Dark Matter (TV Series, Season 1)
Feb. 27th, 2017 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroOn a damaged spaceship, six people emerge from stasis pods with no memory of who they are or what they’re doing, but at least some useful skills intact. They need to figure out their pasts and what happened to them before those pasts start hunting them down.
Clearly Star Trek-influenced, as much sci-fi is—you know where the button for the ship’s shields is, you know? Though a major change to the tech (as on many other sci-fi shows) is the general lack of useful sensors. Nobody’s detecting life signs around here. There’s also a heavy Firefly influence, as there aren’t any aliens, but there are “frontier towns” and a lot of weaponry that replies on bullets rather than energy blasts. The optimism of Star Trek is missing in favor of being a poverty-stricken rag-tag group on the run. Also, their shuttlecraft has a set of Wash’s “do something” switches along the top of the console.
There are several special effects failures, mostly regarding the props department: The fact that I own one of the computer monitors that the characters have in their quarters takes a bunch of the magic out of things. Similarly, while class divide explains a bunch of the technology distinctions (their ship has a force-field isolation chamber with super-advanced medical sensors, but injured characters tend to run around wearing 20th-century bandages; okay fine, the chamber came with the ship but supplies are expensive and limited) it’s still jarring at times.
A reference to them seeing the remastered version of Star Wars 26 puts the series squarely in the future of our world, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. The government is full of violent assholes and the corporations run everything, with their only worry being whether another corporation can record their actions and inform the public. Solid satire…and yet. Hopeless, shitty futures get me down.
The pacing is pretty good, actually, allowing for at least one decent revelation per episode, despite an over-abundance of secrets remaining by season end.
The Android (who, like Voyager's Doctor, never actually gets a name) is probably the best character in the entire thing. They give her the Spock/Data/Seven role of the sane and smart character who nonetheless has psychological troubles surrounding becoming more human. Which means she both gets a lot of the best humor, and her story is the most compelling current one, because there’s nothing for her to play catch-up on.
And in regards to playing catch-up (SPOILERS): Man, this is like some rpgs I’ve run, where the notes on backstory that the characters don’t know dwarf everything else I have written for the campaign. These guys read like a classic party of PCs: The guy with the wrong skill-set, who turns out to not be who they think he is. The hyper-competent superwoman who turns out to be an artificial person. The merc with a heart of gold. The martial artist scion to the throne of Space Japan. The mysterious waif with crazy engineering skills. The ace pilot with constantly-unachieved ideals.
There are plenty of questions for season two, which is also on Netflix and probably something I’ll watch: Why did Five wipe everyone's memories? Why did Six betray the group? What is the greater plan of Two's creator and his patron? What is that “key” Five found? And presumably Three has more backstory than just "merc with a heart of gold". I’m also curious to see where the Android’s plot goes and how Four’s relationship with his stepbrother settles out.
Overall: Not nearly as witty as Firefly but still some solidly entertaining sci-fi with a load of mysteries and revelations.
Clearly Star Trek-influenced, as much sci-fi is—you know where the button for the ship’s shields is, you know? Though a major change to the tech (as on many other sci-fi shows) is the general lack of useful sensors. Nobody’s detecting life signs around here. There’s also a heavy Firefly influence, as there aren’t any aliens, but there are “frontier towns” and a lot of weaponry that replies on bullets rather than energy blasts. The optimism of Star Trek is missing in favor of being a poverty-stricken rag-tag group on the run. Also, their shuttlecraft has a set of Wash’s “do something” switches along the top of the console.
There are several special effects failures, mostly regarding the props department: The fact that I own one of the computer monitors that the characters have in their quarters takes a bunch of the magic out of things. Similarly, while class divide explains a bunch of the technology distinctions (their ship has a force-field isolation chamber with super-advanced medical sensors, but injured characters tend to run around wearing 20th-century bandages; okay fine, the chamber came with the ship but supplies are expensive and limited) it’s still jarring at times.
A reference to them seeing the remastered version of Star Wars 26 puts the series squarely in the future of our world, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. The government is full of violent assholes and the corporations run everything, with their only worry being whether another corporation can record their actions and inform the public. Solid satire…and yet. Hopeless, shitty futures get me down.
The pacing is pretty good, actually, allowing for at least one decent revelation per episode, despite an over-abundance of secrets remaining by season end.
The Android (who, like Voyager's Doctor, never actually gets a name) is probably the best character in the entire thing. They give her the Spock/Data/Seven role of the sane and smart character who nonetheless has psychological troubles surrounding becoming more human. Which means she both gets a lot of the best humor, and her story is the most compelling current one, because there’s nothing for her to play catch-up on.
And in regards to playing catch-up (SPOILERS): Man, this is like some rpgs I’ve run, where the notes on backstory that the characters don’t know dwarf everything else I have written for the campaign. These guys read like a classic party of PCs: The guy with the wrong skill-set, who turns out to not be who they think he is. The hyper-competent superwoman who turns out to be an artificial person. The merc with a heart of gold. The martial artist scion to the throne of Space Japan. The mysterious waif with crazy engineering skills. The ace pilot with constantly-unachieved ideals.
There are plenty of questions for season two, which is also on Netflix and probably something I’ll watch: Why did Five wipe everyone's memories? Why did Six betray the group? What is the greater plan of Two's creator and his patron? What is that “key” Five found? And presumably Three has more backstory than just "merc with a heart of gold". I’m also curious to see where the Android’s plot goes and how Four’s relationship with his stepbrother settles out.
Overall: Not nearly as witty as Firefly but still some solidly entertaining sci-fi with a load of mysteries and revelations.
