Entry tags:
What I'm into: Dark Matter
No spoilers past mid season three, please! I'm not caught up yet!
So here's the other thing that's eaten my heart/brain/soul over the last week or two: Dark Matter
What is it? It's a 3-season Syfy spaceship show, by some of the same people who did Stargate. All of it is streaming on Netflix.
What's it about? Six people -- seven counting the ship's android -- wake up on a spaceship without their memories. Evidence suggests one of them is a traitor. Further evidence suggests they're part of a galactic conflict they can't even remember. They have to figure out who they are and who they can trust before their pasts catch up with them. Basically this turns into found-family on a spaceship, as it does. (Also, to make it less confusing if I end up making more posts about this show, most of the main characters have numbers for names, because they don't know their real names for awhile and adopt numbers as shorthand.)
Why is it awesome/why might I want to try it? FOUND FAMILY ON A SPACESHIP. I've really missed having a spaceship show in my life, and this one hits my team-love buttons like few things have since Stargate.
It’s got femslash, slash, and het potential. It’s got a ton of interesting character relationships, including kid-mentor ones and sometimes-enemies learning to trust each other (”Stop saving my life. … Now you’re just doing it on purpose”) and a relationship that’s a lot like Janeway/Seven of Nine in which one is a woman of color. It’s got canon h/c and teaminess and all the sci-fi tropes (e.g. the characters meet their evil alternate universe doubles, trapped on a prison world, taken over by mind-control goo, on a spaceship fulla zombies, time loops, etc). It has redemption arcs and snark and themes about the meaning of life/what it means to have a soul and characters running around doing action stuff in long coats and leather jackets while rock music plays in the background. It's got several Stargate actors in recurring roles, including David Hewlett playing a character who is basically Rodney McKay as a seedy fixer, and Evil Elizabeth Weir.
It has a female Asian captain, a cast that (depending on the cast makeup from season to season) is frequently at least half female and less than half white, and multiple recurring female villains for your foe-yay needs. Plus a number of different characters being incredibly hot in black leather, and actually some pretty cool sci-fi worldbuilding, such as travel-via-cloning in which instantaneous intergalactic travel is accomplished by animating a disposable clone of yourself in a different location, and a galactic milieu with a higher-than-I'm-used-to level of background multiculturalism; they really do a pretty good job of making this feel like a plausible hundreds-of-years-in-the-future Earth-colonized galaxy, at least I think so.
It also contains an episode that has managed to make the coveted "![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sholio's All-Time Favorite H/C Episodes" list. :D (Er, this list does not exist in reality. But now I think it's a list I should make. And post.)
What might turn me off? There are some questionable writing/casting choices (my least favorite of these is that one of the main characters is basically Space Samurai from Space Samurai Planet, and he doesn't really have a whole lot of characterization other than that). In general, since it's by the same people who did SGA and Stargate Universe, it unsurprisingly shares some writing weaknesses with earlier Stargate shows. I'm watching it with my husband and I get the impression that the handwavy science and occasionally WTF plot resolutions are driving him crazy on a regular basis. I personally could not care less because I am there for FOUND FAMILY IN SPACE, but ymmv.
Also, it got unexpectedly cancelled after season three. I suspect (though I don't know for sure, since I'm not there yet) that it's going to end on a forever-unresolved cliffhanger.
Anything else? Based on what I remember from the last time I posted about Dark Matter when I watched the first season, there are people following me who dislike Three. Which is fine, but keep that to yourself around here, please, because Three is AWESOME and no one can tell me different. :D (Although it's tough to pick a real favorite; as of season three, I think the entire cast is my favorite. It's one of those shows.)
ETA: If you haven't watched the show, beware of spoilers up to early season three in the comments!
So here's the other thing that's eaten my heart/brain/soul over the last week or two: Dark Matter
What is it? It's a 3-season Syfy spaceship show, by some of the same people who did Stargate. All of it is streaming on Netflix.
What's it about? Six people -- seven counting the ship's android -- wake up on a spaceship without their memories. Evidence suggests one of them is a traitor. Further evidence suggests they're part of a galactic conflict they can't even remember. They have to figure out who they are and who they can trust before their pasts catch up with them. Basically this turns into found-family on a spaceship, as it does. (Also, to make it less confusing if I end up making more posts about this show, most of the main characters have numbers for names, because they don't know their real names for awhile and adopt numbers as shorthand.)
Why is it awesome/why might I want to try it? FOUND FAMILY ON A SPACESHIP. I've really missed having a spaceship show in my life, and this one hits my team-love buttons like few things have since Stargate.
It’s got femslash, slash, and het potential. It’s got a ton of interesting character relationships, including kid-mentor ones and sometimes-enemies learning to trust each other (”Stop saving my life. … Now you’re just doing it on purpose”) and a relationship that’s a lot like Janeway/Seven of Nine in which one is a woman of color. It’s got canon h/c and teaminess and all the sci-fi tropes (e.g. the characters meet their evil alternate universe doubles, trapped on a prison world, taken over by mind-control goo, on a spaceship fulla zombies, time loops, etc). It has redemption arcs and snark and themes about the meaning of life/what it means to have a soul and characters running around doing action stuff in long coats and leather jackets while rock music plays in the background. It's got several Stargate actors in recurring roles, including David Hewlett playing a character who is basically Rodney McKay as a seedy fixer, and Evil Elizabeth Weir.
