Dark Matter, SyFy's new space show, premieres June 12th

[Christopher]

Episode 12 was decent, though it was very contrived that Two's creator waited to lure her into a trap until immediately after the crew learned her secret. What are the odds of that? Wil Wheaton was pretty good, though, playing a different character from the smug and obnoxious jerks that have become his specialty.

I didn't care for episode 13 much, though. Most of it was just tedious searching through the ship, a lot of padding and plot mechanics instead of the actual answers and resolution I was hoping for. I hate it when a season-long mystery or suspense arc ends with a cliffhanger that leaves things just as unresolved as they've been all season. It's redundant to end on a cliffhanger when the whole thing has essentially been a cliffhanger. And I think it's lazy writing when a show constantly uses teases and cliffhangers in place of actual endings. Stories like this are only satisfying if they have forward movement, if we actually get answers to reward our patience with the endless questions.

Basically, this was half a story dragged out to fill a whole hour, filled in with tons of searching and a lot of repetitive scenes of One mistrusting Three, Three mistrusting One, and Five mistrusting Two. It was just the same beats over and over again. And why did the One-Three rivalry suddenly reset itself to where it was before the past few episodes where they've bonded more? Why was Three suddenly so stupidly convinced about One being the traitor despite the total lack of evidence? I mean, seriously -- Three was keeping vigil on One's quarters when Six was (allegedly) attacked. He should've been the only one who could be certain that One wasn't the culprit. So having him continue his vendetta against One made no sense at all. It was really, really bad characterization.

And one more failure to advance the storyline -- they brought the One-Three conflict back to the fore but did not have One confront Three about the killing of Derrick's wife. This was the perfect time to bring that out into the open, to give us some real advancement of that story thread. There were so many conversations we could've been seeing instead of a bunch of searching corridors and crawling through vents and rehashing the same two damn conversations three or four times apiece.

We didn't even get a meaningful resolution for the season-long mystery of the memory wipe. We learn that Five did it, but we don't know how or why, and nobody but Six learns about it, so there's no resolution. Unless Six was lying and he was the one behind it, which I suppose is possible.

I'm not happy with Six turning out to be the traitor, but I don't know how to react to it in the absence of context, because we were given so very little to go on. Does this tie into the memory wipe, or is his betrayal some unrelated thing pertaining to his search for the General? If he was lying to Five and is actually the one behind the memory wipe, we have to wait until next season to find out, and that's unsatisfying. A seasonal arc should have a resolution, not just come to a sudden halt and make us wait nine months for more.

I mean, the Killjoys finale last week had its share of cliffhanger elements, but it also had a lot of major things happening, arcs reaching climaxes, old status quos ending. There was a real sense of closure alongside the dangling threads. And it packed at least two episodes' worth of stuff into one, rather than the kind of homeopathic storytelling we got here. That was a good season finale. This one pretty much sucked.

 

[sojourner]

Well, lets hope they finally got the ship's set paid for and can spend some money on location shoots next season.

Far too many episodes cooped up in the ship.

I half expected the 2 that made it back to the ship in episode 12 would turn out to be a copy and the "traitor" in episode 13, leaving them to have to go back and rescue the real 2. That would have been a better cliff hanger.

 

[cylkoth]

I was betting early on that One had to be an agent or cop, planted inside the crew to investigate them. Then the Travel Transit business revealed his true identity and took that off the table. After the cliffhanger we got, I'm now gonna assume that Griffin Jones turned himself in after the General had the space station bombed, and the Galactic Authority enlisted him as an informant, using him first, to supply them with intelligence on his former allies, and later, to infiltrate other criminals, where he fell in with the Raza crew. Or was a cop all along, on a deep cover assignment investigating the Resistance.

Or maybe the GA commandos just woke him up and made him walk on his on because he was too heavy to carry!

 

[kitik]

I'm not happy with Six turning out to be the traitor, but I don't know how to react to it in the absence of context, because we were given so very little to go on. Does this tie into the memory wipe, or is his betrayal some unrelated thing pertaining to his search for the General?

