After finishing Silo Season 3, we checked the other high-concept programs available on Apple Plus, and decided on Dark Matter: a "family man" changes places with his non-family man counterpart in a parallel world. Season 1 premiered in 2024, and Season 2 in 2026. Sounds ok.
Episode 1.1: "Are You Satisfied with Your Life?"
Scene 1: A guy with a flashlight walks through a deserted warehouse space, and approaches a triangular structure which is presented as extremely important.
Cut to "family man" Jason (Joel Edgerton). He wakes up (shirtless shot), kisses his wife Daniela's shoulder, eats breakfast, criticizes his son Charlie's homework, tells Wife Daniela how much he loves her, and kisses her extremely passionately right in front of his son. They discuss who will drive Charlie to school; he wants to drive himself, with Family Man Jason monitoring.
Cut to the drive, with the boy not noticing a stoplight and getting yelled at by the driver almost smashed.
Left: Charlie is played by Oakes Fegley. His "girlfriend and pr manager," probably just a fan trying to deceive us, says that he "looks like a homosexual." Make up your mind, is he into you, or is he a gay slur?
On the show, Charlie's heterosexual identity is established immediately. He's depressed because the Girl of His Dreams is dating another boy.
"Then she has bad taste," Dad assures him. How do you know that her boyfriend is an obnoxious jock? Wait -- if this won't be a plot point, why mention it? You don't need to be that eager to assure fans that Charlie isn't gay.
Next Family Man Jason gets a text from his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson), who has just won a major award for proving that consciousness lies in the prefrontal cortex. That's old news. It comes with a million dollars and lots of grant money. Family Man Jason is invited to the celebration tonight.
Left: Jimmi Simpson's butt. He makes a lot of gay references on his Instagram, but he has a girlfriend.
Scene 2: Family Man Jason teaching his class in bonehead physics at a horrible community college. He draws a cat in a box to illustrate Schrodinger's paradox to his bored students.
Meanwhile, Wife Daniela is at work at her art gallery. How gender polarized: men are into science, women into the arts.
Cut to a dude in a storage facility, keeping track of Jason's movements and holding up a vial of a purple liquid.
Scene 3: At home, Family Man Jason tells his wife how much he loves her, kisses her extremely passionately, and prepares to have sex with her on the sink -- in front of their son. Charlie protests, but they tell him to look away. They're interrupted by a text from Ryan: "Where are you?"
"Oh, Ryan invited me to a celebration of his major award in the bar around the corner, but I love you so much that I'm going to skip it and have sex with you in front of our son."
"Nope! He obviously scheduled the celebration in the crappy bar around the corner instead of someplace nice because he is in love with you, and wants to ensure that you show up. We can have sex in front of our son later tonight. Let's just kiss passionately for ten minutes, and then you can go."
Scene 4: At the bar, Ryan introduces Family Man Jason to his Extremely Important Scientist friends, who look down on him for having a horrible job at a community college.
Left: The cutest of the Extremely Important Scientists is Ivan (Sam Cass, top photo and left).
Later, Ryan takes Family Man Jason off by himself: "I'm starting a neurotech company with my million dollar prize money, and I want you to come on board. We need a good physicist." But none were available, so he's asking Jason?
It pay more than the crappy community college, but it's in San Francisco. (Oh, no! Who would want to move to the center of art, music, literature, and gay culture?).
A woman comes up and asks to have sex with Ryan. "Sure, but I'm busy right now. I'll have sex with you in a few minutes."
Jason doesn't want to leave his life in Chicago, but he promises to talk it over with his wife. Wait -- the having sex with a random woman isn't a plot point, either? You guys are really paranoid about viewers thinking that characters are gay. Sounds like showrunner Blake Crouch is homophobic, which means we won't get any actual gay characters.
Scene 5: As Family Man Jason walks to his car (wait -- I thought the bar was around the corner, walking distance), a man in a white mask grabs him and forces him to drive to a warehouse, take off his clothes, and walk a long way naked (except for boxer shorts).
Then he has to put on new clothes (couldn't you have made him put on new clothes before the walk? Not that I'm complaining).
He injects Family Man Jason with something to make him fall asleep, and asks questions like "Are you happy with your life? Do you wish things would be different if you made different choices?" Shouldn't you have asked that before the guy got too groggy to answer?
More after the break
Scene 6: Family Man Jason awakens being prodded and tested. He's locked in a room. A woman comes in, hoping to kiss him passionately. He doesn't know her, but she says that they're close. Still no. So she tells him the news: his vitals came back ok, the blood work looks fine, so he should be released soon.
They take him to a room for debriefing by Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi), who he knew a long time ago. Suddenly the lights come up, and there are dozens of people outside the room, clapping enthusiastically. Creepy! Reminds me of that "Star Trek" episode about the over-populated planet.
Leighton tells Family Man Jason that this is the longest anyone has gone through: two weeks. He'll be asked for a full report as soon as he recovers, but for now, can he give any details about what he saw there?
Family Man Jason has no idea what's going on. He just wants to get home, so he can have sex with his wife in front of his son. When they are taking him back to his room, he breaks away and runs downstairs.
He can't get through the front doors without a key card, but the nightwatchman (Jimmy Styx, left) recognizes that he works there and lets him through (no exit? What happens when there's a fire?)
Everyone is chasing him, yelling "Jason! Stop!" There are searchlights and sirens. Family Man Jason climbs over the high fence and runs all the way to Chicago, which looks like it's about ten miles away. Then he takes a cab to his house. So Jasons in both parallel worlds live in the same house? What a conicidence.
Scene 7: Meanwhile, Parallel World Jason (you guessed it, didn't you?) goes home to Family Man Jason's Wife, who is angry because it's 2:00 am, and he didn't call or text.
"Sorry, I lost track of time. But I brought ice cream. Can we have sex?" Is that one of the perks of taking over Family Man Jason's life?
"No, I'm still mad at you. Besides, our son is already asleep, and I don't want to wake him up to watch." But he kisses her neck and stuff until she consents.
Scene 7: When Family Man Jason enters his house in the parallel world, Amanda, the woman from the facility is there! I guess driving is faster than running, but how did she know he would go home?
She explains that she lives there: she is his girlfriend. "No way! I don't have a girlfriend. I have a wife and son. What did you do to them?" He runs around yelling for them, and ends up in his bedroom -- the furnishing are all wrong -- and his son's room, now an office full of books and many, many award trophies, including the one that Ryan won in his world.
Uh-oh, the guys from the facility are there! Family man Jason runs out the back door.
Scene 8: Parallel World Jason and his wife go into the bedroom and start doing it. The end.
Beefcake: Joel takes his shirt off. We see some butts in upcoming chapters.
Left: Jarrett Carlington, who is in Crew Girl, not Dark Matter. It's my fault for reviewing them both at the same time.
Heterosexism: Incessant. I understand being into your wife, but OMG, this is over-the-top ridiculous!
Gay Characters: Heck, no. They are really excessive in demonstrating that gay people do not exist in this world (sorry, these worlds).
Parallel World: It needs to have bizarre details, like all of the stop signs are purple, Chicago has the Penneys Tower instead of the Sears Tower, and Ellen Degeneres is Secretary of State. I didn't notice any of those cosmetic changes.
My Grade: Maybe it will get more interesting when Family Man Jason and The Girl starts traveling around in various parallel worlds. Until then, lack of originality in the parallel worlds, the ridiculous heterosexism, and the absence of gay characters are major turn-offs. D
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