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Dark Matter and Killjoys: the beginnings of SyFy's attempt to get their spaceship on again


Maester Llama

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5 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Wow.   This weeks' shows were totally wild.    Right?  

Haven't watched Dark Matter in a couple weeks, but wild certainly would be an apt descriptor of Killjoys. I can't applaud the writers enough for building a story that I care about. I want for good things to happen to them, and I hate those who do them harm. Seriously, the climax of tonight's episode, while I kind of saw it coming due to some heavy handed foreshadowing, it really bothered me in a way that not many shows manage to do. God damn I hate that bitch.

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9 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Haven't watched Dark Matter in a couple weeks, but wild certainly would be an apt descriptor of Killjoys. I can't applaud the writers enough for building a story that I care about. I want for good things to happen to them, and I hate those who do them harm. Seriously, the climax of tonight's episode, while I kind of saw it coming due to some heavy handed foreshadowing, it really bothered me in a way that not many shows manage to do. God damn I hate that bitch.

Yep, that pissed me off so much, but it was too s strongly foreshadowed that we can't say we weren't warned.

Is it just me or is this season moving the plot a little too quickly? I liked that last season, but now they ramped it up even more. It's like warp speed... maybe I'm too used to extremely slow paced shows.

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1 hour ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Yep, that pissed me off so much, but it was too s strongly foreshadowed that we can't say we weren't warned.

Is it just me or is this season moving the plot a little too quickly? I liked that last season, but now they ramped it up even more. It's like warp speed... maybe I'm too used to extremely slow paced shows.

Reminds me of the pace of season one Orphan Black.  OB has largely kept up the pace, but it seemed more breathless in season one.  Killjoys is by the same studio, so maybe they just like fast-paced shows.

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Killjoys

I honestly didn't see it coming. I was starting to try to see how an independent Westerly would fare with things to come, and then the shock happens. But I suppose Johnny really couldn't go on divided like that.

Dark Matter

And was that a first hint at why Dark Mattter is called that? I loved how what could have been an entire episode's worth of plot was solved in the last quarter of the episode.

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Pawter... dont know what to think... I somehow did see it coming but wished I was wrong as I still think the character wasnt "completed" and had more to offer the plot...

As for Dark Matter, I think I'm still in the minority here, but I really enjoyed that second season so far ! 

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It was clear that Pawter was going to die, but I was really hoping they wouldn't do it.  I love this show, I love the diversity of the cast and the snappy dialogue and I love that they don't resort to trite drama to drive the plot.  I'm not loving how often female characters are killed off or sent away.  It's a testament to the writers and directors that the characters are all really good.  I was about to list out the awesome characters, but pretty much it's all of them.  Just wish they'd keep more women in the bunch.  

Maybe like Sabine and Clara (hopefully), Pawter will return.  Though I don't know how likely it is that Dell Seyah or someone in her crew would attempt to green good her, and I don't know if green goo works post death.  Also, is Dell Seyah already a level 6?

Dark Matter....well, I'm slogging through.  Mostly habit now.  I just really prefer the fast pace of Killjoys over this endless slow story with Dark Matter.  It's the same thing over and over.  "Who am I?  Who could I have been?  Let's reconnect with our past life in someway."  The release of the dark stuff was a little too The Expanse for my taste, but we'll see where it goes.  

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Last time I was just bluffing and hadn't seen the episodes yet.  But now that I have...... Wild!

Both Expanse and Killjoys made a whole season about a creepy gooey contagion substance, and I felt it diminished the scope of both programs when they zoomed in to get specific about.... goo.     Well at least they didn't commit the sin of Being Vague.   Klyhen may even deliver answers next week about why the Green is a blessing.   At least give us those specifics, if you've going to focus on this substance all year.   And now DarkMatter has joined the fray with their own swirling ick.  It's the slime genre.

 

I knew that Dell Sayeh showing up in person & alone was wrong.   But I didn't know what else it meant.   That was their Bolton-stabbing-a-baby moment of viewer revulsion.

 

I think we all instinctively knew Wil Weaton was evil ever since the late 80's, he just wore a veil of innocence on Star Trek, like how Lucifer is known for dazzling displays of light.  But his character caused so much pain for the viewer back then, you had to conclude something sick was hidden under the facade of Wesley.   And now we see it out in the open.  My only lingering question about Dark Matter was when I shouted at the television, "But aren't these new 2nd generation nanites 'completely loyal' to the company?!?!?!?!?"   The nanites now in Two's bloodstream.   Unless they made that dolt loyal by some other means, like when they grew him in a test tube.