Didn't we learn that this is basically who Six is back in the memory flashback episode? He infiltrated the General's gang as an undercover agent, and it's likely he did the same thing on the Raza. Long-term deep undercover.

I suppose it's possible he just turned them in in an effort to clear his name and/or conscience after learning about blowing up the space station, and finally decided to go through with it after they delivered the weapon that blew up the planet, but I have a feeling he was planning this before the memory wipe, and that's why Two and Four were plotting to kill him.

I liked the finale.

One thing I will complain about is Five deleting the red android program. She flat out told Five that her job was to record, and yet Five didn't think or try to replay a recording of who zapped the android?

 

[kitik]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/dark-matter-season-finale-spoilers-818483

This interview seems to confirm some of my thoughts.



regarding season 2:

Have you heard anything about a second season renewal for Dark Matter from Syfy?

Still awaiting word!



What lies in wait for season two that you can talk about?

I said very early on that I had mapped out this five-year game plan. The season two finale will be an even bigger “holy shit” than season one. The first season was about peeling the onion on these characters’ backstories, finding out who they are, and it’s very personal. Season two we blow the doors off, do some world building, the past comes back to haunt and at the same time, the characters wrap up their exploration of their respective backstories. There’s going to be a real driving force early on in the season. In much of the first season the characters were reactive, on their heels, whereas in season two they become proactive. Like I said in the backstory, these are very bad people who are capable of very bad things and I think if we do a second season, it’ll blow you away.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

5's recording device was still under the table and it needed fixing to listen. It doesn't look like she knew anything about the plan to kill "someone" until she recovered the device this episode. (Maybe this is just a hole in the writing.)

She put the device there for a reason. She was likely already working with 6 by that time.

If 2, 3, and 4 were discussing killing someone, that someone was already going to betray them before they went into stasis, and they had already found them out.

Theory: When 6 went after the General he was still naïve about himself, however this caught the attention of someone else undercover watching the General. 6 may always have been undercover working for the GA. This is what 2, 3, and 4 were discussing on that recording.

One thing I will complain about is Five deleting the red android program. She flat out told Five that her job was to record, and yet Five didn't think or try to replay a recording of who zapped the android?

Theory: Did 5 order the red android to delete herself because 5 had been playing around with the android's programming and didn't want this found? That would explain her making a panic move to erase the red android without stopping to think of asking who knocked out the android.

 

[sojourner]

Didn't we learn that this is basically who Six is back in the memory flashback episode? He infiltrated the General's gang as an undercover agent, and it's likely he did the same thing on the Raza. Long-term deep undercover.

No. in the flashback episode there was no indication he was "infiltrating" the General's gang.

 

[Christopher]

Didn't we learn that this is basically who Six is back in the memory flashback episode? He infiltrated the General's gang as an undercover agent, and it's likely he did the same thing on the Raza. Long-term deep undercover.

I suppose it's possible he just turned them in in an effort to clear his name and/or conscience after learning about blowing up the space station, and finally decided to go through with it after they delivered the weapon that blew up the planet, but I have a feeling he was planning this before the memory wipe, and that's why Two and Four were plotting to kill him.

I hope you're right. I feel Roger Cross too often gets typecast as heavies, and he's done so well playing Six as a nice guy (and he really is like that in person, as I learned at the Shore Leave convention three weeks ago) that I don't want that to change. And I guess it makes sense. I'd forgotten that the ship at the end was a Galactic Authority ship. Plus, the fact that the drug in the water was just to knock them out rather than kill them is telling.

One thing I will complain about is Five deleting the red android program. She flat out told Five that her job was to record, and yet Five didn't think or try to replay a recording of who zapped the android?

Good point. But she was more concerned about protecting her friend the Android from being wiped.

Damn, I wish they'd give her a name other than "the Android." How about Annie?

 

[Borgminister]

Androia?

 

[DWF]

these wre the only two eps. of the show I've been able to catch and I agree it hardly made sense to accuse One when he watched by Three all the time, but I suppose it was menat to show how the paranoia was workling on them. And I thought the android's rescue of Two was amazing.

