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Post by Zarnium on Mar 24, 2017 13:16:22 GMT -8
Originally posted 02/07/17 --------------------------------------
This show really deserves its own thread. I was expecting it to be just a bit of passable entertainment, but it really turned out to be the best space-travel sci-fi show I've seen in years, in the vein of Firefly or Farscape but potentially better than either. The premise is fairly simple; six humans and an android wake up from cryosleep (or deactivation) on an unfamiliar spaceship with all of their memories wiped, quickly finding out that they're wanted by the authorities for an extensive list of crimes that they don't recall committing. As they attempt make their way through a universe that wants to capture or kill them at every turn, they try to piece together their pasts and figure out how they got to where they are and what it means for them going forward.
Now, amnesia is a pretty hackneyed plot device, so I could forgive anyone who initially passes on a show that uses it so heavily as its central conceit. However, if there was ever a story that handles memory loss very well, it's this one. Dark Matter uses amnesia to explore how memory relates to concepts like personal identity and moral growth. It asks questions, like; if you lose your memory, are you still the same person? Would losing your memories cause you to become more moral, or less? Would it make a difference in your behavior at all? If you lost your memory of an event that caused you to hate someone, but later gained third-hand knowledge of that event after several months, would you still hate that person? If you had a chance to gain all of your memories back after having lost them for months, would you be afraid to get them back if given the chance, out of fear that your new identity and personality would be affected?
This isn't a purely cerebral, high-concept story by any means. There's still all of the action, mystery, and basic character development that you'd expect from this sort of show. What makes it work so well, however, is that there's always an undercurrent of thoughtful, intelligent commentary on morality and personhood running through every episode. It's really a fair bit deeper than its status as a niche Syfy channel show would have you believe, and it has my recommendation.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Mar 25, 2017 12:04:19 GMT -8
This actually seems incredibly interesting. I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before; I guess Westworld sucked up all the oxygen for cerebral science fiction? Oh, and of course, the bogeyman of Peak TV. Is amnesia really that despised if it's the central conceit of a show? I mean, I've never heard anyone complain about Memento. Usually I just see it mocked in the context of soap operas.
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Post by Zarnium on Mar 25, 2017 13:20:31 GMT -8
Is amnesia really that despised if it's the central conceit of a show? I mean, I've never heard anyone complain about Memento. Usually I just see it mocked in the context of soap operas. True, if it's the central conceit, it usually fares better; Dark Matter explores the implications deeply enough that it feels earned , while in shows like iZombie or Scrapped Princess that use it as a secondary plot element, it feels gimmicky and cheap. It helps that in Dark Matter, there's a logical, believable reason why the characters have amnesia, and in Memento, the amnesia actually resembles real amnesia. In a lot of other fiction that features it, the cause of the amnesia feels extremely contrived.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 22, 2017 9:03:08 GMT -8
So Zarn, if I want to watch this, should I binge it? Or is better watched with time to digest each episode?
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 22, 2017 20:21:14 GMT -8
I'd say it's highly bingeable.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 24, 2017 20:28:45 GMT -8
Well that was an odd pilot. Very grateful I knew there was going to be a twist going in because otherwise it would have seemed like Farscape minus the whimsy. Waiting for the literal last second to introduce the characters was kind of interesting structurally, but I don't think they had a real chance to develop beyond archetypes. Which is unfair an expectation for a pilot, but like, Firefly didn't have a character who could be succinctly described as "stoic ninja dude." I guess I'm wrestling in my head whether the seeming genericity is enough of a problem to outweigh the potentially interesting ethical quandaries.
I think I'll give the show a couple more episodes to win me over, because the ethics of memory cleansing is a genuinely interesting subject for me. And because Two looks a lot like Melissa Marsala
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 25, 2017 6:13:52 GMT -8
The initial two-parter isn't real great beyond being a basic introduction to the premise, and most of the cast beyond Two and One are barely given any attention. Five (the girl with the dyed hair) and Three (the grizzled, violent dude with the beard) are probably the two best characters, but Five barely appears in the pilot, and Three takes a few episodes to expand beyond "amoral mercenary." The Android also gets a lot more development later, as does Six. Four (the ninja guy) always remains a bit of a weak link, character-wise, but conceptually, his story confronts the whole memory-wipe conceit more thoroughly than anyone else's by the end of season 2.
