About the Show
Six people wake up one at a time from stasis aboard a starship, and none of them can remember anything — not their names, not their mission, not why the ship’s android is the only one who seems to know how anything works. With nothing else to go on, they name themselves after the order they woke: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six. The ship is the Raza, and its cargo hold, its weapons, and the dossiers the crew slowly uncovers all point to the same unwelcome conclusion: they were mercenaries, and by most accounts not particularly nice ones.
Created by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, veterans of the Stargate series, and based on their comic book, the show builds its engine out of a single generous question: if you cannot remember who you were, are you still responsible for becoming someone better? Across 3 seasons and 39 episodes (2015–2017), the Raza’s crew run heists, dodge the Galactic Authority and the corporations that own half the galaxy, and keep choosing — sometimes at real cost — to be the people they wish they had been. Syfy cancelled the series on a cliffhanger in 2017, and its fanbase has been campaigning, loudly and without much sign of stopping, ever since.
Why This Show Matters to Sci-Fi
Dark Matter was the scrappy heart of Syfy’s 2010s space-opera revival — a Canadian production made on modest budgets that understood what actually keeps a ship show alive: a crew you would take a bullet for, played by actors (Marc Bendavid, Melissa O’Neil, Anthony Lemke, Alex Mallari Jr., Jodelle Ferland, Roger Cross, and Zoie Palmer as the Android) who turned found-family warmth into the series’ special effect. Its identity-erasing premise let it ask real questions about guilt, rehabilitation, and second chances inside a fast, fun adventure frame.
It is also a standing exhibit in the modern economics of television: a show can do everything right — loyal audience, critical goodwill, a story mid-flight — and still be ended by a spreadsheet. The unfinished Raza saga remains one of the great open files of recent sci-fi TV.
Where to Watch
Episodes aren’t sold on YouTube: Dark Matter (2024) — Official Trailer | Apple TV.
