Anyway, it was weird to see Kris Holden-Reid without a beard. I think he looks better with it.
Spoilers Dark Matter - Season 2
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Transfer Transit doesn't clone EVERYTHING. :P It's got a bunch of quirks in the hair department. Hell, despite it only having the genome to work it, it still managed to clone Derrick Moss's exact original haircut!
Mark
Mark
I have to agree now, about Devon. Since Kierken, the other character who could have saved Devon or know about his death, also didn't mention him to Three - it looks like he simply got removed from the show. However, Mallozzi does have a knack for bringing back (guest) actors at every opportunity, so as long as the door isn't entirely closed...
Four/Ryo seems to have realised his potential as a villain, something which was suggested already in the very first episode ("I gouged their eyes out, for the empress to find") and underscored with Four killing Akita (the first really shocking move in DM). He was also usually the most violent one, racking up quite the bodycount (using deadly force during the operation in the Traugott facility for example, unlike the other members of the crew but like Tash and her brother). And when the Android asked everyone if they would hurt the crew (back in episode 3), his answer was: "not yet".
Still, he had his surprisingly softer moments as well, most of all when it turned out that Ryo was the one who cast the deciding vote to keep Das/Emily/Five on board the Raza. He also was the first of the crew to train her in the use of weapons (came in handy for him in this episode, where the Seers underestimating Five was the cornerstone of Two's plan to free his brother). And Four did save Two only a few episodes ago, when he killed the upgraded supersoldier in Dwarf Stars facility. He's a multi-faceted antagonist.
The Seers apparently failed mostly because they apparently didn't realise Five was way more dangerous than is commonly thought. Which is believable in so far as the crew has kept that knowledge tightly to their chest - I think Reynaud and Arax are the only outsiders left alive who are aware how dangerous she can be, and they are hardly going to advertise that. The seers correctly predicted Two would come to save Four (not hard as the Raza crew always comes for those left behind, if they are aware that person is in trouble), but her deliberate misdirection by making only the unassuming Five go after their real target eluded them.
The Seers prediction of what Ryo would do afterwards may have been wishful thinking or an attempt to influence Ryo, rather than an actual prediction, allthough Ryo's act was surprising enough even for the people who know him best (such as Two) - which is still not good at all, it turns out.
An observation: if Ryo doesn't gain the blink drive, he is in for a tough and potentially short reign. Not only is Zairon a cutthroat environment, they blew up 6 of their own warships + crews as part of the internal struggle for power. Pyr is laughing all the way to a new victory. He needs that drive.
I have to admit I fell for the misdirection, believing Ryo to be played by the supposedly loyal general. I didn't see the Seers coming before it was too late (Two definitely did realise it by the time Four was captured, though).
Other remarks:
-Six' plan to take on the whole known space (GA, corporate fleets, independent territories, the General's movement, etc) with just the Raza is bonkers!
-Surprisingly, Three is the first member of the crew to realise that giving dirt on the corporations to Inspector Kierken may be in their best interests. The decision to let the clone live, and let him keep the memories of what Three confessed, was inspired.
-Ryo's assertion that Das/Five/Emily helped Portia to modify the Android is a small bombshell. That would mean that Five was on board longer and had far more influence before the mindwipe, than is generally assumed.
-In a recent interview, Mallozzi said that he had planned the ending scene of ep12 for 7 years. In the scene he originally envisioned, one more character got "put to the sword" (he didn't mention who it would have been; I doubt it would be any of the crew though, save maybe Nyx).
I often wonder if some network executive got uneasy about the fact that Bendavid's departure left the show with only one white male cast member and insisted that they add another to take his place, but the producers didn't really want to, so they just tossed in this new guy, did as little as possible with him, then dropped him at the earliest opportunity.
Yeah, but except for the first bit, that was all before he restored his memories. I think the idea is that, while Four had the potential to go either way, Ryo's ethics tend more toward the dark side.
Not necessarily, since the driving force behind that cutthroat environment was Ryo's stepmother, and the royal family as a whole. And they're all dead now except for Ryo himself. We don't know if their proclivities are more widely shared among the Zairon nobility or if it was just their particular ruthlessness.
Or else that the Android's reprogramming happened just before the mindwipe. Remember, the Android was deactivated when first encountered, and had no memories upon awakening. It seems reasonable to think that her deactivation and memory loss were a consequence of her reprogramming.
It's a possibility, I suppose. Else it would be curious to introduce and ditch a character so quickly.
