If you wanted to present a depressing look at the future, well this show and this episode specifically is the one you want to see. While other shows (Star Trek for example) have medical suites and robotic attendants along with cortical simulators and tricorders, Dark Matter gives us a waiting room. One that’s no different to what we’d see going to any Doctors office today. When you have to “take a number” to be served you know that they’ve not advanced that much and while the technology might have changed, the pain of seeing a Dr. definitely hasn’t! In addition to this, we’re exposed to a market similar to a Chinese bazaar and a Casino. I don’t know if it’s possible to paint a more dismal and depressing picture of what we can expect. While I’d be the first to admit that some of our mistakes and failures are bound to follow us into space, it’s really sad to see that according to the writers of Dark Matter absolutely NOTHING will change and in fact not only will they stay the same, they’ll get darker!
Anyways, getting to the meat of the episode, the crew decide that they need to dock at a nearby space station to effect repairs and refuel the ship. While there is some initial concern that they (or the ship) will be identified, they are allowed to dock and they each set off on separate missions to either conduct repairs (Two and Four), negotiate the sale of their weapons (One and Three), go to the Doctor (Six as mentioned earlier) or just be by themselves (Five).
If you recall from my previous review, One seemed to have a clone on a space station that was asking after the ship. The clone or duplicate however seemed to have all of the memories of the original Jake Corso and this is explored in greater depth in this episode when he manages to capture One & Three in their negotiations for the weapons by posing as a buyer. After knocking them out, Jake relates the story of the initial mission that he signed up for – joining the Razza to take out a group of miners (basically what we learned about them from the pilot) – and questions why One seems to have his face! It turns out that the individual we saw in the last episode is not a clone but is in fact the original and One is actually someone else! Jake gets onto the ship and while he’s questioned by the Android manages to take all of the guns and weapons from the ship and proceeds to sell them while pocketing the funds from that sale for himself. Meanwhile One and Three manage to escape from his custody and run back to the ship before Jake can get back to the holding cell and kill them.
While all of this has been going on, the other members of the crew have also been busy. Six sitting in the Doctors office is eventually called in, and during the course of his checkup the Doctor discovers that he’s a wanted fugitive. Calling the police (? <- actually not sure if they are the cops as there was mention of subject # under his profile picture and they don’t look like cops) the Doctor fixes him up, but Six knocks him out when he starts to get suspicious. Two and Four meanwhile have sold some random trinkets from the ship and while it looks like Four is a cardshark/savant of some sort, Two eventually is caught out counting cards in the Casino. When she’s told to leave she fights back and kills 5 security guards and the casino owner/manager. She’s a very dangerous lady!
With everything going wrong for everyone, they all rush back to the ship and escape back into hyperspace before they can be run down by the mob/police/corporate stooges or Jake … basically everyone in space at this point!
Five meanwhile has not been completely forgotten … while he didn’t go onto the station with the crew, he did go on himself and discovered that a ring he found is owned by the Emperor and his family. Reviewing some news files he sees himself as the prime suspect in his father (the Emperor’s) death.