Spoilers Dark Matter - Season 2
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With the red avatar established stating that the android knows she is not factory perfect I think they may be going the Andromeda route with a bigger difference between the avatar and the android than Rommie had with her different roles
And the informant that the Android captured in the flashforward, the guy who told them where to find Corso, looked familiar. I wondered if he might be the same actor who played Vex on Lost Girl. If so, that would be three LG veterans in one episode.
I felt Holden-Reid's character was similar to Lt. Gerard from The Fugitive -- the decent cop who's pursuing the protagonists and who will gradually come to realize they aren't the bad guys he assumes.
I could suggest some design changes if they want to avoid being hacked. 
They should keep finding ways to bring him back and then immediately kill him.Unless Corso has a twin brother, I think the showrunners really wanted Marc Bendavid off the show.
I could suggest some design changes if they want to avoid being hacked.
Like, don't put your computer access port right where a detainee can easily access it without the cops noticing? Yeah, that was weird set design. Why even get the cop to leave the room if she didn't have to come around the desk to hack the system?
I agree, I like seeing the change in her "when she let her hair down" but I also like her as Android. I hope they can find a way to have her do both (besides the holographic version of her.)
When one was killed I thought they would make Corso a regular replacing him, guess I was wrong about that.
So Android is using Dr Soong's emotion chip. Is she going to hook up with Devon?
When Nyx character first appeared I thought she was rather unattractive. But now she seems to be getting hotter each episode. Not sure what is going on but I am not complaining.
So Android is using Dr Soong's emotion chip. Is she going to hook up with Devon?
When Nyx character first appeared I thought she was rather unattractive. But now she seems to be getting hotter each episode. Not sure what is going on but I am not complaining.
I figured all along that they wanted to drop Bendavid because he was the weakest cast member by far, but I realized I might be biased by my own reaction to him. But... well, let's just say this week's developments are consistent with my hypothesis.
They established last season that she already has emotions. This just lets her mimic human expressiveness more effectively. What's on the surface shouldn't be mistaken for what drives it underneath. For instance, people on the autistic spectrum feel just as deeply as anyone else, but often lack the capacity to express it or share it with others. I guess you could say that's a good analogy for the Android's mental state up to now. And putting it that way makes me even all the more eager to see her lose the upgrade and go back to her previous behavior. It's not deficient just because it's different.
Seriously? I thought she was even more stunning in her first couple of appearances than she is now. (Partly because she was dressed more revealingly, but I think the hairstyle, and maybe the lighting in the prison sets, had something to do with it too.)
It was a nice new episode. Allthough I also hope the change in Android is not permanent (the ending seemed to hint that the emotion chip may be deactivated, for the time being), her scenes were pretty fun. I like the new character, GA inspector Kierken, who seems to be both honest and competent (he may become what I hoped Franka Potente's character would be - a potential long-term ally of sorts).
I also liked it that they didn't go for a prolonged arc with Corso - and that Two didn't spare him, which would have been misplaced in this universe and with those characters. Corso didn't go down that easily, without Nyx he would have nailed at least one of them and the big boobytrap had teeth.
It was also nice that even Six had a substantial part in the outcome, back to his old role of flying the marauder.
I'm worried about the ratings on Scifi, which seemingly show DM losing audience constantly, with Killjoys doing even worse. I hope the info I get from the web is wrong, or I'm reading the data incorrectly, or that viewers have shifted en masse towards other means of watching, but it's not looking great for either show I'm afraid.
I also liked it that they didn't go for a prolonged arc with Corso - and that Two didn't spare him, which would have been misplaced in this universe and with those characters. Corso didn't go down that easily, without Nyx he would have nailed at least one of them and the big boobytrap had teeth.
It was also nice that even Six had a substantial part in the outcome, back to his old role of flying the marauder.
I'm worried about the ratings on Scifi, which seemingly show DM losing audience constantly, with Killjoys doing even worse. I hope the info I get from the web is wrong, or I'm reading the data incorrectly, or that viewers have shifted en masse towards other means of watching, but it's not looking great for either show I'm afraid.
Well, these are both Canadian shows from the Space channel, although Killjoys is a Syfy co-production. (Dark Matter is not, apparently, despite having the "SyFy Original Series" graphic superimposed.) So it's the ratings on Space that matter most for their renewal, I'd think. Although low ratings might cause Syfy to stop picking them up even if Space renews them.
Honestly, I could take or leave Dark Matter. It's a fairly mediocre show rehashing a lot of familiar genre tropes and not doing anything particularly striking with them. The main reason I watch it is because most of the cast members are fairly entertaining to watch, in one way or another. But Killjoys has built a much richer, fresher, more distinctive universe, has solid writing and good characters,and brings out the best in actors that I've found rather bland elsewhere. (I realized recently that it's the first time I've found an Aaron Ashmore character genuinely engaging rather than just watchable and inoffensive.) I'd hate to lose that one.
