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Dark matter episode Three

The team is definitely jelling more and there is quite a bit of good humor present in this episode.  Right from the start with the Android continually providing updates about the ships’ arrival at the space station and they are even discussing plans for what will happen afterwards.

When number Three wants to sell the ship the rest of the crew all dispute this arguing that they need to find out who messed with their minds and to do that they need to stay together. Number Five starts to try and find somebody to play with, but the rest of the crew don’t want to have anything to do with her so she decides to go exploring on her own unfortunately she almost immediately comes across a dead body stuffed in a crate. It actually kind of makes you wonder and have some questions as that seems to be quite coincidental.

The boy that she discovered has no identification & number Five suspects that she might have actually known the boy. In fact as the episode progresses she seems to explain the fact that she found the body and it wasn’t just a coincidence and in fact there was something behind her decision to go in that room – quite nice that the writers aren’t ignoring the coincidence here and are willing to examine it head on.  Number Five continues on to explain where some of these dreams are coming from & that Number One suspects that all of their memories have not really been lost, but rather they’ve been jumbled up and downloaded into Number Five’s subconscious.   The sad fact is that one of the dreams actually is applicable to someone sabotaging the ships stasis pods.  As soon as this message is delivered to the rest of the crew however and before they can really explore the implications of it, an emergency ensues and the ship is dropped out of hyperspace – it looks like the saboteur is still at work!

On a personal note – I’m not sure if I like the Android character on the ship.  I feel that she’s quite annoying and the way her eyes are always shifting is completely unnecessary.   While I realize she’s meant to be unemotional, Data (from Star Trek) had these same limitations, but Brent Spinner really made him live and breathe, whereas the Android here is just boring. By contrast the ship itself seems to have quite a bit more personality as its got a huge fish-tank that is as unexpected as it’s cool!
Number Three shows number Four the locked door in the hold of the ship and indicates that he Four is one of the few members of the crew that he trusts.  He  asks him for help in opening the door, and while  number Four initially seems to  consider this and meditates on it,  he ends up saying NO and just walks away leaving Three standing in the hold all alone.
Trying to determine whether the emergency that kicked them out of hyperspace is real or not, the Android indicates that she (it) can administer a lie-detector test on all of the crew & not only will this help with the current apparent sabatoge, but might also determine who is responsible for removing the memories from the crew.  Everyone submits to this fairly willingly but Three is forced to do so by the rest of the crew when he is the last one and everyone else has been determined to be telling the truth.  As Three is being tested however the test is interrupted by an external influence on the ship – it is being bombarded by gamma rays which will kill all the crew if they do not do something about it!
The Android states that the only way to save the ship and crew is if she was to go onto the hull to determine if the fault is real or if the sabotage was to just the diagnostic program.  She does however make a very strange comment when she is leaving the ship  – number Two states that she needs to come back safely as they cannot escape without her and the android comments that actually number Two can do it by herself … there’s obviously some knowledge that she has.
Green screen effects in overall CGI actually is quite good on the show the set pieces are pretty standard any other sign for a show would have the same but for early run episodes with expect a smaller budget they’ve actually done quite a very good job here with the extra set pieces in and effects as well which is quite good I would’ve expected the android or any suit however to have some sort of propulsion system versus having to just use  walking to the affected area it seems a little bit too low tech and I expect that to be rectified in future episodes or future in the future anyways.
Due to the gamma radiation very sensitive electrical discharge in the hull of the ship and even though the android is in a suit she is impacted by this impact this actually means that somebody else from the crew has to go out and fix her however she has fixed the problem and the ship could actually escape.  While Three and Five attempt to hijack the ship now that its repaired and escape the gamma rays, One and Six go out onto the hull to save the Android.  As Six is coming back into the airlock he is hit by an electrical charge which almost kills him (well it does but the Android reboots and zaps him with electricity restarting his heart).
Once the ship returns to FTL they also complete number Threes lie detector test and it seems that everyone was telling the truth and no one actually does have their memories.  While neither One or Two believe in his innocence, right now it seems like we’re still stuck with the mystery and will have to wait for answers.
But that actually it isn’t the end seems that the real Jace Corso (the person we know as number One) is searching for the Rossa that obviously calls into question whether all of the people on the ship are who they think they are or whether there perhaps clones or something like that.  Hmmm – Interesting!
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