The new Ryo does have bits and pieces of Four in him, though. It's probably the main reason that Two and co didn't get the sword as well. He remembers his camaraderie with Two and the others, which may soften him somewhat towards them, as long as he sees no threat nor an immediate gain by hurting them. The desire for the blink drive may override those feelings; the needs and wants of Ryo are probably stronger than sentiments of Four.
Ryo's sales pitch was based on victory against Pyr, though. Losing 6 warships has to be a blow for that, given that the war wasn't going well before the coup. It's possible that better leadership may still turn it around, but that blink drive would ensure victory. Even if he gets just the one (reverse-engineering can't be easy if Reynauds team couldn't do it).
One of the earlier S2 episodes mentioned that the Android was programmed to ditch her data if she felt the ship was compromised - so it could not be used as proof against the owners. That may have happened after Five's virus/worm got active.
Think the seers were a bit delusional if they really thought Ryo would let them live. He'd seen them in action before and knew the danger they posed plus had pushed Milo toward his suicide so they really got things wrong there. The Empress, well she death was totally expected. I did wonder if the brother's demise was to show the seers they had really screwed up with their predictions but they didn't live long enough for that theory to hold water.
I did. I mentioned that they probably couldn't have predicted all his other actions if they hadn't predicted that he'd restore Ryo's memories, because that restoration was the key step he needed to take in order to all that. As Four himself said, he couldn't act without Ryo's memories because he wouldn't know whom he could trust in the royal court. So if the Seers knew he would attempt a coup at all, they would know he'd restore his memories first.
Kind of a weird ending to the season. Apparently a big time jump since last week. And there's a discontinuity with the Kierken character. Two episodes ago, they made such a big deal out of Three warning Kierken about the impending corporate war and making sure his clone stayed alive to retain that information -- yet here, Kierken seemed to know nothing about any of that, and it was like it had never happened. And they just unceremoniously killed him off at the climax, a complete waste of half a season's worth of characterization.
I dislike where they took the Misaki character -- making her just a stereotypical female character driven solely by the pursuit of a man and jealousy toward a romantic rival. It was tiresomely cliched, and the whole poisoned-blade bit was equally cliched and predictable. And they'd better not have killed Nyx. With both One and Four off the crew, they can't afford to lose another person (especially one that gorgeous).
Four has really embraced the supervillain role, hasn't he? Blowing up a whole station, starting a galactic war, stealing the blink drive. The one redeeming thing he did was giving his former crewmates a chance to escape, but I'm not sure I find that plausible, given that he was willing to execute his own brother even knowing that the coup wasn't Hiro's fault. By the same ruthless logic, he should realize he'd be better off killing the Raza crew, since they know him well enough to know his vulnerabilities and become a threat. So it seems like a bit too much of a plot convenience.
Five was great, though. Her new look was nice (though I wouldn't have expected her to go blonde, and I prefer the green hair), and she was quite capable. I love the way she "disarmed" the bomb threat by kindness and persuasion.
Were we supposed to recognize that guy that Three blurrily saw looming over him at the end there?
I dislike where they took the Misaki character -- making her just a stereotypical female character driven solely by the pursuit of a man and jealousy toward a romantic rival. It was tiresomely cliched, and the whole poisoned-blade bit was equally cliched and predictable. And they'd better not have killed Nyx. With both One and Four off the crew, they can't afford to lose another person (especially one that gorgeous).
Four has really embraced the supervillain role, hasn't he? Blowing up a whole station, starting a galactic war, stealing the blink drive. The one redeeming thing he did was giving his former crewmates a chance to escape, but I'm not sure I find that plausible, given that he was willing to execute his own brother even knowing that the coup wasn't Hiro's fault. By the same ruthless logic, he should realize he'd be better off killing the Raza crew, since they know him well enough to know his vulnerabilities and become a threat. So it seems like a bit too much of a plot convenience.
Five was great, though. Her new look was nice (though I wouldn't have expected her to go blonde, and I prefer the green hair), and she was quite capable. I love the way she "disarmed" the bomb threat by kindness and persuasion.
Were we supposed to recognize that guy that Three blurrily saw looming over him at the end there?
I'm hoping he was a clone. It wouldn't make sense for the GA to pull him off his assignment to work security for this summit, surely they have thousands of seasoned officers capable of handling a job this important. Perhaps he finagled his way into the job to further investigate Three's claims, and was only acting clueless in front of Six and Two to verify his suspicions. If he's really dead, then they've repeated the same thing that happened to One (and Devon it would appear-I was guessing he'd show up in the finale), dumping carefully plotted story material and wasting our time. I'm hopeful that's not the case.