 

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Yeah, there were several moments where it seemed pretty obvious that Pawter was not long for this world. It could also just have been hinting at moving her into a more distant position relative to the main cast, but death was the likeliest outcome.

Like in the first season, Killjoys manages to pull the disparate threads together for the season finale. I love how the show is committed to delivering on plot build-up fairly rapidly, where a lot of other shows would be dragging their feet. Then again, they only have 10 episodes per season.

 

Looks like we should be in for some big reveals in the finale.

I'm just going to say that Khlyen better explain the mechanics of interstellar space travel and the socio-economic structure of the J. Preferably with diagrams.

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10 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

It was clear that Pawter was going to die, but I was really hoping they wouldn't do it.

Yeah 8( I hope they bring Clara and Alice back as regulars next season.

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Well that was... anti-climatic. I don't know, overall I liked it, but boy did it feel odd for the story to basically have been wrapped up with 10 or so minutes left to go. I wonder if Killjoys had to look away and stammer an apology about how this has never happen to it before. Maybe I am wrong, but the climax just kind of came out of nowhere (and was pretty predictable at the same time), and it felt like it should have been a bigger deal than it was. Loved seeing Clara back at the end of the episode, the part about her having shotgun elicited a chuckle. Hope Fancy and Pree have a bigger part in next season, I enjoy both of them, especially Pree (the Killjoys wiki page says he "has a criminal past" which seems to be a considerable understatement), though Fancy had some really great moments tonight.

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^Pretty much. The finale felt rushed, but it was still mostly good. I'm glad they remembered Clara, but I wish she had been re-introduced under different circumstances - now if just feels like she will be Pawter's replacement. I think now it's clear that Sabine will be back, but I hope they don't make it easy, and that it turns out Blackroot re-injected her with green goo from a different source, so she is still infected. Also, while Khlein might be a great killer, he sucks as a scientist.

Dark Matter also had a pretty good episode. I like what they did to develop the Android, and I've really warmed up to Three as the season progressed. He might be my favorite character.

It's a bit disappointing that both shows are essentially heading towards the major war plot, with the main characters more or less willingly being at the center of them. It makes me think again that maybe one show should be cut, and its budget transferred to the other. I'm fine with Dark Matter doing this, because of all the corporate rivalry thing that was established from the beginning. With Killjoys, I think the setting should be kept contained to the Quad.

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I'm a bit lost as to who the enemy aliens are in Killjoys.

Is the plasma itself sentient and needs human bodies to survive? When Khlyen says "my people", does he mean the plasma and the humans controlled by the plasma? As in he was human and then when the plasma took over him, he started considering himself as alien?

At some point I thought that the aliens were just some people harvesting the plasma, and not the plasma itself.

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2 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I'm a bit lost as to who the enemy aliens are in Killjoys.

Is the plasma itself sentient and needs human bodies to survive? When Khlyen says "my people", does he mean the plasma and the humans controlled by the plasma? As in he was human and then when the plasma took over him, he started considering himself as alien?

At some point I thought that the aliens were just some people harvesting the plasma, and not the plasma itself.

Yes, that's what I understood. The plasma particles are alien beings, so those are Khlein's people. The plasma is the Goa'uld of this universe, and Khlein was kinda like a Tok'ra ;) (I am currently in the midst of a Stargate marathon :P)

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Well, now that Killjoys has ended, this thread will probably go down quite fast ! 

Anyhow, it was quite a particular finale... not a bang or a blast, but full of quieter moments that made it a really strong send-off till next year. Some fantastic character beats and atmospheric moments ! I'd criticize the convulting writing of the first 15 minutes, though, I felt like they rushed way too fast on exposition and explanation that should have taken at least the double-amount of time they devoted to it. 

See you next week for those of you who follow Dark Matter ! :) 

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The Killjoys finale ended up being more setup than payoff, with the local conflicts in the Quad being resolved rather easily.

And yeah, they kind of rushed through the exposition, with people being relatively calm about the whole "sentient green goo is trying to take over the universe" story. Particularly odd since there has been no hint that they've ever encountered non-human intelligent life before (not counting purposefully created artificial intelligences).

This also seems to close the door on the show's original premise, with its trajectory now pointing straight towards a big, interstellar plot. At least Hanna John-Kamen doing double duty as both pro- and antagonist should free up some money in the budget for that.

 

But most importantly: how does interstellar travel work in this setting? The archive was set up to be used by people from the entire J, and our heroes seemed to be able to travel there and back very quickly, which points to FTL drives. But earlier in the season they made a big deal about FTL communication being impossible except via green goo. Or was that just about real-time communication?

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