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

I don't know about SyFy but on the Space channel in Canada it was heavily promoted. Commercials during every show for the past month, interviews with the cast on Inner Space, the works.

It's been heavily promoted on Syfy for months now, and there was a series of io9 articles leading up to it (their reviewer also quite likes it, while admitting it's predictable).

After all, this is the start of the network's effort to return to its roots -- more space shows and a Friday lineup devoted to scripted dramas instead of wrestling. They wouldn't want to downplay that.

I guess I gave up on SyFy without making an effort to. I tuned in to give Defiance one last chance and saw the promo for it but waited a week for my system's on demand to carry the episode.
 
The clone vacation commercial reminded me of Kiln People by David Brin. I like that this show is mixing more variety -- like clone holidays -- into its sci-fi elements as it progresses.

I also like that the producers seem to offer more of an effort in maintaining the futuristic and other-worldliness of the setting throughout, as opposed to some SyFy shows. Killjoys, for instance, always starts an episode strongly steeped in advanced tech and strange-looking settings, but then seems to be filmed in some half-dressed studio backlot by the last half of the show. Dark Matter, so far, has done a much better job of disguising its seams.

Does anyone know if "Raza" has been established on the show as being spelled with a "z" or an "s"? I think the comic spelled it with a "z" but it seems like an "s" would be more appropriate, given the tabula rasa nature of the characters.
 
Interesting episode.
I know they've been awake longer than the vacation clones usually do, but I still have to wonder if they weren't brought into existence through that process or at least a similar one. Although that does make you wonder why and how since the real Jace apparently had not recollection of being cloned.

So it looks like those must have been Four's memories that Five dreamed about in Episode One.
 
One and three make for an entertaining away team. But they totally botched the weapon sales,
 
One and three make for an entertaining away team. But they totally botched the weapon sales,

Well, RealCorso interfered with their attempt to sell the weapons and then stole the weapons. So I'd say the blame lies more with him.
 
Didn't they tell him he could take them?

Only because he was holding them hostage. It's not like he approached them with the specific goal of buying their guns. Since they surrendered them under duress and were not paid for it, and since he removed them from the ship under false pretenses by pretending to be One, I call that theft.
 
I had to adjust my setting because this ep was so dark I couldn't see anything.

So all those people in the fields were running a bad-drugs operation to make money and take back some control over their lives and they got sprayed to death. That sucked.
 
I think you got your series confused. That was Killjoys, not Dark Matter.

Speaking of, of the two shows, I'm definitely liking Dark Matter a lot more. Sure it's dark and the low budget they're trying to maintain is pretty blatant, but I like the characters (stereotypical as some of them are; which I can forgive since they practically virgin fresh mentally and only have stereotypes available to distinguish themselves with for now) and mysteries so far. I actually do want to know why someone erased their memories (I assumed it had something to do with that commercial Six saw, with them being the original bodies just with their minds having been 'lost' or something), but that seems to have just been a red herring for some reason. And I do want to know what's behind that magic door (again, if it didn't appear to be a red herring, I'd say it was their destination clones).

Killjoys though? Eh, I'll keep watching it to see if it gets any better, but so far I'm pretty bored with it. Possibly because of its episodic nature and bounty-of-the-week stories.
 
My pet theory is that there is no ONE reason they're all on the ship without memories. Perhaps one of them is a clone with spiffy life-extending technology; others could be genuine people who had their memories erased, or some even weirder things. It would be far more interesting than the notion that they're all replicants - though someone masterminding a ship with expendable copies of the galaxy's best criminals does have a neat vibe to it.

Mark
 
Ooh, I just thought of a possible explanation that I'll spoiler-box just in case:

Maybe the Raza crew deliberately beamed their own memories to a set of clones somewhere in order to do something clandestine, but something went wrong with the transfer and they didn't get their memories back. Maybe at some point they'll even come across their own dormant clones, still awaiting a personality download and activation that never came.
 
though someone masterminding a ship with expendable copies of the galaxy's best criminals does have a neat vibe to it.
Mark

That's a neat idea. I could picture the "real" 2, or maybe even the real 6 being behind the whole thing.
 
Well, I saw the first two episodes and was interested enough to stick with it. So last night, I cue up "On Demand" from our Charter Cable Service to catch episodes 3 and 4. Right now, "On Demand" has episodes 1, 2 and 4. What the hell? Since this show is serialized, one really needs to see E3 or E4 won't make a lot of sense.

Why do these stupid services do crap like this? I'll check back in a day or two to see if they have corrected their blunder, but crap like this just kills interest in a show....

Q2
 
Meh. Yeah, it's probably preferable to see episode 3 before episode 4, but honestly if your on demand doesn't right itself, you're probably fine with missing it. Anything you missed in 3 is addressed in 4. You won't really be behind.
 
^Well, I wouldn't say that. Episode 3 was important for the character-building, fleshing out the personalities and relationships. I didn't really start to get invested in the characters until episode 3. So I think it's pretty important to making the series seem worth watching.
 
Well, I saw the first two episodes and was interested enough to stick with it. So last night, I cue up "On Demand" from our Charter Cable Service to catch episodes 3 and 4. Right now, "On Demand" has episodes 1, 2 and 4. What the hell? Since this show is serialized, one really needs to see E3 or E4 won't make a lot of sense.

Why do these stupid services do crap like this? I'll check back in a day or two to see if they have corrected their blunder, but crap like this just kills interest in a show....

Q2
If I'm reading your location right and you're in the US, then you can watch all four episodes including episode 3 on the Syfy website (or at least you should, Syfy's video player and my computer don't get along) and on Hulu. I do a lot of my TV show watching through Hulu so that would be my recommendation.
 
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