Apple's Smartest Sci-Fi Series Is No Match For This Canceled Cult Classic With the Same Name
The first one, with the amnesiac space outlaws
Recently, a great many people have recommended that I watch Dark Matter, the second season of which premiered in August on Apple TV. The first couple of times it happened, I was confused, as I'd already seen Dark Matter and it had gone off the air almost a decade ago. Did someone get around to reviving it?
As it turns out, the two shows named Dark Matter have nothing to do with one another. The first one, which aired from 2015 to 2017, is another entry in Syfy's lineup of canceled cult classics, and at time of writing, it's on the verge of becoming lost media. If you're into space operas, sci-fi Westerns, and/or scumbag mercenaries, it's worth seeing if you can find at least the first season of the first Dark Matter.
The first two episodes of Dark Matter (2015) are adapted from a 2012 Dark Horse comic of the same name. The show opens with six random strangers waking up from stasis aboard a starship that's already in flight. None of them remember their names or history, but retain their individual skills and areas of expertise. About 10 minutes later, they learn that, whoever they were, someone's trying to kill them all.
Without any better plans, they rename themselves in accordance to the order in which they woke up from stasis – One, Two, Three, etc. – and set out to find some answers. They quickly learn that almost all of them are wanted criminals, which raises a question: Do they start new lives in an attempt to atone for what their past selves did, or do they accelerate into the spin and continue being outlaws?
If you didn't catch Dark Matter on Syfy, you might've seen it on Netflix a couple of years after it initially aired. There was a short period in which it felt like Netflix, in particular, was being aggressively invaded by Canadian fantasy/sci-fi, with a bunch of other exported shows like Continuum, Bitten (what if Vampire Diaries, but sexy werewolves?), Lost Girl (what if Buffy the Vampire Slayer with bisexual succubus love triangles?), and Aftermath all appearing on the service at roughly the same time.
As with the other shows in that particular wave, it's hard to shake the impression that Dark Matter was a deliberate attempt to appeal to fans of another franchise. Specifically, it's very much in the same lane as Firefly, as two shows about space outlaws struggling to survive in a deeply hostile universe. You can even draw a couple of direct character parallels, particularly between Two (Melissa O'Neil, The Rookie) and Firefly's River Tam (Summer Glau).
Having said that, Dark Matter has a harder edge to it than Firefly ever did. Firefly, like Joss Whedon's other shows, was often carried by its dialogue, whereas Dark Matter runs off its central mystery. None of these characters have any reason to trust or even particularly like one another, and every detail they learn about who they used to be further complicates an already volatile situation.
The biggest issue Dark Matter might have is that, starting in the second season, it pops the cork on a multiversal twist, which immediately makes an elaborate storyline about twice as complex as it needed to be. It isn't quite the moment in which Dark Matter jumps the shark, but it is when you might want to start keeping notes. Suddenly everyone is playing at least two characters at once and it can be a little hard to follow.
Dark Matter never got the ending it deserved
In its heyday, Dark Matter was reportedly one of the more successful shows on Syfy, and the third season marked a serious escalation of its stakes. Then Syfy pulled the plug before season four, and Dark Matter ended on a major cliffhanger.
According to its co-creator Joseph Mallozzi (Stargate SG-1), the decision to pull Dark Matter appeared to be purely financial on Syfy’s part. It wasn't actually a Syfy original series, but had been acquired from Canada's Space channel. As an acquisition, Syfy wasn't paying as much per episode for Dark Matter but also couldn't monetize it on the back end. Also, looking at the history of Syfy's various series, it's frankly a miracle that Dark Matter made it to three seasons in the first place.
That means that any recommendation for Dark Matter has to come with qualifications. It's unfinished, and at time of writing, Mallozzi's attempts to secure some other way to complete the show's story don't seem to have worked out. He's since moved on to make other shows like Utopia Falls. (In a blog post, Mallozzi explained what would have happened in Dark Matter season 4, providing some sense of closure.)
Further, there don't appear to be any legitimate ways to watch Dark Matter online, and only the first season is readily available on DVD. Fortunately, fans of the show have kept bootlegs in circulation, so it's not as hard to find as you might think.
If you do track it down, Dark Matter (2015) is a nicely grimy space opera that's built around a series of plot twists and uncomfortable redemption arcs. It's worth a watch, and more importantly, an actual conclusion. If you read this, Mallozzi, please do consider making another Dark Matter comic, if nothing else.