Dark Matter Series Premiere Review: One Strange Trip

Robert Frost’s “The Highway Not Taken” finest dealt with the subject of selection.

Darkish Matter Season 1 Episode 1 and Darkish Matter Season 1 Episode 2 are the newest on this subject.

Duplicate characters present in separate dimensions is hardly a novel idea on tv (or nearly any artistic medium).

The primary such episode that includes a parallel universe was, no shock, on the 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Parallel.” An astronaut returns from a prolonged journey to seek out his world not fairly the identical as he remembers it.

One other early instance got here in 1970 on the cleaning soap opera Darkish Shadows. Vampire Barnabas Collins discovered a room in his mansion, Collinwood, a portal he used to flee to parallel time.

This idea was most significant within the 1967 Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror.” It was set in a dimension the place evil twins of the Star Trek characters lived.

This mirror universe was revisited on Star Trek: Deep Area 9 and Star Trek: Enterprise. As well as, Lt. Worf went by means of a collection of dimensions within the Star Trek: The Subsequent Generations episode “Parallels.”

Many science-fiction collection have availed themselves of this idea, with the Stargate franchise, Purple Dwarf, and Sliders doing so most continuously.

This brings us to the newest such collection, Darkish Matter, streaming on Apple TV+.

This Darkish Matter is predicated on the 2016 novel by Blake Crouch and should not be confused with the present by the identical title that aired on the Syfy Channel from 2015 to 2017.

As a result of, as in any parallel timeline/dimension/world-type program, there’s all the time loads of trigger for confusion.

In Jason Dessen, Joel Edgerton portrays the right schlubby everyman.

Jason was doing one thing proper. He is received a sizzling artist spouse, Daniela (style fave Jennifer Connelly), and a teen son, Charlie, who he may help with each math and woman issues.

However, because the title of the premiere episode, “Are You Glad in Your Life?” suggests, one thing was lacking.

That time was introduced house when his good friend, Ryan Holder, known as to inform Jason he had gained the Pavia Prize for physics.

Whereas he ought to have been completely happy for his good friend, Jason clearly suffered a pang of jealousy as a substitute. Whereas Jason settled into household life, Ryan continued pursuing his analysis, excluding every little thing else.

That is the place that “the trail not taken” idea comes house to roost.

Ryan tried to mollify Jason by telling him he ought to have gained the prize.

They each knew that was a form lie, as Jason was futilely making an attempt to show physics to a bunch of device-addicted automatons at a neighborhood faculty. He’d settled.

Then got here the “watch out what you want for” second upon which this trope relies upon.

Daniela browbeat Jason into attending Ryan’s celebration at Jason’s native pub, no much less. Whereas there, Ryan invited him to hitch his new startup, which he was funding with the prize cash. The catch was he’d have to maneuver from Chicago to San Francisco.

Not shockingly, the lifetime of envious, drunken Jason was about to alter. For higher or worse, it was nonetheless unclear after two episodes. However it was a particular change.

Jason received kidnapped, crushed, and injected by a person in a Michael Myers masks. Let’s name that “No good deed goes unpunished.”

It was comprehensible that Jason took some time to get his bearings after waking up, particularly because it wasn’t his world.

However it might take him far too lengthy to determine that out. If everybody appears at you such as you’re confused, perhaps it is best to cease attempting to persuade them that they are incorrect and also you’re proper.

He decided that the world’s Jason Dessen is sort of a scientific Howard Hughes, a genius who made his mark at his Velocity firm after which disappeared for a yr.

In the meantime, the person within the masks turned out to be that world’s Jason, who desires to flee the intense lights of fame and slip again into normalcy, with a milder model of the recent artist with whom he had damaged up and a teen son who was a part of the package deal.

So, to maintain issues easy, let’s name the 2 males Authentic Jason and Duplicate Jason. Luckily, Authentic Jason’s face received beat up somewhat of their earlier brawl, so he is now ruggedly good-looking. That is find out how to inform them aside.

Authentic Jason met that dimension’s Daniela, who has had the time to grow to be a famed artist since she and Duplicate Jason by no means began a household. So there isn’t any Charlie.

Daniela defined how parallel dimensions work. Choices may cause a number of worlds to be populated by the identical folks. You possibly can see the place that is going, cannot you?

After ransacking Duplicate Jason’s research, Authentic Jason found that Duplicate Jason had perfected the analysis that he had put aside to show about Schroedinger’s Cat to the detached. He hasn’t but decided that Duplicate Jason has taken over his life.

He rapidly misplaced his solely ally when Daybreak from Velocity gunned down Daniela. Then once more, perhaps Daniela will pop up in a brand new dimension no worse for put on.

One thriller to be solved is what’s up with Jason’s firm. Whereas Amanda appears well-meaning, Leighton is secretive at finest or evil at worst. And Authentic Jason remained largely clueless about Velocity’s mission, though he is certain to be taught extra now that he is been captured.