Dark Matter: Season 2 (4/5)
So I got round to watching season 2 of Dark Matter. If you want the TL, DR version, it's good, but not as good as the prior season. If you want the non-TL, DR version, keep reading.
Right, now that I've lost 90% of people, plus a further 9% asking "what the hell is Dark Matter?", let's treat the 1% to a season overview. The main thing I noticed from this season when compared to the prior is that it has better worldbuilding, while having weaker plotting. Season 1, if you recall my review from the old site, has sparse worldbuilding, but solid plotting, or at least, a more solid group of characters. The charm of season 1 was seeing this group of dysfunctional characters learn to work together, and learn about their old lives pre-memory wipe. Season 2, on the other hand, has a crew that mostly knows themselves as a result of season 1. I say mostly, because there is character development, but character by itself can't carry the season. Ergo, season 2 goes the worldbuilding direction - this isn't from me, it's from the writers themselves, who according to commentary, wanted more worldbuilding in this season. All well and good, but the plotting doesn't work as much.
Before I get to that though, I'm actually going to focus on the characters. Season 2 doesn't mess around, and makes it clear that no-one is truly safe. We see this at the end of the very first episode, where One is brutally murdered by Corso. I thought for a moment that it was a fake out, that they wouldn't kill one of their leads so flippantly, but no, he's dead, and he doesn't come back. Now, One was never my favourite character on the show, but even so, yikes. This actually spreads into the rest of the crew as well, albeit with mixed results. Four regains his memories and betrays the crew. Six, despite running away from his officer past, gets into potentially anarchist territory (it's kind of eerie, watching this now, in the context of people calling for outright abolition of the police). The weird thing (or maybe not so weird, given how tropes work) is that by the end of the season, Two and Three are probably the most moral members of the crew, whereas before the mind wipe, they were the most amoral. And Five is still, well, Five, I guess. But speaking of character material, while there is some good stuff, there's also iffy stuff. For instance, there's three new characters who join the crew at the start of the season. I was expecting a true paradigm shift, like, we've lost One, but get these three new characters to shake things up. Well, of those three, one leaves early on, outed as a double agent. Devon, taking on the role of medic, is murdered at the end of an episode and left to bleed out, the crew thinking he's jumped ship. And the third, Nyx, she gets the most screentime, but always feels separate from the main cast. And of course, the android is still the android, and therefore fun, but the whole "android becoming human, developing emotions, etc." is an old trope. It's a trope that's executed decently, but still, it's tropish. Something that comes through from this however, is a sense of nihilism. I may be reading too much into this, but it feels like the writers have a very bleak view on the human condition.
Characters aside, there's the issue of plotting. The plot of season is pretty paper thin. Now, the overall plot of season 1 was thin as well, but that worked, because the crew were living day to day, trying to survive after losing their memories. Season 2 however, sets up plot threads that don't really go anywhere. Early on, the crew have to escape a prison. That's sorted in two episodes. Then, there's the vague idea of taking down the corporations (FYI, I was having a lot of flashbacks to Continuum in this season, and I don't really mean that in a good way). Except that doesn't really go anywhere. Then they get the blink drive, which gets them into an alternate reality - an episode that's wasted because their alternate selves aren't revelations, we've already seen the Raza crew as their 'bad' selves in flashbacks, and in season 2 itself, where it does the concept better. Then the season ends with them helping Four get his throne back, and then trying to prevent a bombing, and failing, presumably starting the corporate war that occurred in the alternate reality. It's messy. It's also iffy, because they spend a lot of time working with one corporation which is, I dunno, better than the others? Yeah, Trauffault is a fun character, but even so, feels off.
There's also how episodes are structured, how they feel off at times. For instance, one episode has Three come back to the ship possessed by some kind of squid creature (it's actually better than it sounds). The way the episode goes, I thought that this would be resolved in the next episode. But no, it's resolved in this episode, and the pacing is so off, it's like they realized they hadn't written enough for this episode, so they had to throw this in to make up the running time. Simultaniously, towards the end, it feels like entire segments of plot are missing. Four gets his memories back, then the episode cuts to the next one where the crew is already fine with this. He gets his throne back at the end of the episode. Then, the next one, he meets the crew again after a period of time, wanting the blink drive, despite the fact that he could have taken it at the end of the last episode, after expressing his desire to get it in said episode. I don't know what happened with the writing process, but I suspect that something DID happen, and it dragged down the quality as a result.
That said, let's get into the good stuff, and that's worldbuilding. While it's nothing special, it is an improvement over season 1. Now, if you recall my review of season 1, you might recall that I acknowledged the worldbuilding issue, but also gave the show more credit than most. If you pay attention, you can piece stuff together. That said, it's still improved here. There's a sense of how galactic society (or societies) operate, and how messed up things really are if you pay attention. Like, this isn't some deep commentary on the human condition (it really, really isn't, even if it is nihilistic), but the introduction of various factions and all that? Yeah, it works.
So, at the end of the day, Dark Matter is still good. I'd still reccomend it. But it is a step down from the prior season.
