Mars477

Dutch is a bounty hunter and soldier for hire, but the pilot makes a point that she never takes Level 5 contracts which are explicitly kill warrants. There's a distinction between enemy combatants and potentially civilian targets to be killed in cold blood. She's also gone out of her way on multiple occasions to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. So, not really inconsistent characterization.

You know, something tells me that if Grimm Nicole had been raped through deception by her rival Adalbert, people would be less willing to see her have to raise her child by rape together with her rapist. In other words, for the love of god kill the baby plot.

Pawter doesn't have any medical ethics. Remember that she is on Westerley.

If a character's personality takes multiple seasons to manifest then that's a failure of characterization. Likewise with motivations or backstory. Different parts of the character's backstory can be revisited in detail at later points, but the basics should still be there early on. Likewise with motivations. If Stoic Hot Chick Cop has been fighting crime for X number of seasons and then all of a sudden it's revealed that their family member's death was their primary motivation for solving crime, then that's a retcon and a failure in characterization. The basics need to be there at the start, and then personality and motivation can change, due to character development, or backstory and motivation can be detailed on. And even amnesiacs need wants and motivations to begin with. Jason Bourne had them, and acted on them. The crew of Dark Matter should have motivations, but instead they're just floating around pointlessly from place to place.

Sadly the Android's line readings are still generally terrible, especially when she's forced to deliver technobabble. It's not entirely her fault, since the quality of the technobabble is near universally awful, but she still shoulders some of the blame.

Yeah, the actor for Five is seriously weak. There are some young actresses who have serious chops, but Joelle Ferland is not one of them. The "information rate", in plot or character development, per episode for this show is utterly pathetic. There's no reason why so many initial episodes of a 13 episode season have been throwaway filler episodes. Considering the limited amount of movement in the serial plot that we've gotten, we really have only three or four episodes worth of content. Eps 1 and 2 could have been incorporated into a single episode or a 90 minute pilot, and Eps 3 and 5 could scrapped entirely for how little forward momentum is actually in them. Two takes nasty gut wound while defending the miners in the pilot or she actually is (seemingly) killed and then revives, revealing her healing factor, and Six gets grazed by an incendiary round and gets a nasty chemical burn which puts him in that clinic wasting his time. And suddenly, we have a much faster paced show.

You guys are right: that was pretty goddamn stupid. Whatever is wrong with just taking a prisoner and torturing the fuck out of him or her until they talk? It'd still be a less dumb plan than infiltrating the hostile camp full of armed guards while half your number is unarmed and you have no backup. Ravit is cute in her civvies, but if she gets held at gunpoint next week because she's the girl I'm going to be annoyed.

I don't think that works, but still, what matters is that the character exists as something that could conceivably be a person rather than thinly drawn archetype. For all the problems I have with Four the show gave a decent set up to what is a horribly derivative character, but at least he has motivations and... things. Actually, there's the thing: Dutch, Johnny, and D'avin all have motivations and wants. Dutch wants to remain free and not be drawn back into her wretched past. Johnny wants to preserve the good thing he's got going on with his awesome sister-from-another-mother and his sexy spaceship, and also to not get overshadowed (again) by his alpha male Golden Son of a brother. D'avin wants to unfuck his brain. Given those wants, they need to do X, Y, and Z (and that is our show). The Dark Matter crew, except for maybe Five, has no motivations or wants. They are shallow imitations of humanity. Think about it this way: think about legitimate, critically acclaimed character focused TV shows. Breaking Bad, Justified, even Homeland, to a point. Those characters have personalities, backstories, and motivations. They have wants and needs. Your assertion that in a character driven show you know nothing about a character at first and then slowly learn more and more about them is completely false. I don't know any character driven show where that actually applies. Because for a character driven show you need to have characters, and Dark Matter doesn't have any.

Eh, the thing about Dutch being derivative of other works is that it's really hard to pin down where she's being derived from. The original Dune books have the feudal trappings in a sci fi setting but I don't remember any noble blooded assassin cults. Warhammer 40k is the next thing that comes to mind, but only vaguely. Still, any character can be made to sound cliche if you're that reductive. Still, it's a lot harder to describe Dutch and D'avin than all of the Dark Matter cast. One IS the Nice Guy, Two IS Kickass Hot Chick, Three IS Asshole in Space. Those are literally the only things we know about their characters. Four remains a Inscrutable Asian Martial Arts Badass... With Royal Blood Whose Wicked Stepmother Framed For Murder Of His King/Father. And he's a a Space Samurai. So, he's a racial stereotype cast in the role of a Gail Z Martin character. You don't get more derivative than that.

Honestly I've been far more interested in Dutch's papa assassin problems than any of Dark Matter's "mysteries". Maybe it's because secret assassin cults just click with me, or it takes me caring about a character to care about a mystery surrounding that character.