Anyone knows the ratings on Space Channel? I haven't found that info on the web.
The strongest points of Dark Matter are its cast/characters (with a core cast that is quite a bit larger than that of Killjoys) and the consistent, arcbased storytelling. Killjoys has the latter too (quite remarkable really, after most SF shows have gone for planet/case/species/story-of-the-week for so long) but the style of that show is something you are probably for or against.
The strongest points of Dark Matter are its cast/characters (with a core cast that is quite a bit larger than that of Killjoys) and the consistent, arcbased storytelling. Killjoys has the latter too (quite remarkable really, after most SF shows have gone for planet/case/species/story-of-the-week for so long) but the style of that show is something you are probably for or against.
Honestly, that's where I think the shows differ most. Killjoys has had a clear sense of direction from the beginning. Pretty much everything has been driven by either the mystery of Khlyen and his agenda or the class warfare between the Company and the masses, and both storylines have continued to advance and reveal new things on a steady basis. But Dark Matter is a jumble of unrelated story arcs without any singular focus. There's "Who killed One's wife" (which has now become "Who had One killed"), there's Wil Wheaton pursuing Two, there are Three's various one-and-done tragic backstory revelations, there's Four's deeply racially caricatured revenge/reclaim-his-rightful-throne arc, there's Five's dimensional key that they've completely failed to explain in a season and a half, there's Six's whole first-season arc that turned out to be a cover anyway and is no longer relevant, there's this random android resistance movement that's suddenly shown up, there's Devon's whole "drug-addict doctor that killed a patient" arc that Killjoys did much better with Pawter, there's whatever Nyx arc has yet to be revealed, and there's the overall "on the run from the corporations" theme that only loosely ties the overall world together.
Basically, Killjoys is in the more modern, serialized, "novel for television" form that feels like it'll be a complete, cohesive story when and if it reaches its natural conclusion, while DM is closer to the older Stargate/ST:TNG style of storytelling that was just an open-ended status-quo premise with various individual character arcs unfolding within it. Which I suppose isn't intrinsically bad, but it does make the show feel a bit more generic, or like a bunch of separate, parallel stories that share a relatively vague setting, whereas Killjoys feels like it has a stronger, more unified sense of identity.
I disagree that DM is like ST:TNG, allthough maybe the comparison with Stargate shows (that at least had arcs in things like the war with the Goa'uld) are a bit more apt. Given Mallozi's repeated claims about a pre-planned five-year arc, about planned endings for his characters (some good, some not so good), about telling the fans how it would have continued should it not make the full five seasons, I'm quite confident that distinct storylines will come together when seen over the full five years.
For example, Four's storyline may seem disparate from the others, but I'm pretty sure it will tie in with the corporations and the GA. And if he actually starts getting involved in his home region again (both in his family issues and in the war with Pyr), it will likely involve the rest of the crew as well, potentially changing the game if he ends up in a position of power (or also, if things go completely south).
Five's key has been mentioned early in S1; it will be explained, but DM is a slow burn. That doesn't mean it doesn't operate in novel form, much like Killjoys; Chekhov's key will used to open a door, probably already in the present season. It may take a bit of patience, but Mallozi didn't put it in the show for nothing and I'm convinced he knew what he wanted to do with it allready when it was first mentioned/shown.
As for Devon, it's a bit early to say that Pawter's backstory is much better; we have merely gotten a teaser about him. And Six, the General may not be mentioned now but that doesn't mean he isn't coming back. If 5 seasons are planned, you can't resolve everything before the second one is even halfway done.
A major difference between TNG and DM is the reset mechanism; things happened in TNG episodes, but there were seldom lasting consequences and very rarely major consequences or shake-ups. DM does have consequences, IMO to the same degree as Killjoys.
And TNG was not pre-planned, not even individual seasons had anything resembling arcs. Things like the Romulan presence or the Borg menace were visited from time to time, but with the exception of "best of both worlds" always without consequences. After so many years of threatening war but never getting there, it was up to DS9 to finally make up for that in its final seasons (luckily, as it became hard to believe that Starfleet could constantly be on the brink of major war without it ever erupting, that single serious Borg incursion aside).
For example, Four's storyline may seem disparate from the others, but I'm pretty sure it will tie in with the corporations and the GA. And if he actually starts getting involved in his home region again (both in his family issues and in the war with Pyr), it will likely involve the rest of the crew as well, potentially changing the game if he ends up in a position of power (or also, if things go completely south).
Five's key has been mentioned early in S1; it will be explained, but DM is a slow burn. That doesn't mean it doesn't operate in novel form, much like Killjoys; Chekhov's key will used to open a door, probably already in the present season. It may take a bit of patience, but Mallozi didn't put it in the show for nothing and I'm convinced he knew what he wanted to do with it allready when it was first mentioned/shown.
