Review of the series «Dark Matter»

On June 26, the sci-fi thriller ended on Apple TV+ service «Dark Matter» starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. Its plot is based on the novel of the same name by the American writer Blake Crouch, who also acted as the main screenwriter and showrunner of the project. In the review below, we tell you why this Apple science fiction about a multiverse is much better than the previous one and what exactly might interest the viewer.

«Dark Matter»

Genre science fiction thriller
Showrunner Blake Crouch
Starring Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmy Simpson, Dayo Okenyi, Oakes Fegley
Premiere Apple TV+
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb

Jason Dessen, an ordinary physics professor at the University of Chicago, lives a quiet, measured life with his beloved wife Danielle and high school son Charlie. He and Danielle once gave up their ambitions to build their dream careers for the sake of their family, but now they seem to be a perfectly happy couple, more or less content with their lives.

One day, Jason reluctantly goes to a celebration of his friend Ryan’s receipt of a prestigious science award. After a night at the bar, the hero is on his way home. He is attacked by a stranger with a gun in his hand and a mask on his face, which is usually worn by maniacs in bloody slashers. This strange man takes the bewildered Jason to some abandoned building, takes his clothes and gives him his own in return, and then injects him with some unknown substance. When the unfortunate man wakes up, he discovers that he is now a successful scientist with no wife or children.Apple TV+ streaming service continues to immerse viewers in sci-fi stories about the principle of superposition, Schrödinger’s cat, the concept of the multiverse, and more. The series is still fresh in my memory «Constellation», which recently came out from under the wing of the Apple platform, but did not live up to the audience’s expectations. In its journey through parallel universes, «Dark Matter» also goes unevenly and sometimes looks strange, to say the least. But in general, it turns out to be a much easier to understand and more interesting story than its dubious predecessor with Noomi Rapace.

From the third or fourth episode, it gets really exciting. The audience travels with the characters through different worlds (to avoid spoilers, we’ll keep quiet about who exactly and how they do it), and you never know what’s waiting behind the next door.In turn, the journey involves getting acquainted with various bizarre realities. One of them is the ash-covered streets of a post-apocalyptic metropolis, which evokes thoughts of a gloomy setting Silent Hill. Another — endless snow somewhere from «The Day After Tomorrow» by Roland Emmerich. Another resembles a barren wasteland, as in the Fallout and in one of the dialogues there is a direct mention of «Mad Max» with its brutal rules of survival and gangs on bikes. The heroes do not forget to visit the world covered by the deadly virus — to walking dead It hasn’t come to that yet, but the allusion to COVID-19 is readable.

Just as it is possible to get into completely opposite worlds here, and everything, again, will depend on the person himself. Where will the road lead this time — to another apocalypse or to a sunny utopia? To a place of complete happiness, or to a hopeless gloom? And finally, which cat will appear in the frame — alive or dead?Although the authors also focus on this, even in the idealized world you’ve always wanted to be in, there are difficulties because life is just that — changeable and unpredictable. What can we say about the eternal questions that are also traced here and constantly disturb the human mind, such as «who am I?» or «what is my place in this world?».

If we have already mentioned a certain internal contradiction, it is also felt on this side of the screen. Some moments delight the viewer’s eye, thirsty for an interesting story, while others seem unnecessary or even superfluous. After a long exposition, the plot begins to unravel rapidly, and in the seventh episode, it is the drama that is revealed to the maximum; it is about emotions. Toward the climax, the narrative returns to a sluggish, almost uneventful pace, and at this point you involuntarily begin to expect some kind of Shyamalan-esque trick. But nothing of the sort happens, and this is somewhat disappointing.