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Spoilers Dark Matter - Season 2

Because she was still active even when shut down for charging -- that had been established when she revealed that she was dreaming. So they couldn't be sure she actually was shut down. And if she was actually dangerous, then she'd probably defend herself if they tried to dismantle her, and as Three said, "Been there, done that."

So no "off" switch, then? Even Data had an off switch.
 
No, she was in a sleep/hibernation/standby mode with all of her higher functions deactivated for the duration (which was glitchy, causing her to dream). She was in no way, shape, or form actually turned off whatsoever.
 
Schedule notice...

There will be 2 episodes aired this week. I assumed the first (ep 11) would air in Killjoy's 9pmEST timeslot, but no, the show will start at it's regular 10pmEST, with the second (ep 12) following at 11pm.
The finale will run in it's regular time the following week (Z Nation returns with a 2 hour premiere at 8pmEST).
 
But in comparison to the other two hallucinations where we got actual guest stars for the leads to play off of, this one felt incongruous and comparatively weak. And it's obvious that the reason it's the odd one out was because they couldn't arrange for a third guest actor along with the other two (presumably because Wheaton is a bigger name than Ellen Wong and Natalie Brown and isn't as easy to afford). Obviously anything can be rationalized after the fact if you're so inclined, but that doesn't mean everything is an equally good idea or an equally desirable choice. No doubt they would've written the scene with Wheaton if they could have, and that would've been more effective than what they had to settle for.


Don't forget Dark Matter is filmed in Toronto - Wong and Brown are local actors. Wheaton would have to be fiown up from L.A (about a 4 hour flight) and then accommodated for a couple of days while the scene was shot so you're not just have to worry about his pay rate but the costs of getting him there.

And that's also assuming he was available at the time they were shooting the episode.
 
Don't forget Dark Matter is filmed in Toronto - Wong and Brown are local actors. Wheaton would have to be fiown up from L.A (about a 4 hour flight) and then accommodated for a couple of days while the scene was shot so you're not just have to worry about his pay rate but the costs of getting him there.

And that's also assuming he was available at the time they were shooting the episode.

Wheaton was in the immediately previous episode, remember. And this scene was in a Raza corridor, one of the standing sets. They could've filmed the scene a week early, while Wheaton was on hand. Shooting schedules are often rearranged to accommodate an actor's schedule; for instance, ST:TNG's "Unification" 2-parter filmed the second part first to accommodate Leonard Nimoy's schedule, and naturally shot Nimoy's appearance at the end of part 1 during the filming of part 2.
 
Wheaton isn't really an active actor, so he's probably more available (and cheaper) than many people think. Where else does he act, besides an annual-ish appearance on Big Bang? His convention schedule and other personal appearances probably net him more time and income (not that it's a bad thing).

Furthermore, the Dark Matter crew are experts in filming multiple episodes simultaneously, having done years of parallel production on Stagates SG-1 and Atlantis, plus maneuvering around perpetual problems like having Richard Dean Anderson available for only three days a week in his latter seasons as a series regular. There are many stories of how they were filming several episodes concurrently and the actors not knowing which story they're on. They pulled it off pretty well there and those producers should be able to easily juggle guest actors across multiple episodes if need be. IMO they probably either didn't want to pay Wheaton for an additional appearance, or didn't want to overplay his character.

Mark
 
Wheaton isn't really an active actor, so he's probably more available (and cheaper) than many people think. Where else does he act, besides an annual-ish appearance on Big Bang?

He's been plenty active recently according to IMDb. In addition to Rook and the sitcom thing, he appeared in a recurring role in the second season of Powers, and he's done a number of voice roles and more minor TV appearances.


Furthermore, the Dark Matter crew are experts in filming multiple episodes simultaneously, having done years of parallel production on Stagates SG-1 and Atlantis, plus maneuvering around perpetual problems like having Richard Dean Anderson available for only three days a week in his latter seasons as a series regular. There are many stories of how they were filming several episodes concurrently and the actors not knowing which story they're on. They pulled it off pretty well there and those producers should be able to easily juggle guest actors across multiple episodes if need be. IMO they probably either didn't want to pay Wheaton for an additional appearance, or didn't want to overplay his character.

Most likely the money thing. How would it have been "overplaying" him to have him appear in Two's nightmare, where it would've been perfectly logical for him to appear?
 
Well, granted Rook is the CEO and is responsible for creating Two, but I'd like to think that her time there would have more bad times in her memory than just whenever he was around. Similarly, Reynaud can't be the ONLY corporate dirtbag in the Mikkei Combine. I guess I'd just like there to be more broad an assortment of threats to the bad guys than just one person per evil organization.

Mark
 
Well, granted Rook is the CEO and is responsible for creating Two, but I'd like to think that her time there would have more bad times in her memory than just whenever he was around.

Except she doesn't have those memories anymore. The only things she remembers about Dwarf Star are the events of the two episodes that Rook has been in. So there can be nothing in her memories that we haven't already seen on the show. In fact, we've seen more than she should be able to remember, because we've seen flashbacks to her past, when the guy who was kind to her was telling her about how he'd been kind to her.
 
Hum, good point on that... I was just figuring she'd been remembering peripheral memories or something.

Mark
 
That was intense. So Nyx really didn't know her brother was dead. Four tells Nyx her brother was too dangerous to live and then he takes out the royal family and their supporters. Getting his memories back also gave him back the ruthlessness he formerly possessed. He will want the blink drive, of course, so he will be against his former friends. Will he join One?
 
I was disappointed that Four killed his brother...he was legitimately innocent. So how is this all going to end? Four now reminds me of Tyr Anasazi of Andromeda.


Oh, also, I hadn't previously noticed...but the cars???? Holy Low-tech/low-budget!
 
Yeah, that's the first time they've shown ground transportation on this show.

The second episode tonight revolving around Four was well done. It felt like some of Micheal Stackpole's writing for Battletech.
 
No gun but tonight we got Chekhov's Knives, Chekhov's Bear Trap, Chekhov's Weapon Cleaning Supplies and Chekhov's Sour Fruit.

Four looked funny smiling with the android, not sure if that was the character or the actor. Not sure where there going with the story with Ryo, it'd seems it'd be difficult to bring him back into the fold.

I was disappointed that Four killed his brother...he was legitimately innocent.

Then again how many people got bombed by the android?
 
The first hour was okay, but I don't like it that this is the second time that bad guys have used the implied threat of rape against Five. It was distasteful and unnecessary the first time and it was even more so now. And these backwoods villains were absurdly exaggerated. Make a vest from her skin and hang her face on the wall? Where the hell did that come from?

The GA troops using Transfer clones is a neat idea. It lets them travel instantly to where they're needed and protects them from harm. It would be a perfect system if they could figure out a way to compensate for the memory loss. It's also nice in that it allows the protagonists to defeat them without killing anybody. Really, the way the ramifications of the Transfer Transit technology are being explored and developed over the course of this show is one of my favorite things about it. I'm remembering that this was something the Stargate franchise usually did well -- instead of just featuring a technology in one episode and then forgetting it like Star Trek and other franchises did, it would reuse the tech and explore it various ramifications over time. (Well, for the most part. There were those nonlethal "intar" weapons that the Jaffa had for a while, which would've been great to reverse-engineer and add to the SGC's arsenal or provide to the civilian authorities and public as a reliable nonlethal weapon, but they got forgotten after a few uses.)

As for the second episode, I've never cared for any of the Ryo/Zairon stuff, but at least it's pretty much over now. I had a feeling that Ryo would turn bad at the end; they certainly telegraphed it enough with Five's concern about the restored memories. I could see him becoming the main Big Bad of the series after this -- certainly a rival to the Raza crew, as he tries to take the blink drive from them and they try to keep it for themselves.

I actually liked Mallari's performance as Ryo/Four better than his performance in the past. He was more charming and animated, more outgoing. It's interesting how they made him more friendly and expressive of his fondness for the crew, then turned around and showed he was capable of such ruthlessness and cruelty.

Let's see, was Misaki the only speaking character he left alive? I think so. I won't much miss the other actors and their mangling of Japanese pronunciation. The Empress's pronunciation of the honorific "-kun" was so bad that I could only figure out what it was from context.

Why didn't the Seers predict that Ryo would have them killed? How was he able to take them by surprise? It can't be that they didn't know he'd have Ryo's memories back, since they would've had to know that in order to predict everything else they predicted. So it's unconvincing that their amazing predictive powers just inexplicably happened to fail them where their own demise was concerned.

Anyway, that's a surprisingly abrupt end to that particular story arc, and it reinforces my perception that the writers have no interest in acknowledging Devon or his death again, since the only people who know what happened to Devon (i.e. his killers) are now dead themselves without ever mentioning it. I hear the claims that this show has its whole plot arc carefully worked out in advance, and that may be so for the broad strokes, but Devon's whole arc seemed completely slapped together, like they had no idea what to do with the character and then just got rid of him at the first opportunity.
 
Why didn't the Seers predict that Ryo would have them killed? How was he able to take them by surprise? It can't be that they didn't know he'd have Ryo's memories back, since they would've had to know that in order to predict everything else they predicted. So it's unconvincing that their amazing predictive powers just inexplicably happened to fail them where their own demise was concerned.

Well, this is a stretch but he has been involved with Nyx and we saw him playing with her cognitive abilities so perhaps he was learning how to game their system just enough to allow one brutal coin flip to be unforeseen.
 
Well, this is a stretch but he has been involved with Nyx and we saw him playing with her cognitive abilities so perhaps he was learning how to game their system just enough to allow one brutal coin flip to be unforeseen.

That's actually not much of a stretch at all. It makes a fair amount of sense. Although not entirely, since he didn't actually succeed at outsmarting Nyx, and she's just one person. The Seers' collective mind should've easily surpassed her predictive talents.

Maybe the head Seer himself altered the outcome by telling Ryo what he predicted. Maybe that actually was what Ryo planned to do, but once the Seer told him, Ryo decided to do the opposite. Although why didn't the Seer predict that Ryo would react to his prediction that way...?
 
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