Dark Matter: Nowhere To Go

September 1, 2017 4:17 PM - Season 3, Episode 13

Alliances shift, secrets are revealed, and the past becomes present in this third-season-ending quest to prevent intergalactic war. The Raza's crew attempt to unite Ferrous' enemies before their new fleet can be used, to put an end to the corporate war.
posted by zarq (15 comments total)

I apologize in advance for being the bearer of bad news, but Executive Producer and series creator Joe Mallozzi has confirmed that SyFy has cancelled Dark Matter and there will be no Season 4.

"You all deserved better."

Variety:

With the cancellation, Syfy’s scripted original lineup now consists of: “Killjoys,” “The Expanse,” “12 Monkeys,” “Z Nation,” “Wynonna Earp,” “Van Helsing,” “Channel Zero,” and “Blood Drive.” This fall, the network will debut “Happy!” starring Chris Meloni and Patton Oswalt as well as “Superstition” with Mario van Peebles and “Ghost Wars” with Vincent D’Onofrio. They are also prepping the release of Superman prequel series “Krypton” for a 2018 launch.

Syfy is also developing a follow-up series to the cult classic movie “Tremors” with original film star Kevin Bacon, and have ordered a pilot for “Nightflyers,” based on the novella by George R.R. Martin.

In case anyone is keeping score, when Farscape was cancelled by SyFy, it was also replaced by a follow-up series to Tremors the Movie, called "Tremors, The Series." It lasted a whole season of 13 episodes before being cancelled.
posted by zarq at 4:25 PM on September 1, 2017

Aaaaaarrrrgh! Netflix will pick it up, though, right?

Amazon?

Oh C'MON.
posted by petebest at 7:50 PM on September 1, 2017

Darn. The show wasn't perfect, but it had its moments. The cast did a good job with the material, and there was still a lot of potential to the premise.
posted by sardonyx at 8:06 PM on September 1, 2017

Well, that's disappointing. I can't for the life of me understand why people are watching Killjoys but not this. I tried to get back into the former, but it just bored me. This show was interesting.

Feh.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:41 PM on September 1, 2017

Well Ivan, I like Killjoys a whole lot more than this. I find the characters on Killjoys a lot more compelling. I enjoy Dark Matter but found the story lines to be weaker.
posted by Pendragon at 2:18 AM on September 2, 2017

I haven't watched all of this season but I do think they deserved to be canceled, the show was set up to go so many interesting directions and I think they squandered it by doing things like the super duper mcguffin that can take you anywhere but essentially goes nowhere. One is the king of a galactic empire and any daytime soap puts all his palace intrigue scenes to shame. Rather than tight stories about the interaction of folks that don't know if they are bad guys or their true nature they toss in a VR wife. Really I think it was just laziness, superficial twists, spacing a bunch of good refugees and it's not the protagonists (who are nice bad) but their other universe really bad doppelgangers. Does that shed any real light, or show that the (nice bad) originals are actually good guys? No just lazy.

It makes me mad, the show had all the elements to be something quite special and just wasted. Just surprised they didn't write in sharks-in-space, probably in next seasons outline.
posted by sammyo at 7:56 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sammyo, that's sort of my feeling too - they had _just_ managed to get a bit of a story going again after the interesting first season amnesiac / locked door mystery plot. Then the second season was okay, escaping their past and everything, but this last season really needed to put the alien smoke right up front and drop the palace intrigue plot entirely. The android insurrection could have been interesting in combination with the alien smoke, but.. I dunno, maybe Mallozzi and crew forgot they didn't have 24 episodes to pad out, so keep it tight and follow the story, guys.

But yeah, we had what, 3 of 13 episodes that boiled down to "surprise! That isn't three, it's Boone!" Bleh.
posted by Kyol at 8:22 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

In case anyone is keeping score, when Farscape was cancelled by SyFy, it was also replaced by a follow-up series to Tremors the Movie, called "Tremors, The Series." It lasted a whole season of 13 episodes before being cancelled.

They never learn.

I don't think Dark Matter really needed more seasons (unless someone can show me a really compelling plot outline, far better than this season's meanderings) but it would be nice if (in keeping with the Farscape treatment it's getting) they could get a 2-hour movie to wrap things up in a big flashy showdown with the aliens, save the galaxy, wrap up some dangling plot threads, etc. etc..
posted by mstokes650 at 9:26 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, there was a lot to like about Dark Matter, but they never really figured out what the show was about. Every arc seemed to end with the writers painting themselves into a corner. I think it would have been better to give up on the arc idea and just go with more or less standalone adventures. IMO episodes that did that were the best ones.

I really expected more from showrunners with a history like the ones they had, but to me it felt like they were kind of sleepwalking through this using default presets instead of trying to shine. It's a shame, I really like the cast.

I think Killjoys is succeeding by contrast because they seem to be very invested and excited about the stories they're telling, taking a lot less for granted. Maybe it's a stay hungry/eye of the tiger kind of thing.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 4:35 PM on September 2, 2017

I tried really hard to like Killjoys and I just couldn't. The mediocrity of Dark Matter felt like charming, comfort-food Syfy fare while Killjoys' bored and annoyed me. But it's clearly been more popular here and elsewhere. I usually understand why I have a different opinion/reaction than other people -- I either partly understand the reasons why my response is atypical, or I partly understand what other people like, even when I don't. In the particular case of these two shows, I've just been totally baffled. Y'all probably think it's dumb of me to fuss over this, but it really has sort of bugged me.

Anyway, I totally agree about the meandering criticism. And the whole empire plotline was a colossal waste of time. But I thought the android stuff had promise, as well as the alien invasion. I was also looking forward to an Orphan Black-like thing with Two and Portia.

Oh, well.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:49 PM on September 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

THAT Cliffhanger followed by cancellation?

Nooooooooooooooooooooo !
posted by Faintdreams at 9:59 AM on September 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have to confess, once they got into the parallel univere stuff, I tuned out. I mean, trek did it, Stargate did it, Rick and Morty SO did it, so I was pretty "eh" over it.

Also, the only character I really cared about was Android. Maybe if they killed off the main characters, and then did a series where every week the Android got a new set of dysfunctional owners, who would kill themselves off by the end of the episode...
posted by happyroach at 2:22 AM on September 4, 2017

Warts and all I didn't mind Dark Matter all the much. The cast was good, direction acceptable but the writing was pretty consistently uneven but I thought this season was far stronger then the previous one which I had a hard time getting through. Also it is always sad to see a Canadian production close up - one in which employed Canadian actors & crew.

If anyone is interested there is a petition to reverse the decision.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:40 AM on September 5, 2017

And for now, the revival/pickup campaign is over. Finished this in a weekend marathon. If there's more, great, but I won't lose too much sleep over it.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:13 AM on October 4, 2017

That final gif of The Destiny from Stargate Universe made my heart ache. :(
posted by zarq at 10:19 AM on October 4, 2017 [1 favorite]