I'd say the show's strengths should be apparent by about the seventh episode. If nothing grabs your attention by then, you can probably move on.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 25, 2017 9:51:21 GMT -8
Woops, just noticed I got one of the names wrong above. Fixed!
(Have I mentioned that the whole number names thing can be really confusing?)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 25, 2017 10:04:19 GMT -8
Yeah, how come they couldn't use, like, NATO phonetics...?
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 25, 2017 10:23:59 GMT -8
I'm also now noticing that Three doesn't really have much of a beard? Gosh, I'm bad at this.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 25, 2017 10:58:21 GMT -8
During the pilot I was referring to the cast as (in numerical order) cute whitey, Midriffa Marsala, grizzled whitey, ninja man, blue-hair, and the black one. I still have to double check to remember which is four and which is five.
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 26, 2017 8:09:58 GMT -8
So what you're saying is that you name them all as if they were Teen Girl Squad characters.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Apr 28, 2017 17:42:14 GMT -8
I'm quite enjoying this show (four episodes in); cast is good and there are some fun ethical dilemmas. Right now it looks and sounds a little generic? Farscape without the whimsy, or Firefly without the cowboy twang. (Or probably, Blake's 7. I ought to watch Blake's 7 one of these days.) When can I expect the show to really kick into gear?
The third season begins airing June 9th; might put my other binges on hold to catch up with this in time. (Provided that we even get Syfy.) Sorry, Angel (and super sorry, SFU)
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Post by Zarnium on Apr 29, 2017 21:23:07 GMT -8
The finale of season 1 and early episodes of season 2 shake things up considerably, though the biggest shift into "high gear" will probably be early season 3, if the season 2 finale is any indication. For the most part, what we've got right now is a lot of set-up for story threads that I think show a lot of promise if the series can deliver on them. Concepts like Transfer Transit and the androids seem to be going somewhere and could add a lot of color to the setting, but on the other hand, a couple plotlines appear to have been unceremoniously done away with before they were fully explored, so it remains to be seen exactly how well the disparate elements of the show will congeal into a coherent whole.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on May 7, 2017 11:34:13 GMT -8
Like an idiot I spoiled myself on one of the big twists in the second season (although admittedly it's a twist that's quite exciting and gives me some hope this show is actually going to be good), so here's a good time to recap on what I like/dislike about the show as I approach the S1 finale. + The show neatly subverts a lot of the character archetypes; for instance, Three initially comes off as a Jayne Cobb analogue and One a Simon Tam, but One ends up being the self-serving one and Three ends up being more sympathetic. Which is neat, because the conflict between who they were and who they are now is intellectually interesting but also leads to cool characterization. - Although with One and Three, it was a little disappointing that both of their backstories involved a fridging. Which is more of a subcomplaint of - Wow, these guys do a lot of killing. I know this is a dumb complaint, but everyone sans Five is really quick to commit murder, which is par for the course for this kind of show, but you'd expect the ones who are eager to disown the bloodshed of their past to be a little more discerning about their proclivity for gunfighting? Is that a weird complaint? + So anyway, all seven protagonists sans perhaps Four are interesting, and everyone (especially Four) is fun to watch both individually and as a group. - Exception to this: the One/Two/Three love triangle is just zzzzzzzz. I buy them having casual sex, I do not buy the aftershocks of that. + Actually, special mention must be given to the android who is basically female Data but much more charming than that sounds. Having the exposition robot be a comic relief character makes a lot of the pulpier stuff go down well. - Occasionally though they make pop culture jokes which make me go ?? like what are the odds Charlotte's Web goes down as the only remaining piece of classic literature? It clashes with the show's usual mode of operation for reasons I can't quite express Ok so more thoughts on this when I'm done with S1.
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