That was nauseating. Last week, her brief talk with Ryo in his cell was a turn around from her first appearance. Genuine, and a warmth that was welcome. Here, she's reduced to soap opera-ish ''woman scorned'' melodramatics. Ugh...
At first I thought it might be Wexler, but he came into focus and it wasn't. So, he's just a piece of the cliffhanger smorgasbord to chew on for the next 10 months.
Didn't really care about the season finale. Obviously all the regular will escape the station just before it blows up. And yeah, they better not kill Nyx. I guessed the other android was the bomb early on. How did four knew the command to shutdown the andoid? Probably part of the memories he restored.
Ok, so I officially hate the producers of this show. Leaving it on such a cliffhanger. I know its been renewed for a third season and the answers are coming but to not even give a hint that it was a two-parter is just a assholish move.
I did like however that Ryo's bodyguard obviously planned ahead to take advantage of Nyx's pre-cognitve capabilities. Nyx is arrogant in the belief that she can't be beaten in hand to hand because of her ability but coating your weapons in poison really bypasses that with ease.
Also why have they forgotten that they've got three transit pods on the Raza, they could just make temp clones of themselves to go on this high risk mission. Of course Two can't because of her nanites, I'm hoping that she is smart enough to harvest a few Generation 2 nanites from her bloodstream and have the Android create a viable backup supply that she can access as needed since I'm betting Rook will be using those to get back at her down the road if he designed her replacement to be more loyal and controllable. Back in regards to the pods that would enable them to avoid any problems while onboard the station without having to worry about detention or other problems that could occur when they're on their other missions.
When they sent Five in to the station, how come they didn't already know the composition of the bomb. They evidently had a few weeks to go through the records, and the Android should have skimmed them in detail in seconds, so it would have made sense to for Five to already have a bomb detector with her before she arrived at the conference.
In regards to the blink drive, I just can't get over this stupid trope about no backups. It was a stolen prototype originally. So that would mean the original designing corporation would have a warehouse full of engineers, software experts, and production facilities designed to churn those things out. Why haven't they rebuilt it. And don't use the cop out that a rival corp wiped the records, off site backups of important technical data is stupidly easy today, in the future they'd have a thousand redundant copies floating around.
I did like however that Ryo's bodyguard obviously planned ahead to take advantage of Nyx's pre-cognitve capabilities. Nyx is arrogant in the belief that she can't be beaten in hand to hand because of her ability but coating your weapons in poison really bypasses that with ease.
Also why have they forgotten that they've got three transit pods on the Raza, they could just make temp clones of themselves to go on this high risk mission. Of course Two can't because of her nanites, I'm hoping that she is smart enough to harvest a few Generation 2 nanites from her bloodstream and have the Android create a viable backup supply that she can access as needed since I'm betting Rook will be using those to get back at her down the road if he designed her replacement to be more loyal and controllable. Back in regards to the pods that would enable them to avoid any problems while onboard the station without having to worry about detention or other problems that could occur when they're on their other missions.
When they sent Five in to the station, how come they didn't already know the composition of the bomb. They evidently had a few weeks to go through the records, and the Android should have skimmed them in detail in seconds, so it would have made sense to for Five to already have a bomb detector with her before she arrived at the conference.
In regards to the blink drive, I just can't get over this stupid trope about no backups. It was a stolen prototype originally. So that would mean the original designing corporation would have a warehouse full of engineers, software experts, and production facilities designed to churn those things out. Why haven't they rebuilt it. And don't use the cop out that a rival corp wiped the records, off site backups of important technical data is stupidly easy today, in the future they'd have a thousand redundant copies floating around.
Enjoying the show still, but let's be honest -- the writing isn't the greatest.
Was it Anders, Six's GA partner he "killed"?
Was it Anders, Six's GA partner he "killed"?
Somehow I doubt Kierken is dead. You'd think the android would be quicker on the uptake and stick her fingers in her ears and go "LALALALALALLALALAALA" really loudly. 
Three sure gets beat up quite a bit. You want to talk sexism, I bet there'd be complaints if the women got beat up as much as he does.
I missed how Six got out of his cell, did they show that? And is Five the worst spy ever? Let's walk right up to where Ryo is standing and make eye contact with him.
I did appreciate that one of the goons attacking Five looked like he could've been a forgotten Trump son.
I'm bitching a lot but it moved fast enough and was entertaining enough to not wear out its welcome for end-of-week timekilling. And it was fun to see our crew play dress up. I thought they did a pretty good job with the sets to sell the space station setting.
Three sure gets beat up quite a bit. You want to talk sexism, I bet there'd be complaints if the women got beat up as much as he does.
