Review: Dark Matter, “She’s One of Them Now”

Hot damn this show is awesome.

With their financing problem taken care of and the Seers off their back for the moment, the crew of the Raza prepares to take the offensive. Their target is the former owner of Five’s stolen “key.” They hope to learn the nature of the device and perhaps turn it to their advantage.

It won’t be easy to break into one of the most secure corporate fortresses in the galaxy, but this is the crew of the Raza. There’s a reason they’re the most infamous criminals alive.

Along the way they “request” the assistance of their former handler, Rodney McKay Calchek. Add some appropriated Transfer Transit tech and Five’s usual technical brilliance, and the heist is on.

Meanwhile, Nyx mourns losing her brother again, but she has little time to avail herself of the support of the crew before she herself becomes the helper as Devon goes into a downward spiral.

“She’s One of Them Now” is an example of Dark Matter at its best. There’s tension and excitement, there’s strong character development, and there are some great twists.

The action and the quips flow hard and fast and the episode never stops being endlessly, delightfully entertaining. Dark Matter isn’t necessarily the deepest or most profound work of sci-fi ever made, but you’d hard-pressed to surpass it when it comes to sheer fun.

This episode is also another case of Five being put in the spotlight, which just makes me so happy. Even in a genre aimed at geeks, it’s so incredibly rare to see the geeky types playing the hero, and so refreshing when it does happen. So often in stories like this we see characters succeeding mainly through martial strength; it’s a wonderful change of pace to see one winning the day through sheer guile and wit.

Add to that not one but two intense cliff-hangers, and you have an excellent episode.

Devon and Nyx’s side-plot, while less spectacular than the main story, is also welcome. About time we learned a bit more about Devon, though admittedly it’s not much we couldn’t have guessed. It does feel a bit strange that there still seems to be a sharp division between the old crew and the newcomers, but I suppose it does make sense for the Raza crew to be a bit slow to trust, under the circumstances.

My one complaint is that I don’t know why we spent so much time on McKay. Sorry, Calchek. But let’s be honest: He’s pretty much McKay. They’re not even being subtle about it anymore. I half-expected him to bring up his fear of lemons at some point.

Anyway, he didn’t seem to be a necessary part of the episode. I certainly don’t see a good reason to give him as much screen time as they did. I mean, I liked Rodney, too, but Atlantis is over. This is Dark Matter. Even if it has a lot of the same creative talent behind the scenes and a similar writing style, it’s still its own show and shouldn’t trying to ride the coattails of Stargate.

It feels like David Hewlett had some bills to pay so the Dark Matter producers just threw him a role for old time’s sake or something.

But that one stumble is nowhere near enough to spoil an otherwise fantastic episode.

Overall rating: 8.5/10