My grades for the season’s
episodes
1. “Welcome to Your
New Home” A-
2. “Kill Them All” B
3. “I've Seen the
Other Side of You” A-
4. “We Were Family” A-/B+
5. "We Voted
Not to Space You" A
6. “We Should Have
Seen This Coming” B+
7. "She's One
Of Them Now" B/B+
8. “Stuff To Steal,
People To Kill” A
9. “Going out
Fighting” B
10. “Take the Shot” A-
11. “Wish I'd
Spaced You When I Had The Chance” A-/B+
12. “Sometimes In
Life You Don't Get To Choose” A+
13. “But First We
Save the Galaxy” A-/B+
As a whole, “But First We Save the
Galaxy” was a stronger finish than last year’s bottle finale. But it was not
without its flaws. To begin with, the plot to stop the bombing didn’t have a proper
amount of set up – up until now, there hasn’t been much indication in the prime
reality (unless I missed it) that a summit of the Corporations was going to
place. And we’ve never seen the Raza crew realize that this would be the key
moment they would need to change to prevent Corporate War. Moreover, the show
completely skips over the immediate aftermath of the Zairon coup, picking up
with the Raza some time later, with their plan to prevent the bombing already
in motion. This leaves open a whole bunch of nagging questions.
Given his intentions for the blink
drive, why did Four not keep everyone on Zairon locked up, while his scientists
replicated the technology? Why did he let everyone simply leave? Or did the
Raza escape Zairon before he could get to the drive? Arguably, we could infer
that Ryo believed his former crew would come around to his side and he was
grateful for their help in his ascension to the throne, so he released them.
But there was still a lot of missing connective tissue.
Moreover, the finale didn’t find a
whole lot for everyone to do, with the exception of Ryo and Emily. And the
series returned to one of its worst tendencies – deactivating Andrea, a gimmick
that already grew redundant and tiresome by the end of last year.
It also highlighted a glaring
problem of the second season – the fact that it seemed to have little idea of
how to utilize its new regular cast members. Nyx and Devon were promising additions
to the Raza crew, but they became increasingly marginalized as the season moved
forward. Devon was killed off before contributing anything major to the plot
mid-season, as though the writers lost their interest in him, even though they
were sowing the seeds of a possible romance between him and Emily. And then
Nyx, who began as a new major lead and a veritable badass, turned into little
more than Ryo’s girlfriend in the last stretch of episodes before getting an all
too brief fight scene in the finale. Her unceremonious death at the hands of an
apparently envious Misaki retroactively diminished her further, because she
wound up servicing Ryo’s character, as opposed to functioning as an individual
in her own right.
Maybe there were contract issues or
the writers “ran out of story.” [Melanie Liburd apparently moved to New York
and signed up for a new series, so it is likely she didn’t renew her contract beyond
S2.] But Nyx and Devon both deserved better or at least to go out better. Perhaps
Arax Nero will return in some capacity in the future, so the prison arc will
have some longer lasting consequences. I hope that, at the very least, Dark Matter won’t pull off another Lost Season 2 next year, when it comes
to its newest protagonists.
But let’s talk about the good
stuff, because there was plenty of it. The finale, if anything, cemented the
fact that this was the year of Five, aka Das, aka Emily Colburn. Jodelle
Ferland’s green-haired hacker was at the center of almost every major event
this year and her thread in this episode was a true highlight, if just for
seeing her don a blonde wig and act like a spy. Those last minutes on the
station were exciting and suspenseful, with that final shot seemingly spelling
the doom for everyone and leaving us wondering how they will get out of this
mess. Certainly, the rules of television storytelling pretty much guarantee
that none of the core Raza crew will have died in the explosion, but their
failure will definitely resonate throughout the third season. And things do
look bleak, with the blink drive gone and Corporate War now a certainty.
The finale also had an excellent
subplot with the android Arian, who feels like a truly sympathetic character
with his own economical mini-arc, despite having never appeared on the show
before. Andrea’s year-long struggles with her emotions provided the series with
a great deal of shorthand for this plotline, while also hinting that
emotion-capable androids may become an even bigger deal in future episodes. That
his sacrifice was ultimately for naught underscores how tragically this season
ends. Despite their best efforts, the good guys lose and they lose hard, and
not because of outside forces, but again, because one of their own has turned
against them. So, if I had issues with the gaps left over from last week’s
piece de resistance, I have no qualms about where this episode takes Emperor
Ryo, who now has all the makings of a sympathetic antagonist that fully
believes in the righteousness of his actions.
The fact that he willingly has the
station destroyed feels like a natural progression for his character and
cements the fact that, unlike Six, he won’t be coming back to the Raza fold.
Not anytime soon at least. There’s no way his former comrades will forgive him
for murdering all those people, betraying them and getting Nyx killed in the
process, however inadvertently. Given the show’s recent meta-commentary on the
nature of resets and status quos, this looks to be a change the show will
commit to, opening the possibility of Ryo becoming the series’ primary
antagonist. Assuming Alex Mallari Jr. remains a regular, emperor Ishida’s
continued presence suggests a significant amount of story next year could take
place off the Raza ship, dealing with Zairon’s conflict with Pyr. I’m not sure
the show’s budget will allow that – maybe Ryo will be more of a guest star,
with whom the crew will have occasional check-ins. But either way, it’s an
exciting and bold direction for the show to go in.
Looking back, this season, while
uneven, was definitely stronger than the first, with the weakest hours of this
year surpassing the weakest hours of last year. While it continues to
intertwine its episodic and serial plots with aplomb, the show also slowly, but
surely, appears to be embracing its seriality, with the blink drive/corporate
war arc providing a much-needed sense of focus. [The show began more in the
vein of the early Lost, where each
character would anchor their own mini-series for the duration of an episode.
There’s nothing wrong with this approach but sooner or later those disparate threads
have to add up to something bigger.] As a result, the season moved with a
greater degree of confidence overall, even though it still struggled with its
new characters. It also was again able to execute some excellent bottle shows.
There is still some sense the show
isn’t always living up to its potential, possibly as a result of corporate interference,
but I am confident that when Dark Matter
returns next year, it’ll be able to iron out its remaining rough edges.
Side notes:
- Congratulations to the cast and crew on the show’s third season renewal. Here’s hoping it will keep doing 13 episodes per season. 10 will simply not do.
- Really feel sorry for Inspector Kierkan. He remained a devout loyalist to the end. (Though I’m sure there is the possibility that this Kierkan was another temp clone. So, he might come back next year. If he does, I’m wondering if he’ll be fired for messing up so many times this season.)
- Jeff Teravainen's Anders is alive after all! Curious as to what he’ll be up to with Boone.
- Lots of loose ends left over for the future. There is still the matter of who exactly hired Corso to take out One/Derek Moss (the events of this episode were supposed to take place closer to the season’s end point originally, so the lack of resolution would’ve presumably been less surpri-sing), what was up with that squid-alien thing from Dwarf Star and who crossed over from the Mirror Universe. [My money is on AU Five, who was conspicuously absent on the AU Raza, despite it having a blink drive, and would have the prerequisites to create that virus in 2.10.]
- I really hope we’re not completely done with the Seer plotline, despite the death of Nyx and the Seer leaders. They left behind a whole ship, full of people hooked on drugs. I assume that ship is still somewhere on Zairon and maybe Ryo will make use of the remaining people’s precognitive abilities.