 

[Admiral2]

I'm not going to join the speculation game concerning Six and Five and whoever. I'm just here to give my final assessment of the season and series.

I went into this expecting to hate the show or at least find it one long series of meh episodes. The Android was the main thing that kept me watching, and as the series progressed I also grew to like Two and Three. For me those three characters are enough to bring me back if and when season two is announced. This is nothing new for me. I managed to get through all four seasons of nuBSG only giving a damn about Bill Adama, Starbuck and the ship. As for the others, Five is still Jubilee, Four is still Storm Shadow, only with his own kingdom, Six is just Roger Cross playing the same Roger Cross I've seen a billion other times, and One is still Wesley Crusher (nicely contrasted by the real Wesley with facial hair and a set of cojones.) If any or all of them get slagged at the start of S2 I won't be shedding any tears.

I want to address a couple of things people have complained about here: sets and "worldbuilding." First, do we really care that they used recognizable settings like malls and warehouses instead of building more futuristic looking sets that would perform the exact same functions as malls and warehouses? Really? Its a cost-saving measure, but not one that's really a problem unless you're inclined to obsess over it instead of keeping in mind that location shooting has been a part of sci-fi television since sci-fi television was invented. Half the episodes of TOS trek were filmed in the California desert or on soundstages made to look like a California desert. I don't hear anybody complaining "They should have spent more money and made them look like deserts on Mars or Venus!"

As for a lack of worldbuilding...They're mercenaries in a future with interstellar travel dominated by powerful corporations with armies. World built. I got that in the first episode. Everything past that is window dressing anyway. Let them dress the windows in their own time.

Look, this show isn't going to win any awards for originality. It's a trope-laden space opera, but for a fan base desirous of any kind of space opera on TV, SyFy could have done worse (and has. They premiered Killjoys, and Defiance is still on the air for some reason.). It's worth sticking with for at least one more season.

P.S.: Leave naming the Android up to the Android. She's outspoken enough that if she ever wants a name, she'll request it, politely but forcefully.

 

[Star Wolf]

P.S.: Leave naming the Android up to the Android. She's outspoken enough that if she ever wants a name, she'll request it, politely but forcefully.

Android , fits with One, Two.... especial since we have two separate names, aliases. for One and Two

 

[sojourner]

First, do we really care that they used recognizable settings like malls and warehouses instead of building more futuristic looking sets that would perform the exact same functions as malls and warehouses? Really? Its a cost-saving measure, but not one that's really a problem unless you're inclined to obsess over it instead of keeping in mind that location shooting has been a part of sci-fi television since sci-fi television was invented. Half the episodes of TOS trek were filmed in the California desert or on soundstages made to look like a California desert. I don't hear anybody complaining "They should have spent more money and made them look like deserts on Mars or Venus!"

To be fair, the criticism isn't that they are using malls and warehouses to represent malls and warehouses. It's that those malls and warehouses are supposed to represent the interior of space ships and stations. While it would be expensive to build sets, they could be more creative in they're choice of location shoots. They're s plenty of locations, like when they actually shot aboard a sea vessel for the derelict ship episode, that would be better suited than what we've seen.

 

[kitik]

Didn't we learn that this is basically who Six is back in the memory flashback episode? He infiltrated the General's gang as an undercover agent, and it's likely he did the same thing on the Raza. Long-term deep undercover.

No. in the flashback episode there was no indication he was "infiltrating" the General's gang.

Scanning through this thread, I suggested the possibility back on page 19 of this thread. It was a logical explanation for his actions at the end of the flashback. It would explain why he executed everybody in that scene.

It would also explain why, two episodes later when he used the vacation technology and killed the vacation clone of the General, that one guy came into the room afterwards and asked "what did you do?", as if Six was supposed to be following a different plan of action instead.

Turns out that was the same guy walking next to Six at the end of the finale there, escorting the crew of the Raza off to prison or wherever.

So quite clearly, Six has been an undercover agent for the GA all along.


