In the spirit of "Breaking Bad" or "The Sopranos," the new season of Syfy's "Dark Matter" will continue to offer weekly surprises and twists for its fans, promised showrunner Joseph Mallozzi in an interview with Space.com. The third season debuted June 9.
When the show first began in 2015, the characters were essentially blank slates; they woke up on the derelict starship Raza with no memories — they didn't even remember their own names. The crewmembers named themselves "One" through "Six" and began trying to learn more about their pasts.
The crew — who soon found that they were mostly wanted criminals — quickly began to take stock of their ship and the limited information they could glean about themselves, as well as the Android (Zoie Palmer), a humanoid robot who quickly feels like she's an outsider. In recent seasons, we have learned that the Android has programming flaws — flaws that will play out more in Season 3, Mallozzi said. [Inside Syfy's 'Dark Matter': Photos from Our Out-of-This-World Set Visit]
"As we progressed in Season 2, we found out that someone made her," Mallozzi told Space.com in an interview. "We don't know who that connection is, what the connection is, and what makes the Android possible."
Mallozzi also promised more of an emphasis on the world outside of the ship, including conflicts between the show universe's large corporations, called mega-corps. Trailers for the third season hinted that Four (Ryo Tetsuda, played by Alex Mallari Jr.) plans to have the corporations fighting among themselves. Once the winner is determined, Tetsuda would then try to take over the weakened victor.
Planned five-season run
While "Dark Matter" has not yet been approved for a fourth season, Mallozzi said he is optimistic that the fans will continue to support the series. He already has the finale season — Season 5 — sketched out.
In an interview with Space.com in 2016, Mallari praised the show for its complex writing. "Everything is connected," he said. "As much as I try and delve into each script and connect each thing, [writers] Joe [Mallozzi] and Paul [Mullie] are just absolute geniuses. Literally, there are so many connecting parts in the story arc that I miss a lot of them."
Mallozzi said that's because he spent years sketching out the characters. The TV show is based on a short comic book series from 2012 that Mallozzi and Mullie also created to spotlight the premise. The positive reviews that the comic books received inspired Syfy to pick up the series in 2014, for a first season in 2015.
"I had the luxury of time," Mallozzi said. "I sat with the story and the characters for five years, at least, in which I basically wrote out the backstory for each person. There's nothing more frustrating to me than when I watch a show and they [the scriptwriters] make it up as they go along and they contradict as they're going."
Mallozzi added that he knows each of the character's destinies, and not all of them will be happy ones.
You can tune in to the next episode of "Dark Matter" on Syfy on Friday (June 23).
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