Dark Matter Series Premiere Review: Syfy's Next Great Series or More Space Garbage?
Dark Matter S01E01
We've all been there. You wake up, and you have no idea who you are, where you are, or why you're there. Or why the Asian guy near you can use a katana so well. Or why some weird girl with colored hair is great with sci-fi electronics and telling stories about how she murdered her dad. It's called college. But imagine if that happened to you on a derelict spaceship! No amount of Advil, cafeteria breakfast sandwiches, and hair of the dog would fix that.
That's the premise of Syfy's uneven but ultimately interesting new series Dark Matter, written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, two of the dudes who brought you various iterations of the Stargate franchise. Based on Mallozzi and Mullie's graphic novel of the same name, the first hour of Dark Matter escaped the typical gravitational pull of Syfy mediocrity thanks to a last-minute twist that opened up the series to impressive dissection. It would appear that Dark Matter knows that the great part about a series built around a mystery is maintaining the intrigue of the mystery while fooling the audience into thinking they've gotten answers, because after watching the first episode, we're not that much closer to understanding what's going on but there are layers that make you want to figure it all out.
Things started fairly standard based on the given logline that sold the series: six people snapped out of stasis with no memories of who they were or why they're on a derelict ship. They took on numbers for names based on the order of when they woke up (my name would be "Dead Last"), and quickly paired off to fulfill their archetypical character molds. One was the good guy leader, Two was the strong female, Three was the madman, Four was the weirdo girl with dyed hair, Five apparently was the weapons expert, and Six was the big guy. And oh yeah, there was a female android.
But just when I wanted things to get deep with questions of how someone would mentally handle this awkward situation of being stranded with strangers in space, someone at Syfy HQ decided to whip Dark Matter in the butt and force some action. Did Two need to beat the pants off of One when they had the same goal of restoring life support on the ship? No, but for the purposes of this show, probably, because action sells! And did Android Lady need to nearly kill everyone upon waking up from sleep mode only to have her memory of everything erased seconds later? Sure, I mean, like five minutes had passed since the last fight. And in case you thought about changing the channel, an unknown enemy shot space torpedoes at S.S. Amnesia (that's what I'm calling it, Marauder doesn't do it for me), starting off a panic that involved shutting off artificial gravity in order to make the hyper-jump to FTL and other borrowed sci-fi terminology. It all made for fairly typical styrofoam-set science-fiction television on a shoestring budget but in the mold of one of those dinner and a mystery parties. Who wiped the passenger data from the ship's memory card?!?! Everyone's a suspect!
There was a lot of stress on a potential coverup over why they're there instead of the brain-busting reality of the fact that they have no idea who they are or why they're there. On the contrary, everyone seemed pretty chill about it right away given the circumstances. Hell, Three decided to take a nap, Four played with a futuristic radio transistor, and Six looked around for aspirin. I probably would have been huddled in the corner crying and/or screaming. They may not have had the most believable reaction to their circumstances, but I'm not sure how interesting it would have been to see these characters realistically come to terms with their situation. Unless these six people are incredible characters—and I don't think anyone is expecting them to be given that this is a Syfy yarn—Dark Matter smartly decided to just get on with the plot and put the characters on the quest to find the external reason they're where they are.
In fact, Dark Matter could have spent an entire episode on the ship with characters volleying suspicions back and forth at each other, and while that could have been fun, it's probably best that the opening episode only touched on it. Instead, the crew found a nearby settlement to resupply and search for answers, opening up an opportunity for Dark Matter to show off its best asset: the struggle between fulfilling destiny or starting anew, the moral obligations of a blank tableau, and a shit load of confusion.
See, the settlement was holding its claim on some goofy-named element on the planet, and a multicorp (I HATE MULTICORPS!) was about to wipe them out so it could use the planet as a base of operations to mine a nearby asteroid field. The settlers were scared of a group called the Raza (spelling?), half-reptile alien mercenaries hired by the multicorp to "take care of business" and clear the way for the asteroid miners to move in without any fuss. Or at least that's the story, no one has ever seen these Raza and lived to tell the tale (important clue). The settlers were also waiting for a shipment of arms to help their fight against the Raza, and One figured that the giant box of guns on the S.S. Amnesia was meant for the settlers, and their purpose was to help the settlers. There was a huge debate about whether to help the settlers or sell the guns in order to improve the chances of their own survival, just like some morality-poking side quest from Mass Effect, and it worked here because these characters were blank slates with no reputation. They literally could have chosen any possibility and it would have made sense because no one knows anything about anyone.
You'd better get your underwear as smooth as possible becomes here comes the big last-minute twist: Eventually the passenger data was recovered and all the Numbers learned a bit about who they were. MURDERERS! They were all murderers, and some were also kidnappers, pirates, and arsonists. Well, everyone except Four, who didn't have any file. Two automatically assumed that they were the Raza and they were sent there to kill the settlers. But Dark Matter probably has more tricks up its sleeves, and searching beyond that explanation was where the real fun came in.
Were they in fact multicorp mercenaries sent to kill the settlers? Did they intercept the gun shipment for the settlers, or were they actually delivering the shipment? Were they part of some space-community service program trying to work off their bad deeds? Were those files even accurate? Is this some sort of experiment? There are multiple unreliable narrators here, so I'm not trusting anything for a minute. No, thank you.
But the possibility that these half-dozen amnesiacs are dangerous maniacs revitalized the episode and opened up an even more interesting story than simply, "Who are these people?" They're now pressured to act fast without knowing all the facts. They have a chance to start over, whether that be helping out the settlers or wiping them off the planet. And with no confirmed past to go on, they can do whatever they want. Are people inherently bad or inherently evil? We may find out.
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