Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
Modern sci-fi owes a lot to the 1967 one-season wonder, A prisoneramazing art that leaves the viewer wondering what the hero did to get trapped in a strange place by the sea, why he was trapped, and how he will get out. Referring to its hero only as Number Six, Of the prisoner the influence can be felt in countless other series, but one of the best draws from it aired on the SyFy channel for three seasons, from 2015 to 2017: A Dark Story.
Six strangers wake up in space with no memory of who they are or how they got there. They use the order they woke up in to find the words and start working together to solve the mystery. In contrast A prisonereventually they get everything, but when they have all the answers, the questions are changed.
Dark Story Opens with a Twist
A Dark Story opens with a black ship, battered as one by one, six passengers, four men, one woman (Rookie’s Melissa O’Neil), and a teenage girl, wake up, each with no memory of who they are. On the ship designated Raza, they find a cache of weapons and an android, and learn that the last location was a mining colony where the workers need protection from the Ferrous Corporation. In any other sci-fi series, this would be a no-brainer, except that the first major twist of the series was revealed at the end of the pilot: the passengers are the bad guys.
Learning from the android that they are all wanted criminals, except for Number Five, puts the cache found in a new light. They stole it from a group that has a contract to help the miners, all they have to do is kill the miners. It’s the first of many, many twists and turns A Dark Story it throws viewers over the course of its three seasons, and even up until Season 1 reveals that it’s moving, soft.
The question remains: who erased their memories, and why? Until that can be answered, the workers are left wondering, who can they trust? Who knows more than they let on?
Prisoners’ Influence Goes Beyond the Driver
The atmosphere of A Dark Story less, when it comes to sci-fi universes, the story puts more emphasis on the characters themselves than any universe-destroying conflict. It has that too, but watching a group of bad guys deal with their past actions, evolve into better people, or fail to be better and accept being the villain of someone else’s story, moves the story forward more than a technical MacGuffin hunt.
A prisoner it was very small in scale, while A Dark Story it allows passengers to go out into the world, and yet, they cannot escape the past. From the pilot to the final episode, who they were will always define them.
If Patrick McGoohan’s classic series had been allowed to continue, that’s what would have followed. Number Six would travel the world but be constantly watched, controlled, and unable to escape his fate as a prisoner.
Dark Matter and Stargate Share the same Creative DNA
A Dark Story heavily influenced by other sci-fi series: The Stargate. This series was created by Joseph Mallozzi, one of the most successful writers of the other Star franchise, he contributed to. SG-1, Atlantis, The atmosphereand an upcoming Amazon series. If you have ever seen the back half of SG-1you will feel at home in the world of A Dark Story.
Like Stargate, A Dark Story it was also mishandled by SyFy, which picked up the series but didn’t develop it, relegating it to original network shows that were less important in terms of budget and marketing.
There’s a good chance you’ve never watched the series, or even heard of it. Those who gave it a chance, however, fell in love with ragtag workers.
Free Sleeper Hits Stream
Getting it A Dark Story it is surprisingly easy and difficult. It’s streaming for free on the CW website, but try to find anything about it, and you’ll be wandering around the 2024 Apple TV series, A Dark Story.
It’s such a common problem that even the SyFy series’ Reddit has been overrun by fans of this new series. Like “Redemption” or “Rise of,” it’s time for the words “Dark Matter” to be dropped from Hollywood for a few decades.
Once you get it, you’ll enjoy it A Dark Story. Yes, there are a lot of plot holes explained by the memory wipes, but there are also creatively crafted character development and additional twists in the story. For better or worse, this is the kind of sci-fi we’ve always needed: crew, spaceships, and machines of questionable behavior that may or may not be right for the day.