As for Devon, it's a bit early to say that Pawter's backstory is much better; we have merely gotten a teaser about him. And Six, the General may not be mentioned now but that doesn't mean he isn't coming back. If 5 seasons are planned, you can't resolve everything before the second one is even halfway done.
A major difference between TNG and DM is the reset mechanism; things happened in TNG episodes, but there were seldom lasting consequences and very rarely major consequences or shake-ups. DM does have consequences, IMO to the same degree as Killjoys.
And TNG was not pre-planned, not even individual seasons had anything resembling arcs. Things like the Romulan presence or the Borg menace were visited from time to time, but with the exception of "best of both worlds" always without consequences. After so many years of threatening war but never getting there, it was up to DS9 to finally make up for that in its final seasons (luckily, as it became hard to believe that Starfleet could constantly be on the brink of major war without it ever erupting, that single serious Borg incursion aside).
I said it was "closer to" the TNG model, not that it was exactly like it.
Maybe, but it just feels like there are more separate and barely-connected arcs that just happen to be playing out in parallel. That's not necessarily worse, intrinsically, but Dark Matter's focus is so divided that it just hasn't been able to create as strong a sense of setting as Killjoys has. It's just a bunch of stuff happening in a fairly generic space-opera background. There's nothing really making it distinctive beyond "corporations run everything," and that's been a stock science fiction trope since the cyberpunk '80s. True, Killjoys is also a corporate dystopia, but it's more focused on the Quad and its distinct subcultures and factions and dynamics.
Maybe, but I'm sure there's a way that the pacing could've been handled better so that we learned a bit more about it by now. I mean, we're a season and a half in, and I have no idea yet why I should give a damn about the key. Just saying "Have patience, they'll probably get to it eventually" doesn't help cure my lack of interest in it right now. There's a difference between dropping enough tantalizing hints to keep up interest and just being so vague and cursory that you never manage to generate interest in the first place. Okay, so it's a key that accesses higher dimensions. If there'd been any discussion of what that could practically mean in the show's context, or if we'd seen that there was a problem that it could relate to in some way, then it could be interesting. As it stands, it just seems like a random bit of technobabble that connects to nothing.
But that's exactly why Pawter's version was handled better -- because it was handled efficiently, set up and paid off in the same episode. When we learned of her impairment before she performed major surgery, it actually created suspense through the risk that the surgery could fail. On this show, they set up Devon's addiction and shaky hands before he operated on Six -- which seemed like it was meant to set up a danger to Six, a risk that the operation would fail -- and then they did absolutely nothing with that setup, having the surgery go perfectly fine off-camera. That's just bad plot structure.
I like the characters in Dark Matter a lot more than the ones in Killjoys. I like and watch both series, but Killjoys doesn't keep my attention like Dark Matter does. I wonder if women like DM more than Killjoys or if there is any difference. I was going to say that Killjoys has more violence or fighting than DM, but I'm not sure that's true. It varies from episode to episode,really, but the character interaction on DM engages me more.
Remind me, does Pawter still have issues from that addiction? If not, and based on her doing heart surgery recently- she doesn't, Then how is that better handled than Devon's addiction? Which is still an ongoing problem. Much better reflecting real life. Addictions don't just "go away". Devon's seems to have more of an ongoing impact instead of just being used for a one time "tension moment".
I wouldn't say I have an overall preference. It depends on the character.
I'd think it would be the other way around, if anything, since DM has been created and written exclusively by men, while KJ has a female creator/showrunner and about half its episodes have been written by women. Of course, there's a lot of diversity of opinion within either sex, but on the whole, I'd say KJ has more of a female voice to it.
What I like about both shows is that, now that Bendavid's gone, they both have women of color in their top-billed roles, which is a striking thing. (Although it's more of a technicality in DM's case, since they're an ensemble cast billed in "numerical" order.) And they're both playing characters who are natural leaders, respected by their crews and friends, smart and tough and ultra-capable, and they're both playing women asserting their independence from the men who "created" them and feel entitled to control their lives. (And they're both mind-bogglingly gorgeous, too.)
I think the relationships on Killjoys have more heart to them. After all, those characters have history. The DM characters have technically only known each other for a few months. They have their shared experiences bonding them, but it doesn't have quite the same depth or texture as something like the 8-year-long friendship between Dutch and Johnny, or her friendships with Pree and Alvis, or the complex brotherly relationship between Johnny and D'Avin, or Pawter's fraught relationship with her family. I talked about how similar Dutch and Two are, but I like Dutch better because she has more warmth, more affection.
Not that DM's cast is entirely devoid of that. I like Five and Six a lot because they both have a lot of warmth in them, especially toward each other. Five is cool because she's the heart of the crew, although I'm uneasy about how that means she's basically chosen to become a criminal and a killer for them. And the Android's fondness for her crew and vice-versa is nice too.
