CINEMA
DARK MATTER (2024)
Season One [Premiere]
Aired On: Apple TV+
Release Date: 06/08/24
Crime. Drama. SciFi. Thriller.
"The BAU probes a deadly Gold Star conspiracy while serial killer Elias Voit's custody transfer leads to a complication in their backyard. Facing their biggest threat yet, the team cannot remain unscathed from the mind-bending consequences."
OUR REVIEW:
Author Blake Crouch’s 2016 novel Dark Matter threw family-man and physicist Jason Dressen into different realities where the only “what if” that mattered to him was the chance of getting home. Crouch now helms the AppleTV+ series of the same name. Joel Edgerton gets the Dressen role with Jennifer Connelly as his wife Daniela. As far as first episodes go, I would like to posit my own what if. What if… the premiere episode was better lit, did not throw in mumbling dialogue over any of the exposition, and actually trapped the viewer into dire stakes?
Then, I would wager, Dark Matter could be elevated from merely interesting into must-watch TV.
The pilot episode, entitled “Are You Happy in Your Life?”, is a rainy, jumbled mess of clever ideas with catchy set-ups that get weighed down in a bog of promised explanations.
Directed by TV vet Jakob Verbruggen, Dark Matter introduces Jason Dressen, a community college teacher who soon gets an opportunity to leave Chicago with its rain, traffic, and ‘L’ for the equally-congested but hi-tech chic, San Francisco. Those dreams are dampened as he gets thrust into a confusing array of lights, hypodermic needles, and concrete walls only to emerge into a reality not his own. One where he is not married to the luminous Daniela but is successful in other ways.
Thanks to decades of speculative sci-fi - and yes, a tip of the Infinity Gauntlet to you, Marvel Studios - playing within alternate realities is an understood concept. Even those who did not read the novel would surely pick up on the fact that Dressen ends … elsewhere. However, the premiere is all about the future situation without offering many hooks to remain in the present narrative. The dialogue between Dressen and his friend (Jimmi Simpson) is clunky at best. Dressen’s house, the local tavern, his alt-dimensional HQ, are all shot with outrageously low lighting that doesn’t so much set a mood (yes… the dark matters, right?) but comes across as rebate-seeking for the studio’s electrical bill. And when there is - albeit limited - exposition, the convo occurs out in the pouring rain, underneath a passing train, and from behind a mannequin mask.
Dressen, apparently a smart man, sure plays it dumb. After his emergence, Edgerton’s usually-tired eyes become wide and full of one-word queries - What? Where? How? He opts to run rather than analyze. At least he treats the viewer to some tasty drama.
Yes, the mystery is there and Crouch’s story is a suspenseful one. However, the old axiom of show, don’t tell never falls into Crouch’s lexicon. If the remainder of the series follows the plot of the book, Dark Matter has the potential to be a fun, exciting show that successfully builds from a rather lackluster opening. With a multiverse of stories out there, the possibilities are endless.
OUR VERDICT:
