Bourne meets Sopranos in Dark Matter
Sci-fi show shot in Toronto debuts Friday on Space
Joseph Mallozzi is standing on the bridge of his newest creation, an intergalactic spaceship with a mysterious past and a questionable mission.
“It’s not like anything you typically see in other science fiction shows,” he says, looking distinctly out of sync in the futuristic setting in a navy blue suit while acting as tour guide of the set in an industrial mall in Etobicoke.
Montreal-born Mallozzi, the cocreator of Dark Matter, is justifiably proud: the bridge has a sense of permanence, as if it were hewn from a single ingot of burnished steel. There are time-worn pock marks and indentations, with a captain’s seat that has seen more glamorous days. It is a ship clearly designed for industry, not diplomacy.
“It’s not like the (Starship) Enterprise, which is very bright, very clean, like a hotel lobby,” says Mallozzi. “This isn’t a comfortable place.”
Dark Matter, which airs Friday on Space in Canada, is as much about astronomy as it is exploring the hidden recesses of the mind. It asks the question whether people who are born bad stay bad.
It is a metaphoric and literal journey of self-discovery by passengers stuck on a ship hurtling into deep space. It’s also one of the most intriguing shows commissioned by the Syfy channel in the U.S. in a long time.
Based on the comic by Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, it follows a six-person crew with a questionable past that awakens from stasis with no recollection of who they are. They are hunted by bounty hunters, authorities and former employers while trying to discover who erased their memories.
There are parts that seem familiar or even derivative of other shows in the genre, but what differentiates it from other space shoot ’em ups is the highly serialized nature. It is part space opera and mystery thriller told over a 13-episode arc.
“I guess you could say it’s Jason Bourne meets the Sopranos . . . in space,” laughs Mallozzi.
There are high hopes for the Toronto-shot show, since the talented Mallozzi and Mullie are the writing and producing team that had much to do with the success of the long running Stargate franchise.
This time they have teamed up with uber-producer Jay Firestone of Prodigy Pictures ( Lost Girl, Andromeda).
Stars include Melissa O’Neil (a Canadian Idol winner), Marc Bendavid ( Bitten), Anthony Lemke ( White House Down), Alex Mallari Jr. ( Robo-Cop), Jodelle Ferland ( Twilight), Roger Cross ( The Strain) and Zoie Palmer ( Lost Girl).
With the addition of Dark Matter, Toronto has become a hub of sci-fi production for quality shows, including Space channel’s Orphan Black, Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain and the sci-fi western Killjoys, which premieres Friday, June 19 on Space.
Vancouver, meanwhile, remains the headquarters for TV for comic book fans, including Arrow and The Flash.
Mallozzi said he started working on the concept at least eight years ago when he was a producer and writer on Stargate, the TV franchise based on the 1994 film.
“I always thought I’d do something after Stargate ended. But they kept renewing it, which was great. But it was also frustrating because I wanted to start on this,” he says.
It’s a coincidence, he says, that Stargate Universe ended with the crew going into stasis, while the Dark Matter crew is awakening from stasis.
“Fans of spaceship series will like this. The spaceship is a character unto itself.” JAY FIRESTONE DARK MATTER PRODUCER
“This is a very different universe. This is much more serialized. And while Stargate had its heroes, this show is an ensemble in the truest sense of the word,” says Mallozzi. As a fan of shows such as Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, Mallozzi wanted to produce a story that would continually surprise the viewer.
“In those shows bad s--- happens in every episode. And we wanted to produce the same kind of intrigue here.”
The production got picked up by Syfy after a visit by producer Firestone to the New York offices of the broadcaster. Firestone said Syfy was looking for properties that got back “to the roots” of the channel.
“They were looking for a space opera. And I knew I had this graphic novel that Joe and Paul had done,” says Firestone.
“People will tune in for the special effects and the action. But it’s the characters they can identify with that will make them stay.”
But every space opera starts with a good ship. Firestone says he spent a good portion of his budget on the set.
“I think it looks as good or better than anything else on TV. There is a reticence from buyers. The first question is, what do the sets look like? Fans of spaceship series will like this,” says Firestone. “The spaceship is a character unto itself.”
Firestone says the corridors of the ship are inspired by Ridley Scott’s Alien.
And he paid special attention to the bridge after learning from his mistakes producing Andromeda. Sometimes bigger is not better. “On Andromeda we screwed up the bridge; it was so big it didn’t work,” says Firestone. “Just getting reaction shots and having the crew work off each other was problematic.”
This time, he says, it’s just right.