I missed how Six got out of his cell, did they show that? And is Five the worst spy ever? Let's walk right up to where Ryo is standing and make eye contact with him.
I did appreciate that one of the goons attacking Five looked like he could've been a forgotten Trump son.
I'm bitching a lot but it moved fast enough and was entertaining enough to not wear out its welcome for end-of-week timekilling. And it was fun to see our crew play dress up. I thought they did a pretty good job with the sets to sell the space station setting.
Being the Dark Matter verse they probably axed anyone who was left to retrieve that data and rebuild it.
One of the explosions took out the power and the force field went away.
There's something to be said for iron bars.
I doubt he's a clone. When he first showed up and was lecturing the troops, he said that the summit would be in two weeks. So the episode covered a considerable span of time. I don't think a Transit clone has a 2-week lifespan.
Besides, I'm getting a little tired of hearing "It was a clone!" from the fans every time a character dies on this show. If they actually used that device as often as the audience expected them to, it would quickly rob character deaths of any meaning and just reduce them to lazy cheats.
I've never really believed that "carefully plotted" was the case here. That may be the impression Mallozzi gives on his blog, but I doubt he'd admit to a more chaotic process. Besides, as J. Michael Straczynski likes to stress, "No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy." He was the pioneer of the modern planned-in-advance series arc with Babylon 5, and he kept his plan quite loose -- just the key character arcs and plotlines and events that were most important to cover, with a lot of flexibility toward the specifics of how and when they happened. He added and dropped and replaced characters, reassigned arcs from one character to another, rearranged the timing of the story arcs, etc. as mandated by the vagaries of real life. And yet, even though he was very open about all the changes, B5 fandom still seemed to want to believe that he had every single episode plotted out in detail 5 years ahead of time.
That was nauseating. Last week, her brief talk with Ryo in his cell was a turn around from her first appearance. Genuine, and a warmth that was welcome. Here, she's reduced to soap opera-ish ''woman scorned'' melodramatics. Ugh...
We're two years and 26 episodes into this series, and not a single episode has been written or co-written by a woman, and only three have been directed by a woman (two by Amanda Tapping, one by Mairzee Almas). Not that men are automatically incapable of writing women well, but there can be blind spots that a female perspective can help balance.
I also don't think these particular writers are any good at portraying romance or relationships. The Four/Nyx relationship was very clumsily handled. One week they're suddenly sleeping together out of nowhere and insisting it's just a meaningless, casual hookup, then a few weeks later Four is talking about his feelings for her. What feelings? We were never shown them developing feelings for each other, just told about it after it had allegedly occurred offscreen. As sexy as I think Melanie Liburd is, I would've gladly sacrificed her sex scene in favor of a scene that actually showed them connecting emotionally, so that there'd be some foundation for this "romantic" arc.
That's what I figured. He's the only one who remembers their original purchase and programming of the Android.
Well, I figured it would end on a cliffhanger, because season 1 did. Still, I prefer season finales that bring actual closure to the season's arcs, while still setting up whatever comes next. (Hmm. Come to think of it, Killjoys ended season 1 with a cliffhanger and season 2 with more of the latter kind of finale. Maybe because they had less confidence of being renewed that time?)
I'm not actually convinced that would've worked. Nyx's ability works by observing and analyzing her opponent's actions to predict what they'd do next. She doesn't base it on normal expectations, but on direct observation of the subject. If Misaki's specific goal was merely to cut Nyx, then her fighting technique would've been geared toward achieving that goal, and that would've affected her body language and choices in a way that Nyx should've been able to perceive. And she's savvy and experienced enough that she should've been able to deduce from that fact that the blade was poisoned. Especially since it's such a cliche.
Only if there are Transit pods at the destination that they can hack into. Given that the Raza crew already used that trick once before, I don't think the station security people would've allowed functioning Transit pods on the station during a high-security conference.
Although I suppose they could've just used one of the pods in the medbay to send a clone to one of the other pods in the medbay, and created their copies right onboard the Raza, then sent the clones to infiltrate the station in the Marauder. But I don't think they had the time to set that up in this case.
Good point. I can't think of a way around that one.
Yeah. I hate the "force field cell" trope for just that reason -- same with force field-based spacesuits like the life-support belts in the animated Trek. The problem with a force field is that there's no way for it to fail safely. If it fails at all, you're dead, or your prisoner is loose.
Then again, aren't regular prisons designed so that the cell doors unlock in the event of a power failure, so that the prisoners aren't trapped in their cells if there's a fire or earthquake or something?
