Amph Dark Matter

A recent Canadian series by the creators of Stargate, Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.



Adapted from the comic they created out of their original screenplay.
They've always had a penchant for taking 'classic' sci-fi concepts and playing them totally straight. There's a lot of that wonderful space opera goodness here, along with the classic Stargate aesthetic in spades and enough character development to make a Firefly fan blush (yes, there are massive similarities, not because it's a ripoff, but because they love you).
You can tell that everyone is doing their job well and enjoying it; everything from the props, to art, to fight choreography are top-notch, especially on tv.
Much of the cast will be familiar to any sci-fi television fan. There's a lot of great talent on display.
Zoie Palmer as the (slightly unhinged) Android is a particular standout.


Trailer:

I've just binge-watched the first season and I want to know what the JCCers think about it!

 

Is there an online site I can use to give this series a go?

 

I'm disappointed that this thread is not about the Alternity RPG campaign setting of the same name.

 

The series is on Netflix. And of course there are other means...

I thought that the first couple of episodes were kinda of slow, but the show wrapped up on a good note for the first season. At least for me. I like how the characters have a bit of mystery to them, and how.... Not everyone is what they appears? I think that is probably the best way to describe it. I think this is probably one of the better Syfy series to come along in sometime for the channel.

 

i dropped some dark matter into the toilet just a few minutes ago. i would love to see a show about that.

 

Seriously, I love the Android. It's so easy to use the trope and forget why it became a trope. The earnest exploration of the boundaries of consciousness is like a fresh breeze blowing away stale and lazy sci-fi.
It's just so much fun. Remember that? Before everything turned Teal and Orange, Brown and Grey, 'Gritty' and 'Dark'?
For those who don't mind a little spoilering, a great conversation:

Spoiler

...

"I’ve recently become concerned that I may have developed a flaw in my personality matrix. I’d like you to observe and record my actions."
- The Android





Android schizophrenia is quality entertainment.

 

Just watched the first episode on Netflix. It was pretty interesting. Kind of made me feel like I was watching a Bioware sci-fi game on TV.

 

Syfy can't do anything well.

 

I watched the first season, and I really liked it. The finale left me quite confused though.

 

I've believed that for some time now, but the only thing they did in this instance was acquire distribution rights for the US. Dark Matter is produced in Canada by Prodigy Pictures in association with the Space Channel - more directly responsible are the same people who were mostly responsible for the Stargate shows, whom I have enormous confidence in.
Don't let the channel turn you off what I think will turn out to be a classic show.

Let's use spoiler tags, to be considerate of the uninitiated.

Spoiler

Six was pretty broken up about killing innocent people, it's possible he decided that their freedom was not worth the chaos and destruction they were agents of. Remember all the times he told Five what bad people they are, and how she shouldn't want to be anything like them. I imagine he'll tell the authorities that she was just a kid, and not responsible for any criminal actions.
There's also a theory that he was an undercover cop all the way back when he was in the Resistance, but couldn't face giving his report when he learn how many deaths he was responsible for. Six might've found out about this after he 'killed' the General.
The clue is that the officer next to him in the end was there with the General's TT clone as a Resistance Officer. I'm so pumped for the possibilities in the next season opener.

EDIT: Fanmade trailer far better than the official one.

Can we get Joseph Mallozzi to do a Star Wars Episode?

 

I just watched the first two episodes and if this isn't the direct result of someone's sci-fi rpg campaign I don't know what is.

 

Lies! I still enjoy watching Face Off.

 

Dang. I was hoping for an explanation of the Starkiller Base.

edit: seriously, I will check it out.

 

I guess I ended up watching this show some time back. It was enjoyable, I will say. Not groundbreaking or anything, but it was fun to go through. We need more fun.

 

The pace of the show was one of my complaints about last season. I've enjoyed the show, but a lot of last season felt like a ****-ton of build up for some pay off.... I hope they don't stretch it half the season.

 

Well, that didn't stop the Stargate people from creating Universe which ended up being largely unappealing to the fans, which led to them pulling the plug on the franchise for the foreseeable future.

Dark Matter and Killjoys are all the sci-fi that Sci-Fi has to offer for the time being, since they killed Defiance, apparently because it cost too much, when it was on the verge of reaching its full potential.

 

It wasn't addressing my concerns, all of the characters and drama didn't interest me, and the entire premise of the show got buried under all of that, so I never ended up caring about it. I only found out about Destiny's mission to learn about the artificial pattern in the background radiation after it was too late.

Yeah, but Dark Matter isn't set in the Stargate universe like Universe, where Universe was a dramatic departure from the tone of its predecessors, with Dark Matter being its own thing.

 

Universe started off with an interesting premise, and most people didn't like what it was anyways. It was a bottle show at heart. People liked SG1 and SGA because of the new and interesting places they went pretty much on a weekly basis. SGU was just hitting that point when they pulled the plug on it. Funny thing though, I thought season 2 was superior than 1 of SGU. FTR, I'm actually okay with how SGU ended since that is where the franchise stopped. They beat the Ori, Goauld, Replicators, and are the legacy of the Asgard.

Most of BSG took place on ships as well, but thanks to the Cylons you got a break from drama of life on a ship and living in close quarters.

Defiance was not a good show. They tried to world build, but lost the story some where in that building process. I didn't care about the characters, actually grew to hate a lot of them, or the town/other factions. For what is basically a western, they totally missed on how to make it appealing. And Dark Matter and Killjoys aren't the only things they have to offer. There's 12 Monkeys and The Expanse (comes back in 2017) as well.

If anything is like SG1, it's probably Killjoys. They have a new mission pretty much every week, though it seems like this season is a slight departure from weekly missions like last season.

SGU was more character based than any of the other Stargate shows. And I mean, like the development they had in season 1 for characters was very big. It seemed like every episode in season 1 featured one of the main characters, and by the end of the season we knew a lot about all the characters. Something that took SG1 and SGA a lot longer to do. One of the most interesting thing about SGU was that the combat, especially the ship combat, came across as much more nuanced and thought out as opposed to the other Stargate shows.

 

I never got into nuBSG, there were too many changes from the original, which I grew up watching in the Thanksgiving marathons.

The mythology of Defiance was interesting and kept grabbing my attention.

I have no idea what all of the fuss is about 12 Monkeys, since I haven't bothered to watch it. After Eureka and Warehouse 13 ended, I haven't had much interest in non-space based sci-fi.

That might have worked if any of the characters beside Eli Wallace were actually likable.

 

How far did you get, and what changes did you not like?

Mythology doesn't really substitute for good storytelling or character development. If all you do is pile on more and it doesn't go anywhere or you don't expand on it. SGU definitely had that and had the story to go with it. The ship was pretty much its own box of mythology.

Well, that's on you then. You're missing out on 12 Monkeys. Eureka lost me after the travel back in time, and as to Warehouse 13, I stopped caring when....

Spoiler

Jinx was brought back from the dead. When your show can wave a magic wand and anything that happens can be fixed, where's the consequences for anything?

 

I don't think I got much farther than the initial miniseries, but I can't be certain, it was a long time ago. Starbuck was the most jarring change.

It didn't work for me, all I saw was a bunch nobodies who I didn't care about. So the Stargate people basically gambled the franchise on a higher budget drama, which just makes me not like Universe all the more.

Yeah, that was when Eureka lost me too. Ah, I can see how that could elicit such a reaction, but it didn't bother me.