Two roads diverged when one man — scientist Jason Desson (played by Joel Edgerton) — chose to start a family instead of pursuing his professional research in quantum mechanics. Apple TV+‘s Dark Matter, an adrenaline-pumping, thought-provoking, nine-episode sci-fi thriller based on Blake Crouch’s 2016 bestselling novel, explores the resulting alternative lives Jason has, based on that decision he made so many years earlier.
While “Jason 1,” a comfortable family man, works as a physics professor for a lower-tier Chicago community college and happily resides with ex-artist wife Daniela (Snowpiercer’s Jennifer Connelly) and their teenaged son Charlie (Oakes Fegley), “Jason 2” reaches incredible career heights, wins the most prestigious scientific awards — and builds a dimension-hopping metal box. Jason 2 then uses that box to abduct Jason 1, sending his unsuspecting alter-ego into that lonely, but successful life, so that Jason 2 may infiltrate the family he never got to have. “That tension between the family life and the work life, where you put your time, it’s something I was thinking about a lot when I was writing this book and something I channeled into Jason,” says author and show creator Crouch.
Crouch admits the show is an “incredibly faithful adaptation” to his novel (which is probably no surprise since he led both) but with some additional points-of-view added to expand the scope of the world(s). While the book focused on Jason 1 mostly (with one Daniela chapter), here, viewers will see Jason 1, Jason 2, and much more of Daniela and the periphery cast as well. In addition to Edgerton, Connelly, and Fegley, other cast members include Alice Braga (Dr. Amanda Lucas), Jimmi Simpson (Jason’s BFF Ryan Holder), and Dayo Okeniyi (Jason 2’s Velocity Labs associate Leighton Vance).
Jason 1, desperate to return home to his family, turns towards Jason 2’s psychologist colleague and lover Amanda (Braga), who joins him in exploring the menacing 12×12 structure that contains infinite doors to other worlds.
“The book fans won’t be let down with the worlds that they travel to,” Crouch teases. “I don’t think there’s any worlds in the book that are missing from their journey, and there are some really fun, cool new worlds as well. Even some moments where we just open the door for a second — we really started to play with the idea of teasing the audience with a four-second glimpse into a world, like, “What in the — what could that be?”
And Jason 2? His deception won’t be as seamless as he thinks while he tries to slip into the Desson household undetected: “There’s a bit of a honeymoon period between the two of them,” reveals Crouch of Daniela and Jason 2. “You see the vivaciousness in Jason 2, and that’s something that maybe Daniela was missing in her marriage to Jason 1.” But clever Daniela will catch on quickly enough that this man is not her husband. Says Crouch: “She is living with this imposter and [we wanted] to really make a meal out of the paranoid suspense that is their relationship as we intercut that with Jason trying to make it home.”
And though this series, which covers the multiverse, Schrödinger’s cat, and battling down an alt-version of yourself seems tailor-made for sci-fi fans, it’s also laid out in a way that’s enjoyable for any viewer seeking a thrill.
“I make sci-fi for people who love it and for people who hate sci-fi,” says Crouch. “It’s sort of like an ‘All Are Welcome’ sign above Dark Matter.”
The first two episodes of Dark Matter will debut on the streamer on Wednesday, May 8, with new episodes dropping each Wednesday through June 26.
