Televisioarvio|The family man is taken to another dimension in the series based on Blake Crouch’s bestselling book.
A flame it’s a coincidence that the two big new series on AppleTV+ feature the same cat, namely Schrödinger’s cat.
The other one is Constellation, which appeared in the service at the beginning of the year. Second, Dark Matter, launched a couple of weeks ago. Its first two episodes were released on May 8, and now we’re on the fourth episode.
Jason Desson (Joel Edgerton) is a family man teaching theoretical physics at the University of Chicago. He lives a peaceful, comfortable life with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and his teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley) with.
One after a bar night, a masked man kidnaps Jason from the street. The man drags Jason to an empty warehouse and injects him with a substance that knocks him out. Jason wakes up in a lab where strangers congratulate him and tell him he’s “back” – but from what?
There is no wife or son at home, but an unknown Amanda (Alice Braga), who claims to live there with Jason. Nothing else in Jason’s life is the same, even the bartender doesn’t know anymore.
But the fault is not in the surrounding world. Jason himself just doesn’t belong there. The Masked Man was this dimension’s version of Jason – so he decided to steal Jason’s life, down to his family.
Dark Matter based on Blake Crouchin to the bestseller book of the same name from 2016. It has been published in Finnish under the name Dark matter (2017, Finnish Ilkka Rekiaro). Crouch, who has written several sci-fi novels, was also hired as the lead writer for the series version. The work has gone competently from him, the story has been partially expanded successfully and it progresses smoothly in serial form.
But not smoothly enough, and that’s due to the most mentioned swelling. Crouch’s book is not a revolutionary sci-fi work, but works as an entertainment genre because it progresses at turbo speed, does not get lost on side paths and does not contain anything extra in general. A simple story needs no fillers.
And not it really doesn’t have wool for a nine-part series. The basic idea is explained in two sentences in the introductory text of AppleTV+, but in the series itself, the first two episodes are wasted on it in its entirety. Wondering about the main character’s stolen life is the least interesting part of the whole story. It is also familiar from many other films and on the TV side, for example, from the ysäri series A past life (Nowhere Man).
As the series progresses, the series picks up when there are adventures in numerous different dimensions and plot twists that work.
Jennifer Connelly plays Jason’s spouse, the artist Daniela, as well as her multiverse counterparts.
Multiversumi- i.e. the parallel world theory is now hot stuff in sci-fi and fantasy, for example superhero movies and Oscars Everything Everywhere All at Once – thanks to the hit movie.
Crouch wrote his book before that, of course. He was probably more inspired by quantum mechanics, which explains the behavior of atoms and elementary particles. They do not behave according to the laws of classical physics, but can be in a superposition, i.e. in a different place or state at the same time.
Also released on AppleTV+ at the beginning of the year, partly filmed in Finland Constellationseries uses the wonders of quantum mechanics in its sci-fi plot. Erwin Schrödinger the famous cat thought experiment is referenced in both that and In Dark Matter. That is, is a cat locked in a box, which is killed by the mechanism in the box with a 50 percent probability, alive and dead at the same time?
Constellation the reference is great In Dark Matter very underlined. The latter takes Schrödinger’s thought experiment also amusingly literally.
Otherwise the sets are different. Constellation has a “European” atmosphere, contemplative and challenging the viewer, Dark Matter yet easy to chew and functional. Constellation is the more successful of the two in my opinion. Not because Dark Matterin being popcorn-ish would automatically make it worse, it just feels too stretched in serial form.
But if you can get through the shaggy first half, it offers Dark Matter mind blowing science fiction entertainment. The last couple of episodes already have really absurd dimensions.
In addition, the series ends in a way that does leave the possibility for a continuation, but would also work well as the end of the whole story. I would prefer to stop.