DARK MATTER
We’re on set for the new season of the small-screen space opera.
SFX has always been a sucker for wandering around a spaceship. And even though we can see the interior walls of the Toronto studio that houses Dark Matter’s lead ship the Raza (previously home to long-running succubus drama Lost Girl), the desire to sit in chairs and push buttons is too much to resist. The bridge, the mess hall and corridors are all enough to make us believe we’re somewhere else in the galaxy – and we can’t help noticing that, despite a season two finale that left the Raza’s crew of mercenaries-turned-freedom fighters seemingly facing certain death, the ship looks remarkably unscathed. Albeit in a skuzzy, lived-in way that feels more Millennium Falcon than USS Enterprise.
“The original concept for the show was always anti-Star Trek,” co-creator and Stargate saga veteran Paul Mullie tells SFX. “The thing about Star Trek is that human beings are not a source of conflict in Star Trek – the major threats are all alien, because humanity doesn’t have wars. We wanted the exact opposite of that. We knew we weren’t going to do aliens – or at least not right away – so the conflict was all going to come from humans, in a world where people don’t get along, where there aren’t enough resources for everybody, and there is greed.”
The show debuted with six characters emerging from stasis with no memory of who they were – their number-inspired monikers (One–Six) referring to the order they woke up. Since then we’ve had double crossing, betrayal, One being bumped off, some characters going
dark, and others deciding to fight back against the mega-corporations that rule the galaxy.
Last year’s season two ended with a big cliffhanger, with most of the principal players trapped on a space station that’s about to blow up, the artist formerly known as Four pursuing his own agenda as the Emperor of Zairon, and the galaxy on the brink of corporate war.
“Season one was about finding out who you are and season two was coming to grips with that,” explains Mullie. “Season three is about really exploring the consequences of what happened when they tried to be more proactive, and it didn’t exactly go as planned. If you’re going to put yourself out there and care about people, and care about the fate of the galaxy, that’s fine – but then when things go bad, now you’re going to be vulnerable.”
Ishida Ryo (aka Four) is going to be a particularly big deal this year. That’s probably not surprising seeing as, since he opted to reinstall his old memories, he’s staged his own take on the Red Wedding to take the throne, stolen the prototype “Blink” drive that allows instantaneous transport anywhere in the galaxy, and (unbenown to him) his security chief Misaki has left crewmate Nyx for dead.
“One of the things I said very early on is it’s a journey of redemption for the characters,” says co-creator (and Mullie’s fellow Stargate vet) Joseph Mallozzi. “But it’s not going to be a happy ending for everyone. I just love the idea
of a former friend turned enemy. Of all the enemies they’ve faced, he’s the most dangerous because he knows them. And at the end of the day, he actually knows them better than they know themselves, because they don’t have the memories of before they went into stasis, whereas he does.”
BLANK SLATES
While Four chose to regain his memories and some of the other amnesiacs have had information about their pasts dripfed throughout the series, others remain more enigmatic. That’s set to change in season three.
“This year actually starts off with a big revelation in episode two about Five,” says Mullie. “We don’t really get right to it – it’s kind of out there, but it does change how she feels about herself, and her place in the big picture.”
“The Android finds out about her origin and how it is tied to Portia Lin [Two’s original self ],” adds Mallozzi. “We wanted the fact that the Android is atypical to be hinted at throughout the first two seasons; she has emotions, but how is that possible? There’s a suggestion that Portia had something to do with it, and we essentially find out this connection later in the season.”
This is all part of a carefully crafted story arc, that – assuming the commissioning gods play fair – is set to play out over an epic five seasons.
“Our five-year plan is definitely still in play,” Mallozzi says. “It includes the major arc, the individual season arcs and all the character arcs. We’ll make adjustments along the way, certainly, but I’ve always hated shows where they’ve been very good at throwing out surprises, but not really good at offering answers. I find that incredibly disrespectful to the audience. I like the fact that we have a detailed plan, so we’re able to seed in clues as far back as season one that’ll pay back later.”
One mystery that’s created a surprisingly large amount of debate online is that of the time period in which the show’s set – some fans have even attempted to extrapolate a date from the fact that Star Wars: Episode 36 is referred to in one episode.
“I would have preferred to keep it ambiguous,” admits Mallozzi. “However, we’re doing a time-travel episode that will essentially put a number of centuries on the future.”
“Some of our tech looks even older than what we have now, and we’re addressing issues with AI, which people say are coming in the next generation [in real life],” explains Mullie. “So we can’t push it thousands of years, but we do have faster-than-light technology, and there’s billions of people out in the galaxy, so it can’t be a hundred years form now. We’re trying to find a balance between those things. There is a reason why some technology has not advanced as much as maybe it should have in the time from present day to when the show is set, and that will be explained. So we do have a number, and it does eventually get revealed in season three.”
Dark Matter’s third season is on Syfy from 12 June. Aftershow After Dark airs immediately after each episode – with two outings featuring SFX editor Richard Edwards!