THE SHOW
Are people born bad or are they products of their environment? Is redemption possible for everyone? Does remembering your past make you more or less doomed to repeat it? These were just a few of the questions at the heart of Dark Matter, a science fiction series that ran for three seasons, from 2015 to 2017 on SyFy and Netflix. Over the course of its three year run and well beyond, it has garnered a passionate and growing fanbase by exploring themes related to personal responsibility, environmental influences, and redemption through the adventures of the crew of The Raza, six individuals who awaken from stasis with no memories of who they are or how they got on board. They quickly discover that they are criminals – the worst of the worst – and immediately seek to forge a new path for themselves. But as the mysteries related to their respective backstories unfurl, they discover that escaping the past isn’t as simple as it would seem.
Our story was planned as a five season arc, each year the equivalent to an installment in a book series with its dedicated beginning, middle, and end. Our first season begins with the discovery that our crew are wanted criminals, gradually reveals their respective backstories and ends with a betrayal that sees them all hauled off to prison. Our second sees the crew launch a daring escape from the Hyperion-8 Super Max after which they launch a concerted effort to put the past behind them and be better people – only to have their efforts blow up spectacularly in their faces (quite literally with the destruction of the EOS-7 space station they were seeking to protect). Our third season pits our crew against a former ally turned Big Bad, testing their bonds as well as their capacity for compassion and forgiveness.
The season 3 finale ushered in a new threat – an alien invasion that would have been the focus of the show’s fourth season. We are proposing a six episode miniseries that would offer the existing fanbase, and new viewers alike, a self-contained story that sees our crew reassemble after a three year absence to take down this otherworldly threat. As a standalone story, this miniseries would offer a satisfying conclusion to the adventures of The Raza while, at the same time, leaving the door open for a second miniseries that would cover the show’s planned fifth and final season.
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That’s the game plan. I’ll upload the rest of the pitch in the coming days.
In the meantime, might I interest you in some pretzel beer?
Pretzel Beer? Yes/Nohttps://t.co/Q0WdCqZaxr
— Joseph Mallozzi (@BaronDestructo) September 14, 2021
If it was up to me that pitch would get a new double miniseries to close out the whole thing! I really hope something comes of this.
I like the inherent efficiency of the all in one pretzel beer but the problem comes back to the idea of drinking salty water. Blech.
Me too, definitely. I just hope the execs share our sense of excitement and wonder.
Yesssss!
The miniseries sounds great as does the prospect of a second one. Good idea for the storyline. It is too bad the 5 year arc couldn’t be completed. Thanks for continuing to work on this. We all appreciate your efforts and love Dark Matter. I’ll have a pretzel beer, or two, while I’m waiting.
I hope your Dark Matter miniseries gets picked up! I would prefer an entire reboot of the series, but I’ll take what we can get. Thanks for sharing the pitch.
I don’t drink alcohol, but the pretzel beer sounds intriguing. I used to love beer and only quit drinking it for personal reasons. I wish someone would make a low or no alcohol beer that tasted good and was reasonably priced.
Yay! Getting the pitch in parts will give us something special to look forward to day by day.
These past couple weeks/months, I’ve been trying in a small way to make more people aware of the show by putting an intro to it on the relevant trope pages on TV Tropes Wiki (First-Episode Twist, That Man is Dead, Amnesiac Dissonance, You Are Number Six, etc.) so that tropers might follow the link to the main TV Tropes page for the show, which I’ve been fleshing out along with the various subpages. The Trivia subpage in particular is now much longer with all the “What Could Have Been” information.
Happy National Linguine Day tomorrow!
Happy to see that you’re going to leave it open ended for a second mini series. Not that I don’t think the crew of the Raza deserves their happy endings, just that they deserve them after we get to see the whole story you want to tell.
Ooooh, that sounds so good. The mini series, not the beer!
That pitch sounds great!! I got stuck on the first sentence. “Are people born bad or are they products of their environment?” I thought, or, is it a choice they make?
Is this all the pitch? It seems rather short and simple. Maybe you could put together a 10 minute clip of the three seasons. How long do pitches last?
I hope you weren’t planning on serving them Pretzel Beer while you pitched.
No, there’s more to the pitch. I’ll be uploading in sections over the course of the week.
Yeah, it’s similar to what One said to Two about Three in “Episode Nine”, which was also used as a voiceover in one of the trailers for Season 1.
Joe wrote above “That’s the game plan. I’ll upload the rest of the pitch in the coming days. In the meantime, might I interest you in some pretzel beer?”
YYYEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ooh….i’m so hopeful! do hope i’m not getting excited for nothing 🙁 are the cast actually still available….? that often tends to be the problem as well….
Dark Matter needs like 6 full seasons to be complete. Buti i will settle for more just the same
Yesssss. And here’s hoping there will be lots of Three!
This sounds great! What a clear and concise introduction to the series. It leaves them (and us) wanting more. Wishing you the very best of luck with the pitch!
If I had millions, I’d fund this wonderful series!
If crowd funding is needed to make this a reality, please let us know!
Sounds promising Joe. I truly hope the pitch is accepted and you can get the fates aligned to bring the cast into a new stage of the story line. I still hate that the “missing three years” exists, but it’s a tasty morsel if you ever get a chance to tell it. I’m happy to see them back no matter what point of the timeline they land on. This show always deserved more.
you’ll be teasing us with a proper ending to SGU next……. 😉
Joe, hypothetically, if Netflix accepted your pitch but said “we want to do it as a full 13-episode season instead of a 6-episode miniseries”, would that mess things up for you vis-a-vis writing, producing, having the actors available for that many episodes, etc.?
In that case, I’d just go back to my original plan.
Thanks; I wanted to make sure that using “preferably as a full 13-episode season” on the Netflix title request form wouldn’t hurt things for you and the cast.
There’s good people, and the kind that buy one ply t.p. Exciting pitch, time for a DM re-re-watch. I’m also concerned about the lack of chicken wings at my grocer; they keep substituting the boneless kind which I now kinda loathe. Football season means real wings are as rare as unicorns.
I really want to see this happen.