Dark Matter is the second Apple TV+ series in the past two and a half months to revolve around quantum entanglements, flip-side doppelgangers, and intertwined multiverses, as well as to initially let viewers get out ahead of its central mystery. Yet unlike the listless Constellation, writer Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own 2016 novel is a descent down a what-if rabbit hole that continually ups the head-spinning ante. Mining its now-familiar conceit for maximum reality-warping madness, such that every new twist builds logically and crazily from its last, this nine-part drama, premiering May 8, is a superior slice of small-screen science fiction. It’s a series that knows exactly what it wants to be and where it wants to go—the two precise things that elude its protagonist, who winds up at war with himself in ways that are both figurative and loopily literal.
(Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.)
In modern-day Chicago, Jason (Joel Edgerton) teaches quantum physics at Lakemont College to kids who don’t seem to care much about his lecture on Schrödinger’s Cat and quantum superpositions—a paradox which argues that objects can simultaneously exist in two different states. Jason lives in a cozy home with his art gallery curator wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly) and their teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley), and by all reasonable accounts, they appear to be a close-knit and content clan. Even so, when Jason is encouraged by Daniela to join his old friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) at the local bar in order to celebrate Ryan winning a Pavia prize in physics, his old, lingering regret—about giving up his promising research career for quiet, modest domesticity—bubbles to the surface, this despite the fact that Ryan offers Jason a lucrative gig in his forthcoming start-up venture.
There are other painful undercurrents coursing through this household, but they only emerge slowly in Dark Matter. Things immediately take a drastic turn when, while returning home from meeting Ryan, Jason is accosted by a man in a mask. Drugged in a derelict warehouse, Jason is stripped of his clothes and possessions, and before he goes out for good, he’s asked by this assailant, “Are you happy with your life?” When Jason wakes, he’s being treated by doctors, after which he’s questioned by CEO Leighton (Dayo Okeniyi) and lab psychiatrist Amanda (Alice Braga), both of whom know him even though he doesn’t know them, and who claim that he’s been gone for more than 14 months. This naturally freaks out Jason, who escapes and flees to his home, where he finds Amanda, as well as furniture and decorations he doesn’t recognize. At the same time, the man who assaulted Jason removes his mask to reveal himself to be an identical Jason, who visits Daniela and Charlie at their house and who, when asked about the origins of his bandaged arm injury, states, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Between these and other plot points, Dark Matter elucidates in its premiere episode that Jason has been abducted by a multiverse variant of himself, who wants to switch places in order to steal Jason’s life. That Apple TV+ is returning to this sci-fi well so soon after Constellation (which covered similar terrain) is at first stunning and deflating. Nonetheless, Crouch’s story proves to be the infinitely more entertaining one, thanks to a narrative that cares less about teasing its early revelations than about developing them in increasingly complex ways. Almost all of this has to do with a giant sound-and-light-proof box built by the imposter Jason (i.e. Jason #2) that, when inhabited while on a special psychotropic drug invented by Ryan, makes a person a superposition, able to travel to any of the infinite adjacent multiverses into which they were born—and which manifest themselves to the human mind as doors along a never-ending corridor.
As Jason #2 strives to acclimate himself to his new married-with-children reality, and the original Jason takes off into the box with Amanda (his girlfriend in this strange and different world), Dark Matter becomes a mind-bending adventure rooted in ideas about regret over the path not taken. Recalling (and sometimes referencing) everything from It’s a Wonderful Life and Sliding Doors to The Matrix, The Fountain, Somewhere in Time and ultimately Multiplicity, the series visits innumerable alternate Chicagos, some of them beset by floods, famine, droughts, disease, and other cataclysmic misfortunes, and others merely riffs on the city (and timeline) that Jason remembers. Dark Matter doesn’t skimp on the myriad possibilities of its premise. Furthermore, its rules regarding how this all works—including Jason and Amanda’s discovery that their subconscious emotions dictate what’s behind each corridor door—make sense in the context of the material’s fiction, and create even more thrilling complications.
By its midway point, everyone is in disarray in Dark Matter, and Crouch juggles his various concerns without losing sight of his primary themes about remorse, greed, sacrifice, and the perils of trying to recapture that which has been lost—and of being something you’re not. Miring its characters in an ever-escalating mess of Jason’s making, it raises the suspenseful stakes with confident deliriousness, ultimately reaching a point at which the sole option for Jason appears to be a never-ending process of self-destruction. Nonetheless, even at that late stage, the series proves rooted in the eternal longing for connection, compassion, and reunion. To that end, it benefits immeasurably from the participation of Edgerton and Connelly, whose nuanced and heartfelt performances—and intense chemistry, no matter which version of Jason is present—infuse the proceedings with poignant urgency.
It’s not a shock to discover that Edgerton and Connelly are great in Dark Matter, but it is surprising that Crouch manages to habitually exploit his multiverse set-up for unexpected thrills. Investigating the nature of desire, ambition, and happiness, as well as the possibility (or lack thereof) of becoming someone else, it grounds its action in relatable thoughts and dreams even as it positions itself as a cautionary tale about trying to correct mistakes and seize second chances. Moreover, it understands and embraces a fundamental truth about not only love, but marriage: no matter how hard you try, you can never fool a truly devoted wife.
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