This is another potential hit for the Syfy Channel, but it is still too early to tell.  The overall feel of this new action series is frustration wrapped in darkness and buried deep in mystery.  One by one, six people wake up in a sleeping chamber, alarmed that they are on a ship that seems to be damaged and losing life support fast.

At first everybody is trying to understand how they got on the ship and who each other are. They don’t even know their own names, but realize that need to work together to survive and figure what is going on.  As they discover, there are two females, four males and an android on the ship.  As they investigate the ship further, a female crew member decides to take the lead and start assigning numbers to each other based on the order in which they woke up, so they can differentiate themselves.  The female crew member designates herself as Two, a.ka. Boss Lady, and declares she as the leader.  Then there is One a.k.a. Pretty Boy, a male crew member that obviously woke up first.  Three a.ka. Sunshine, went to a male crew member whose personality is that of a fiery jack ass and is very aggressive to his colleagues.  Four is an Asian man a.k.a Slashy Stabberson, who doesn’t speak too much but his demeanor shouts a thousand words, plus he is handy with a sword and advance martial arts.  Five goes to a teenage girl, a.k.a The Kid, who has the ability to fix mechanical and computer problems.  And Six a.k.a Tiny, a gentle giant, but provoke him and he won’t be so gentle.  While looking around the ship they find an android in stasis.  The android attacks them when Six, and One tries to revive it.  The android also states to them that it has no data about this crew or anything, and that most of the information has been corrupted.

Dark Matter 01It is a slow process trying to piece together what happened.  To add to the mystery of their situation they stumble upon crates full of weapons.  They think they hit the motherload.  Their plan is to sell these weapons and use that money to get answers, but that is short lived when an unidentified ship fires a series of missiles at them.  Using their FTL (Faster Than Light) drive, they escape into hyperspace.  The android is able to piece together some data and informs the crew that they are heading to its original destination before this mysterious dilemma, an inhabitable planet with a mining colony.

While in hyperspace, Three starts snooping around in the underbelly of the ship and finds a huge steel door locked.  Using the weapons they found he decides to open it using firepower.  It ends up badly for Three, because it didn’t leave a scratch on it.  Five warns Two about the steel door and feels that there is something inside that needs to be left alone.

Two gives orders to One, Three, Four, and Six to fly down to the planet and try to find out what is going on from the mining colony.  Six dubs their newly shuttle craft “The Marauder” since it is a Phantom-Marauder class vessel.  They meet the colonists and discover information about who they are fighting against.  It appears that multi corporations run mining business throughout this sector and they want this colony to evacuate so that the corporations can claim the Tarium mineral rights for themselves.  Dark Matter 02The leader of the colonists says that the Corporation is sending Raza enforcers to force them out.  Rumors spread around the colony that the Raza are half human/half reptile, but they never actually saw one.  The crew is split in deciding whether to help them or just leave, but they finally decided to help them.  They will leave half of the shipment of arms to the settlers and take the rest.

But before they act upon this, Two orders them back to the ship.  She and the android are able to retrieve most of the lost data and found a startling discovery.  The ship is called The Raza, and their identity is recovered.  Apparently they were sent by the Ferrous Corporation to take care of the settlers and the weapons were for them to dispose of the colonists.  One by one, the android does roll call for each of them.  Jace Corso (One), crimes for murder, trafficking, theft, assault; Ryo Tetsuda(Four) crimes for murder, assault, and piracy; Portia Lin ( Two) crimes for murder, assault, arson, theft, and piracy; Marcus Boone (Three) crimes for murder, kidnapping, assault, and piracy; Griffin Jones (Six) crimes for assault, smuggling, and murder.  They are Corporate enforcers, and the only person that wasn’t called is Five, The Kid.  She is the only mystery.

Now that our crew is identified, what will they do?  Their memories are wiped and they have no knowledge of who they were before this.  It’s like a clean slate for everyone and the big decision is, do they pick up where they left off and dispose of the colonists, or do they follow a different path and help them?  Another thing is that even though the crew is still in the dark about their purpose, their past is going to catch with them and remind them of who they are and what it is expected from them.  It’s a tough dilemma and challenge for the Raza crew, but I believe that this season we are going to peel back more of the mystery of the crew and discover revelations and answers.

Dark Matter S01E01 “Pilot” recap