Take Three: Dark Matter

Dark Matter: Season 1, Episode 3 “Episode Three” (B+)

Part of me wishes that this show had a larger cast and numerous guest characters who could interact with the primary seven players on a regular basis. Yet there’s something fascinating about building a show around just a small base of people and setting it in one place. This hour was relatively intense and didn’t even involve leaving the ship, save for a few brief treks out onto the deck to repair some problematic issues with the ship. I like the Android as a character very much, since she’s extremely matter-of-fact but also possesses a personality, displayed most prominently in reminding them that she did in fact do the same for them by risking her life to save theirs. Not that their guns were going to do much, but I did enjoy Five pointing out that her allies should aim their guns at Four because she had taken all the bullets out of Three’s guns because she didn’t trust him. The end of the episode’s big revelation was hardly a surprise, but it does underline just how much these characters have been transformed from the criminals they once were. The casting of One as the true culprit who pursued the Raza and then presumably wiped their memories clean, erasing his own in the process, is brilliant since he’s the show’s moral compass, arguing for the preservation of life above all else in the strongest possible way, more belligerently even than the mission-minded Two. I’m very intrigued to see what comes next.