When Dark Matter came out, there was some skepticism to go along with the enthusiasm for the show.

Stargate fans were thrilled at the idea of a new show created, produced, and written by the team of Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. The two of them had done some absolutely fantastic work on SG-1 and Atlantis (they ran Atlantis, for the most part). As a writing team they wrote some absolutely fantastic episodes of the show.

Their goal with Dark Matter was to go against the grain of modern Science Fiction TV. Less ultra serious, super dark, humorless stuff, and more fun and adventure. That was the goal. And they achieved that goal, in spades! Sure, it was darker and more serious than SG-1 or even Atlantis, but it had that sense of fun and adventure that most modern Science Fiction lacked.

The concept was greeted with mixed feelings - a group of people wake up out of stasis pods in the middle of a crisis (the starship they're on is having serious problems and the life support is about to fail). Once that crisis is averted they realize they don't remember anything - who they are, where they are, or why they're there. The amnesia angle to the show, for some, seemed like a cliched gimmick. And it certainly could have been.

Instead, Mallozzi and Mullie used it to address issues of identity and self, and posed the idea that our experiences make us who we are, and if you take those experiences away we become different people. In the case of Dark Matter, they become better people. They're a group of mercenaries and assassins. They take on ugly jobs that involve killing people and stealing things, and they enjoy those jobs - until they lose their memories. Without their memories they do have some moral issues with what they have to do, but the other aspect of self and identity kicks in - biological, genetic, pre-programmed personality disposition. So they end up being serious badasses who are capable of doing some really bad things in order to serve a greater good, and are (more often than not) willing to do those things.

It was an examination of self that was handled extremely well.




And it was done in a framework of action/adventure Science Fiction. The show really hit all the right notes. The pacing was great, the writing was top notch, and the cast was perfect for their given roles. (Melissa O'Neil is such a badass! Incredibly hot, smart, AND a badass? Yes, please!) It all worked.

But, of course, SyFy canceled the show shortly before production for Season 4 could ramp up. Initially, SyFy indicated that the show would be renewed yet again (the ratings were good), but since they didn't own the show, they decided at the last minute to cancel the show. That left the show hanging. Literally - it ended on a MASSIVE cliffhanger. An exciting, bar raising cliffhanger.

Mallozzi tried to find a new home, but the contract with SyFy kind of screwed that over, too. (Is there a worse run cable network than SyFy?)

But he hasn't given up hope of finishing the series. He sent me a message stating that he's still trying to get a mini-series off the ground that would tie up most (if not all) of the loose ends on the show. It could still happen, but it becomes less likely every year. However, he's not giving up.

He did post a text version of what he had in mind for the first two episodes of Season 4, and a fan put the text to stills from the show to make a Virtual Season 4, episodes 1 & 2 on YouTube. Honestly, fans of the show really got screwed - they had some really great stuff in mind.

Even with the unresolved plot points, Dark Matter is still very much worth watching, and is one of the most fun shows I've seen in a long, long time.

The cliffhanger is the primary reason why I never purchased any of the bluray sets.

Otherwise it was three great seasons.

Well, Mallozzi is apparently planning on making some serious pitches soon for a 6 episode mini-series to end the show properly.

AND those, "Virtual Episodes," on YouTube ARE from his outlines for each episode. They're pretty much official (what he was going to expand on with the final scripts), and the videos are really well done. It's not a 100% satisfying ending (if he can't get the mini-series off the ground), but it's still a somewhat satisfying conclusion if it's all we get.

Starting it over again (with my wife this time, she's gonna love it), and she pointed out to me that 3 is a lot like Jayne on Firefly. And she's right - a lot of his lines could be given to Jayne and they'd be a perfect fit. But I did point out that 3 is much smarter than Jayne. Then again, who isn't?

I would have bought DM on iTunes but for the price being stuck at an outrageous $26.99/season. For 3 seasons with an unresolved cliffhanger a complete series set for $20 is more like what it's really worth (to me).

Dark Matter being picked up by a streaming service seems like such a no brainer to me. It's not expensive to make and has an already built in audience.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of this show.

When it first came out there was a fair amount of discussion as it went along, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside because of that cliffhanger.

Now that Mallozzi is re-shopping the show as a mini-series I would think there would be a good amount of interest to see how it ends. It was a great show. I loved the characters - and it was a well written character driven show.

I liked it and was disappointed when it was canceled---especially since Syfy kept the inferior Killjoys on for another couple of seasons after this. There's probably not much discussion in this thread because the series was canceled 4 years ago and it seems unlikely any efforts to revive it--even temporarily--will succeed.

Probably true but nor sure what the actors are doing otherwise and it would not seem to be super expensive to produce. I loved the first 3 seasons and season 4 was set up to be the best.