of the crew is real just with memory wiped, it could be an interesting turning point. Who will embrace their new opportunity for a fresh start, and who will go back to being evil once the real Corso shows up and can tell them their history?

No idea what the deal is with the girl or the dead kid though.

All I can say is I don’t think they’re evil. They have their minds wiped but still retain specialized skills. That tells me some essence of who they are still remains, and they aren’t acting like evil people at all. Even the big guy, as tough as he talks, is a team player when you get right down to it. Those people as described in those files aren’t these people.

The writing is still suspect. The guy bled out, so where’s the blood? They found a dead body there and no one searched the room? Their plan is to sell the extra stuff and fix up the ship yet no one has taken inventory of what’s on the ship? That’s why only two people know about the door. If you found one dead body how do you know there aren’t ten dead bodies on board? Search dammit! I did like that the part was burnt out. You don’t see that very often in sci-fi shows, actual maintenance!

That’s what I thought at first - maybe they’ve been framed by the corps. But the fact that the corp guy seemed to know them as badasses who had been hired seemed to blow that out of the water, as well as the appearance of Evil Corso.

But Evil Corso possibly hints that they’re not the bad guys all over again.

Which is why I say: clones (skills programmed in). Like, safety clones the bad guys have in case they die, or something like that, and they’ve been “liberated”, maybe by the girl. Uploading hasn’t been mentioned though, so I dunno … it’s intriguing enough to keep me watching anyway.

My wife and I love the show. We much prefer it to Killjoys, though both new series are fun. Dark Matter, however, is good enough out of the gate that it might become great.

The reason the clone idea doesn’t appeal to me is that if you are going to make clone forces, why limit yourself? They could look like anyone and have any skill set. You still have to train the clone right? It’s not like a clone automatically has the skills the original had to learn.

Maybe it’s the other way around, they are real and the evil clone is after them because that’s what evil clones do, they try to take over your life. So evil clones/androids were made of them before they would be killed and replaced, one of them found out and tried to use this mission as their escape but the memory wipe screwed them up.

I agree this show is better than Killjoys. I have nothing against Killjoys, it’s just a bit less interesting to me. I think it’s the cast, I prefer the actors on DM.

Not clone forces, I’m thinking more like safety/insurance clones (clones kept and uploaded to regularly, in case of death).

But it’s only tentative.

Also agree with the Killjoys point. KJs is light-hearted fun, but the only actually good thing about it is the action direction, which is pretty good I think.

The more I think of it, the more I think the android is some sort of misdirection. They are taking everything she says on face value, but maybe she could be lying and not even know it. Those dossier files could be fake. What if they cloned the good guys, uploaded all the bad guy personalities into the clones, and sent the ‘evil’ clones on this mission…except one of the good guys figured out they were getting replaced by evil clones and escaped with the others by taking the places of the clones? So those files are actually the new personalities the clones were meant to have, not the personalities of the real people who were cloned. The evil clones would then have to hunt down the real people in order to not be shut down.

I like that! Sounds in the right area.

It would have been nice if episode 3 had been more than a go nowhere attempt to make the android more sympathetic. For what it was though, it wasn’t unwatchable. I’d lay money on the less interesting “twin brother” than clone, though.

Well, looks like it’s something cloney, unless that’s misdirection.

I think it was misdirection. When the real Corso had #1 and #3 tied up, he rattled off the possibilities and specifically mentioned that a clone would only last a few days and that he hadn’t been subjected to the kind of scan it would take to make one. He (Corso) settled on reconstructive surgery as the answer. I still say #1 is the guy the miners sent to go get help, and that he tried to use the Corso identity to infiltrate the crew and do the mind wipe, but accidentally got himself wiped in the process. It would explain why out of all of them he seems to be the one that leans most toward doing the right thing, and it ties in with the symbol he found in his quarters on the ship, the same symbol the miner girl had on her necklace.

YES, I saw that! There’s a scene where Mr. Guns is aiming his bigass rifle and Mr. Goodietwoshoes runs perpendicular, in front of the rifle to take a few shots.

The tinker-girl is the wildcard.

  1. Gets kidnapped. Overhears some reason for sleep pods.
  2. Somehow is able to hack it so she everyone loses their memories, including herself.
  3. Implants security protocol in droid. IIRC the girl was not in that cargo bay, and not attacked by droid.

This may be too logical and obvious so I’m not sure what the true story is. It would be disappointing if it was this straightforward.

So right now we have

#1: Goodie-two shoes paladin, infiltrator. Skills: Being annoying.
#2: Competent captain. The normal person. Except now she’s a zombie-space captain. Skills: Common sense.
#3: Mr. Guns Skills: Guns.
#4: Mr. Katana. Ishida heir. Skills: Melee combat, specializing in swords.
#5: Tinker girl Skills: Understands and can repair tech. Does magical hacking.
#6: The dude from Continuum. Also normal, for a hardened killer. Skills: Flies things.