The only question is where we go from here. Perhaps Six will decide that the GA is even worse than the folks they hunt down, and choose to free the Raza crew from prison. Or maybe the GA doesn't want to throw the Raza folks in prison, they want to force them to do a really nasty job, and will put Six in charge of keeping an eye on them. Or maybe that's the end of Six. (Or maybe he'll show up as a Grant Ward-like character in season 2.)

 

[kitik]

And I thought the android's rescue of Two was amazing.

I want to address a couple of things people have complained about here: sets and "worldbuilding." First, do we really care that they used recognizable settings like malls and warehouses instead of building more futuristic looking sets that would perform the exact same functions as malls and warehouses? Really? Its a cost-saving measure, but not one that's really a problem unless you're inclined to obsess over it instead of keeping in mind that location shooting has been a part of sci-fi television since sci-fi television was invented. Half the episodes of TOS trek were filmed in the California desert or on soundstages made to look like a California desert. I don't hear anybody complaining "They should have spent more money and made them look like deserts on Mars or Venus!"

It seemed to me like we got far more special effects than usual in that "rescue Two" episode. There were lots of shots of the shuttle flying around, and pink trees, and other exterior shots.

As I was watching it, I thought "oh, they spent half of the season's effects budget on this episode!"

 

[JD]

Episode 12 was the better of the two. It was nice finally getting Two's big episode, and it was fun seeing Wil Weaton. So I wonder what she was built for originally? The old guy at the end makes me wonder if she was part of an experiment to create a new body for him or someone else. I'm assuming she wouldn't actually be a new body herself, unless the guy was looking for a quick sex change.
13 wasn't quite as good. It did get a little teadious with them all searching the ship and standing around accusing each other. We did get some new info, but it didn't like it was any more significant than what we've already gotten in other episodes.
The cliffhanger at the end was interesting. It looked to me like Six was working with or for the GA, so for me the big question is how that ties into the memory loss. I'm wondering if he's been working for them all along. Perhaps Five found out and then later the others did and so she did the memory wipe to keep the rest of the crew from killing him. I just realized as I was typing, that that would also explain the recording.

 

[Star Wolf]

The only question is where we go from here. Perhaps Six will decide that the GA is even worse than the folks they hunt down, and choose to free the Raza crew from prison. Or maybe the GA doesn't want to throw the Raza folks in prison, they want to force them to do a really nasty job, and will put Six in charge of keeping an eye on them. Or maybe that's the end of Six. (Or maybe he'll show up as a Grant Ward-like character in season 2.)

I am going with the Dirty Dozen scenario where the secretary will disavow the Raza crew after doing GA's bidding on the forlorn hope suicide mission. To keep the team together Six would be like Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel from the Dirty Dozen movie. The, commander and MP guard who went along with the condemned, but Two would still be in command.

There is a chance that One's corporation is powerful enough that they will take over the Raza.

 

[Christopher]

Android , fits with One, Two.... especial since we have two separate names, aliases. for One and Two

But they don't call her "Android," like a name -- they call her "the Android," like a piece of equipment. I know they don't think of her that way anymore, but that's exactly why calling her that no longer works. That definite article is distancing, depersonalizing. It's as if they only referred to Three as "the mercenary" or to Five as "the kid."

Besides, strictly speaking, she's a gynoid.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Damn, I wish they'd give her a name other than "the Android." How about Annie?

If they add two new crew members she could be 7 of 9.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Android , fits with One, Two.... especial since we have two separate names, aliases. for One and Two

But they don't call her "Android," like a name -- they call her "the Android," like a piece of equipment. I know they don't think of her that way anymore, but that's exactly why calling her that no longer works. That definite article is distancing, depersonalizing. It's as if they only referred to Three as "the mercenary" or to Five as "the kid."

They call her "Android" (no "the") all the time. Example: In the finale, Five comes into the bridge and says, "Android, I have something I want to talk about with you. Android?" And then she starts searching for her.

I think Three still calls her "the android" but that's more about him being dismissive of her as a non-person.