Four's backstory is hilariously cliched. Royal upbringing, evil stepmother, framed for the death of his father, and wanted for regicide? I'm guessing he'll be on a quest for revenge as well. It's not like we've already seen that in countless science fiction and fantasy media. That and the oddly feudal/ancient samurai trappings of the Asian dominated space empire is all kinds of fucked up.

Mike hasn't passed the bar exam under his own name. He's also responsible for helping a bunch of supremely unqualified people become lawyers, which could eventually lead to damages to their clients. And PSL still will be held liable for being party to Mike's fraud. That Mike is competent to practice is completely irrelevant. What matters is that he lied to PSL and to his clients in the first place. In other words, it doesn't matter whether Mike has passed the bar exam, because his taking the bar exam at all is part of his fraud. And because is continuing to commit fraud every day he steps into the PSL offices, he shows himself as one hell of a goddamn hypocritical little bitch when he criticizes morality and ethics of others.

Navi Rawat played some random girl in one later episode of Justified, hooking Raylan up with some evidence or something. They flirted and joked around a bit and had some great chemistry with Timothy Olyphant. I actually thought we'd see her again due to how large her bit role was, but sadly it was never to be.

You know if Katrina was still around Mike would be infinitely more tolerable.

And not particularly organically implemented.

In what universe are the characters in Dark Matter "interesting"? They are entirely a bunch of ciphers and well worn archetypes, and it's only 6 episodes in that they've actually made some headway in developing them. Hell, even after Episode 6 the characters remain archetypes rather than people. Couple that non-existent worldbuilding and that makes for a very poor show. Dutch, Johnny, and D'avin are actually interesting and well developed, with interesting unresolved issues that make for good serial fodder. Not to mention that they're actually fun to be around, which helps a lot.

Hell, Harvey could've made Mike his pet intern, or hired him as the firm's private investigator, and then worked with him as Mike worked on his law degree. But I guess that's too complicated.

But it does. In the universe of the show, Mike needs a law degree and to have passed the bar exam to legally practice law, which means that, in universe, he's committing fraud by representing himself as a lawyer when he's not. It also means that, in universe, he's a terrible hypocrite when he, while doing a thing that is morally and ethically very bad, criticizes others for their own moral or ethical breaches. That makes him a total dick, in universe. I mean, how terrifying would it be if Mike represented himself as a doctor without ever having gone to medical school, completed his internship or residency, or secured a legitimate medical license?

Mike's not a good lawyer, though. He makes a good facsimile of a lawyer, but if he's ever found out he will destroy the firm, land everybody who knows his secret in jail, and worst of all, overturn every case finding that he was involved in. Every additional day he remains employed at Pearson Whatever We Are Now is a moral failing, and every new case he works on is a fresh betrayal of an innocent client. Basically, Mike's the kind of guy that, if we hear about them in the news, is usually attached to the word "sociopath".And worst off, he's really goddamn self-righteous. Even in general that's not a good quality, but it goes doubly so when it's a guy who commits fraud by handing somebody his business card.

Amy Acker is a fantastic actress and eminently likable and charismatic. Forget y'all. With all the stupid baggage that everyone is carrying from failed plots and idiotic developments, Katrina > everybody.

Not going to lie but I teared up at the end when Daisy Ridley and Harrison Ford were sitting down together in the Milennium Falcon set.

I really liked Thirteen from House. What? Come at me, you wanna fight? Seriously though, of the New Ducklings Olivia Wilde was one of the better actors, and since I started watching the show during Season 4 I never had issues with new people replacing the original team. Plus, she was a part of the Season 4 finale "House's Head"/"Wilson's Heart", which was easily the best season finale out of the run. Sure, the always uneven show put her in some shitty plots (ahem, Foreteen) but she never got so fucking annoying as Taub (I don't give a shit about the adventures of his magical dick), Masters, or Park. And she had some great chemistry with House, in a platonic way. I still pull out "The Dig" from time to time just to remind myself what an amazing hour to television that was. It's a damn shame that Olivia Wilde left to do shitty movies because I could've used some more House/Thirteen palling around.

Even at its worst the Stargates were vastly better, however. To the point where the feel is different. I guess Friendzoned One is vintage SGU, though? (Seriously, what the fuck was that about?)

A huge problem with any further developments featuring One is that Marc Bendavid is a terrible actor whose range spans from "blank faced" to "mild digestive issues". I wouldn't trust him to carry much of anything.

Damn it, people, listen to Malia! Especially you, Stiles. Yes, you. I'm guessing the group is going to owe her a hell of an apology, huh? If there's something wrong with Kira getting all her mojo together and taking another level in her "Kitsune" prestige class then I don't want to be right. Funnily enough I was recently reading a UF series where the female lead is a kitsune. The kitsune in mythology were literal foxes who could shapeshift into women, and were alternatively guardians and protectors or ruthless tricksters.