Blake Crouch
Apple TV+ from 8 May
EVERYONE knows about the multiverse now. Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and popular movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once, the idea of infinite parallel worlds adjacent to ours is somewhat commonplace. So it isn’t a mind-blowing reveal in the new TV show Dark Matter when protagonist Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) finds that he has been transported into an alternate dimension where another version of himself lived a different life.
What is potentially exciting about this Apple TV+ series is what creator Blake Crouch does with the multiverse concept, and that most of the show’s storytelling is gripping and fast-paced. Crouch adapted Dark Matter from his own 2016 novel and wrote or co-wrote six of the nine episodes. The show has a more cohesive tone than the last TV show adapted from a Crouch novel, 2015’s mostly ridiculous Wayward Pines. But at times, it could use some of that show’s outlandish spirit, especially in a setting where literally anything is possible.
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Jason, as introduced in the first episode, has a pretty mundane life: he is a physics professor at a mid-level college in Chicago, husband to art gallery manager Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and father to teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). When he finds out that his old university friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) has won a prestigious physics prize, he experiences a twinge of jealousy about what could have been, and agrees to consider a corporate job offer from Ryan.
He is wholly unprepared to be thrust into an entirely new life, though, which is what happens when he is assaulted and kidnapped by another version of himself. This other Jason – referred to in the credits as J2 – has developed a device that can place a human being in superposition, a state of quantum uncertainty that J2 calls “five-dimensional probability space”. In practical terms, it is a huge black box that extends itself into an infinite corridor with infinite doors that a user can open, each leading to a different alternate world.
Dumped without explanation into J2’s world, Jason is desperate to return home to Daniela and Charlie. Meanwhile, J2 attempts to take over Jason’s life, to capture the familial fulfilment he sacrificed to focus on his scientific research. Dark Matter really gets going once Jason escapes from the clutches of J2’s nefarious boss Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) and enters the multiverse, aided by J2’s psychologist colleague and past love, Amanda (Alice Braga).
On their quest to return to Jason’s home reality, he and Amanda visit plenty of different worlds, and Crouch offers up some creative variations while sticking to a mostly sombre, grounded tone. The closest that Dark Matter gets to the kind of endearingly cheesy alt-universe adventures of a show like cult classic Sliders is when Jason and Amanda end up in a world overrun by giant killer bees, but even then, there is only a brief glimpse before they move on.
Dark Matter could have probably used more giant bees and less domestic drama, although Edgerton has strong chemistry with both Connelly and Braga. He is shakier when called upon to effectively differentiate the multiple versions of Jason, but the show helpfully provides sound-effect cues whenever switching universes.
Crouch elegantly ties the mechanism for travelling between worlds to the characters’ emotional states, and Dark Matter is best when it balances big sci-fi ideas with meaningful personal stakes.
The finale teases even more possibilities beyond the bounds of Crouch’s novel, offering the hope of an alternate universe where the show is just a bit goofier – and thus a bit more entertaining.
Josh Bell is a writer and critic based in Las Vegas, Nevada