It has a female Asian captain, a cast that (depending on the cast makeup from season to season) is frequently at least half female and less than half white, and multiple recurring female villains for your foe-yay needs. Plus a number of different characters being incredibly hot in black leather, and actually some pretty cool sci-fi worldbuilding, such as travel-via-cloning in which instantaneous intergalactic travel is accomplished by animating a disposable clone of yourself in a different location, and a galactic milieu with a higher-than-I'm-used-to level of background multiculturalism; they really do a pretty good job of making this feel like a plausible hundreds-of-years-in-the-future Earth-colonized galaxy, at least I think so.
It also contains an episode that has managed to make the coveted "
sholio's All-Time Favorite H/C Episodes" list. :D (Er, this list does not exist in reality. But now I think it's a list I should make. And post.)What might turn me off? There are some questionable writing/casting choices (my least favorite of these is that one of the main characters is basically Space Samurai from Space Samurai Planet, and he doesn't really have a whole lot of characterization other than that). In general, since it's by the same people who did SGA and Stargate Universe, it unsurprisingly shares some writing weaknesses with earlier Stargate shows. I'm watching it with my husband and I get the impression that the handwavy science and occasionally WTF plot resolutions are driving him crazy on a regular basis. I personally could not care less because I am there for FOUND FAMILY IN SPACE, but ymmv.
Also, it got unexpectedly cancelled after season three. I suspect (though I don't know for sure, since I'm not there yet) that it's going to end on a forever-unresolved cliffhanger.
Anything else? Based on what I remember from the last time I posted about Dark Matter when I watched the first season, there are people following me who dislike Three. Which is fine, but keep that to yourself around here, please, because Three is AWESOME and no one can tell me different. :D (Although it's tough to pick a real favorite; as of season three, I think the entire cast is my favorite. It's one of those shows.)
ETA: If you haven't watched the show, beware of spoilers up to early season three in the comments!
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First season reminded me a lot of Farscape, which is why I fell in love with it I think. Desperate people with shady pasts thrown together on a spaceship who slowly become found family and would die for each other = MOI CATNIP. Also, the way it bounces from goofy to heartbreaking, very Farscape.
T was watching it before I did, altho he doesn't love it quite as much -- he lured me in with Roger Cross (Six), who I'd loved in Continuum as Travis. Altho it took me a bit to get used to him, Six was so different!
Did you see "All the Time in the World", the fourth ep, yet? All Three and it was HILARIOUS.
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Terry Chen (Curtis) is in The Expanse! And Richard Harmon has just been in a truckload of things, The 100 and Caprica and The Killing and so many terrible horror films. And I started watching Continuum in the first place for Rachel Nichols because I had seen her in The Inside (on Youtube), LOL. Now I am Right There for anything with Roger Cross in it.
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and holy shit gorgeousno subject
THAT'S ADORABLE. <3 (Maaaan, this show hits my found-family buttons so hard.)
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ALSO OH MAN THE ANDROID? WHAT ABOUT HER. SHE HAS FRIENDS. I loved everyone but in terms of sheer acting Zoie Palmer was the MVP. A person imitating an android who often imitated a person! And so much of it was body language and microexpressions.
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I did! I loved it! :D Probably my favorite ep in the third season, so far. (I think the 6th or 7th episode of S3 was the last one we watched.)
... I didn't know Roger Cross was in Continuum! That's one show I should get back to. We watched the first season and liked it, back when there was only one season, and then never watched any more. The only characters I remember now are the main female protagonist and the kid.
But yeah, season one lured me in with cool mysteries, and then in season two I fell for the characters HARD, damn it. I'm trying not to be too bummed that there will never be any more once we finish S3, but it's so hard. I had seen mention of the comic thing around somewhere, and if it can't come back as a miniseries at the very least, I hope we get that. (Although I know I'd be reading it and wishing I was seeing those scenes playing out with the actors, damnitall! But it'd be better than never knowing where things were going to go.)
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THE SPACE UKULELE (that's one of the props that, rather than auctioning off like most shows do, Mallozzi is giving away to people who write in saying what Dark Matter meant to them. //cries) The sparring! Talking to Five! The whole thing.
... I didn't know Roger Cross was in Continuum! That's one show I should get back to. We watched the first season and liked it, back when there was only one season, and then never watched any more. The only characters I remember now are the main female protagonist and the kid.
Continuum gets SO GOOD. The third season stumbles a bit and then -- sing along, you know the words -- it was on the cusp for ever and then got renewed for a limited number of episodes so the story could finish. I am starting to think that just doesn't end well (Warehouse 13, Fringe, Farscape....). The whole cast is phenomenal and the time travel gets used in interesting ways and it's surprisingly diverse. (Canadian TV is far better than US TV at that, from what I've seen.)
But yeah, season one lured me in with cool mysteries, and then in season two I fell for the characters HARD, damn it. I'm trying not to be too bummed that there will never be any more once we finish S3, but it's so hard. I had seen mention of the comic thing around somewhere, and if it can't come back as a miniseries at the very least, I hope we get that. (Although I know I'd be reading it and wishing I was seeing those scenes playing out with the actors, damnitall! But it'd be better than never knowing where things were going to go.)
....yeah, that's exactly what it feels like. There was an ad hoc support group in Mallozzi's blog's comments and on reddit (he posted frequently in the reddit group, it was great) and a big groundswell of organized support on Twitter, but everyone's just heartbroken.