Do you ever feel like you’re living the same day over and over again? Sometimes it’s deja vu, sometimes it’s just a really boring work week, and sometimes it’s because you set off a time loop device trapping you and only you in a loop of the same day aboard your spaceship. Three finds himself doing just that and struggles to make the rest of the crew believe him in episode four of Dark Matter, entitled, “All the Time in the World”. What starts as a fun romp takes an ominous turn into prophesy land by the end but for the most part, the episode was a roaring good time. It was written by Joseph Mallozzi and directed by Ron Murphy. Here’s what happened.
AGAIN AND AGAIN | We pick up with Three (Anthony Lemke) having already lived the same day over and over several times now and he has lost his gusto for trying to get the rest of the crew to take him seriously about it. He is acting even more unruly than usual and it draws the attention of Two (Melissa O’Neil) and Five (Jodelle Ferland) who follow him into the mess hall where Solara (Ayisha Issa) is eating. They want to know what’s up but he is tired of not being believed and instead sticks his finger in Solara’s custard cup (which sounded WAY less dirty in my head) and is promptly and justly knocked out. He wakes up at the beginning of that same day all over again and lets out a, “Here we go again.” He tries to convince Two and the Android (Zoie Palmer) that he is in fact in his own Groundhog Day but even after he predicts their every reaction and submits himself for a neural scan, they are still not buying it. Next he tries to get Solara and Adrian (Mishka Thébaud) to believe him but they too are skeptical. He decides his best bet is to get the Android to tell him exactly what she discovers is wrong with the Particle Accelerator and then commit it to memory to then rattle off first thing in the morning as he would have no way of knowing that. What he doesn’t account for is the fact that his plan involves him remembering science and tech terms and he fails miserably. His next plan is to stay awake until the next day (aka midnight or as any college student calls it: the early evening) but just as he reaches midnight, he blinks and is back in his bed to start the day anew once more. Frustrated, he thinks maybe if he learns something over several repeat days that would be impossible for him to learn in a single day and use that as proof. So he enlists the Android to teach him french in a sequence not unlike Phoebe and Joey in Friends but eventually he picks it up enough to partake in hilarious songs and then converse in perfect french. Unfortunately, it is still not convincing them but when he repeats a phrase (in french) noting the exact problem with the Particle Accelerator, Two and the Android are floored but finally believe there is something hinky going on. The Android fixes the ship and Three finally gets a change of scenery when they head for a nearby space station. A run in with an assassin resets him again but this time he knows what to say to convince them. He lists the particle accelerator phrase as well as secrets he got from Solara and Adrian that he would have no way of knowing. They try to take out the assassin on their own terms this time but it resets when the assassin basically kills Three before being clocked over the head with a weird glowing clock by Adrian. This time, Three is joined in his loop by Adrian (and they learn later, the assassin) so it is easier for them to convince the rest of the crew. After they defeat the assassin, the Android figures out how to stop the loop but not before getting a very unsettling glimpse of the future.
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PHASING ASSASSIN | Ryo (Alex Mallari Jr.), being his traitorous, ohana-be-damned, self, sends assassins after the Raza to kill them all and take the Blink Drive back. The first assassin they encounter, arrives when they dock at the space station. He is no ordinary assassin, however. Ash is what I like to call, The Phasing Assassin (guest star Michael Reventar). He has the ability to travel through walls, floors, basically anywhere he wants which proves an understandable problem for catching him. After he kills Three and then the day resets, they try to take him out together but end up bringing him (and Adrian) into the time loop. They go after him again but this time he has a bone to pick with Three for what the heck is happening to him. They manage to stun him and try to get him to give up his phasing tech but he responds by phasing through the floor in nothing but his skivies. He somehow manages to defeat himself by getting distracted while phasing through a hull wall and gets trapped inside, killing him in the process (or at least one would assume.) On Zairon, Ryo laments over losing his best assassin but he has a new plan to find them and when he does, he plans to use a person/creature that can best be described as an old person strapped to a neon glowing hololens straight out of a science fiction nightmare.
THE SARAH DEBACLE | We learned last week that Sarah (guest star Natalie Brown) only sort of died back when the power went out and her pod failed. Five was able to upload Sarah’s consciousness to the ship and she has created a little virtual world for herself in there but she is incredibly lonely. In the last few of his loops, Three decides to buck up and go see her. The first few times he can’t handle it and leaves. She resets too so she has no memory of any of the previous efforts. After they break the loop, he goes to see her once more and this time he stays. He takes her hand and says it feels pretty real to him. They test this theory with a kiss and at least for now, it seems they are gonna be okay (her being trapped as a complex computer program notwithstanding).
THE TIME PROPHECY | Once they have defeated the Phasing Assassin the team turns to the Android for a way to break the time loops. She thinks she figured it out but wants to send herself back five seconds just to test it. Instead of going back five seconds however, she goes on a journey through the future making several pit stops, each more troublesome than the last. The first sees Three come onto the bridge and shoot her in the face. The next, she is dressed like a human and crying in the mess hall when Two comes in and comforts her. Next she flashes to a medical table out of a nightmare where a ‘doctor’ tells her she was captured by the GA for aiding terrorist androids and he has taken her apart into tiny android pieces. Finally she ends up back on the bridge of the Raza but everyone is gone except for a VERY old Five who warns her that bad things are coming for them, referencing the end of time. She tells the Android to destroy the time clock device and that she can’t give her any details about the future because she would try to change them. She spouts a cryptic list of things to come that I have yet to decode fully before sending the Android back to the present where she promptly smashes the clock.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
• I appreciate that Three rightfully listed Five as one of the people who could knock him out.
• The french music jam session between the Android and Three was amazing and I would have watched a full half hour of that and only that.
• Line of the Night goes to Solara for her completely relatable threat to Three of, “Keep your nasty ass fingers away from my food.”
So what did you think? What is Ryo’s grand plan and who is that person he has with him? What did the time prophesy mean? Are they going to be able to get Sarah out of the matrix and into a new body? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments below!
Make sure to catch Dark Matter Fridays at 9/8c on Syfy