Suki definitely comes across this way when trying to impress the crew after Wendy is brought online.
Devon meekly asks for a ride from the crew during their escape from Hyperion-8. Mind you, this is after he'd already followed Four all the way to the airlock. Four just shoves him inside the Raza without further discussion.
The alternate versions of the Raza crew were really just minding their own homicidal business in their universe. Then, the main Raza crew came and tricked them, kidnapped the other versions of Portia Lin and Marcus Boone, hijacked their operation, beat up the rest of their crew and stole their blink drive. The Alternate Raza can't really be blamed for wanting some revenge, even to the point of teaming up with Ferrous Corp and Ryo.
By murdering her husband, the Empress did get rid of a cruel, tyrannical ruler and put her much gentler and better-natured son Hiro on the throne, while framing Ryo who had been on his way to becoming his father's son.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Five is occasionally referred to as the "normal" one of the group, however she has a lot of odd behaviours for a girl her age. She's prone to exploring vents for fun, is a savant with technology (both hardware and programming), has a weirdly nonplussed reaction to extremely weird situations such as her dreams about the crew's memories, and often acts younger than she is. Some of this might be because she was originally intended to be a younger teen and was written as such, but even there, it's hard not to read her behaviours as signs of being neurodivergent, but nothing is ever confirmed.
For Season Three it looks to be Adrian and Solara, who have neatly averted being Replacement Scrappies and instead added some much needed levity and comedic relief to the show.
Fandom-Specific Plot: Since so little is known about Derrick and (especially) Catherine Moss pre-series, a relatively popular plot with One/Three shippers in Dark Matter fanfic is to reveal that Derrick and Marcus Boone were actually in a relationship before the mindwipe and/or they were working together to solve Catherine's murder and/or Catherine was secretly evil (or is, if she's Faking the Dead).
One/Three and Two/Three are more popular than the canonical One/Two pairing. Two/Three technically did happen, but was explicitly a one-night stand, and many fans would like to see them be more, based on their chemistry and Heartwarming Moments. One/Three have a deal of Ho Yay making them a popular subject of rivals-to-lovers fics, the show was originally supposed to center on them becoming Vitriolic Best Buds, and Three's actor, Anthony Lemke, was the most vocal about how One being killed off prematurely sucked. The fact that One's actor, Marc Bendavid, came out in May 2023 doesn't hurt.
It's more popular to pair Nyx with Two in fanfic than with her canonical love interest Four; it's felt that she had more onscreen chemistry with Two than with Four and that her relationship with the latter just kind of came out of nowhere. Two hallucinates a goodbye kiss with Nyx in the Season 3 premiere and is later established as bisexual. There's also some fan support for pairing Four with Five, despite the age gap, mostly because of their actors Alex Mallari and Jodelle Ferland being a chaotic duo at conventions.
Android/Five or Android/Two (as opposed to Android/Victor). The latter in particular is seen as plausible given that the last few episodes of Season 3 confirmed Two was bisexual and had been in a loving relationship with Dr Irena Shaw, whom the Android was modeled after.
Some thought Season Two was markedly improved and helped the show stand out more from the crowd ditching the boring, standard White Male Lead and making the crew (and roster of villains) overall more female-heavy. Others agree that the show grew the beard because the first season had been the setup season based around a form of Locked Room Mystery (who was the memory wiper?) and more contained to the ship, while Seasons Two and Three had more excursions to planets, more interactions between the team and other people, more battles in which all the characters got to take part, and the benefit of Character Development having taken place.
However, this is combined with They Changed It, Now It Sucks! because One's death (which was the result of Executive Meddling and not originally planned) didn't cause the writing for the other characters to get tighter. If he had been around, he would inevitably have benefited from the show Growing the Beard and undergone Character Development as well, and with more encounters between the crew and others he would have gotten more opportunities to be The Face like he was in the pilot episodes, and the show is missing something without the combination of all seven main characters' personalities.
In "Episode Nine", One tells Two that he believes Three was born bad and is "rotten to the core". The Season 2 episode "We Were Family" reveals that Marcus Boone only became a criminal because he was raised by the man who murdered his parents.
Cross-show example. In "We Decided Not to Space You", Two holds Jace Corso at gunpoint and forces him to dig them both out of a collapsed tunnel; when he argues that there's no reason for him to cooperate when she'll probably kill him once they're out, she dismisses it with the rationale that yes, she will, but part of him will think that cooperating gives him a chance to find an opportunity to escape whereas refusing will mean immediate death. It's a cool badass antihero moment on her part...but takes a darker turn when in The Rookie (2018), Lucy Chen (also played by Melissa O'Neil) is kidnapped by a serial killer who forces her at gunpoint to get into a barrel so she can be buried alive. When she refuses as both options result in death, the killer throws the exact same logic in her face (that is, getting into the barrel means buying time for her to hope for a rescue) to make her cooperate.
Any time someone tries to hurt Five, they've crossed it as far as the crew's concerned. Wexler was already a traitorous scumbag, but when he threatens to rape and torture her to get One to talk, he pretty much jumps over it with both feet. Aaaaand out the airlock.
Chief Inspector Shaddick likewise crosses it when she threatens Five at gunpoint to get access to the Android's memories. She (and a handful of underlings) instead gets shot in the face by the Android, on Five's order. Interestingly, Five gave the order to kill, but the Android took it on her own initiative to save Shaddick for last and to pause for a moment so that Shaddick could see it coming.
In the alternate universe, Jace Corso crosses it when he bombs a mining colony, knowing and hoping that Two/Portia Lin was still there.
Alt Truffault crosses it by putting a virus in the Raza, infecting both the ship and the Android's holo-diagnostic program, which nearly convinces the crew to kill the Android while claiming that this would fix the problem.
Four, despite his best intentions in regard to his old crewmates, crosses the line when planning to blow up a space station full of corporate delegates.
Misaki ignoring Four's wishes not to harm any of the Raza crew and killing Nyx.
Strangely, despite late episodes of Season One implying that Three had feelings for Two that would be explored in the future, with Three giving Wexler the code to the vault in an attempt to save Two's life at the end of "Episode 10" and Two and Three having a conversation about it in "Episode 13" (the season finale) where Three was clearly insincere about it having been for pragmatic reasons, after One was killed off, nothing developed or was further hinted at between them (not counting their AU counterparts being groin buddies, or their posing as a married couple in the 21st century). It's as if the writers weren't interested in romance without the triangle.
Season Two has Nyx and Four. With Nyx's death at the end of Season Two, this is effectively eliminated.
The Scrappy: Nyx in Season Two - a super-powered mega awesome beautiful fighter who masters new weapons with no training (and who nevertheless doesn't really have any specific skills not already covered by the original crew members, particularly Two, who is also a Phlebotinum Rebel with mad hand-to-hand skills) and seems to have been specifically set up as a love interest for Four, despite him having shown absolutely no prior no romantic interest in anyone. A majority of the new plotlines directly involve her and/or focus on her, making her a member of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
There's more than a few comparisons to be made to Firefly, with similar character concepts (Three and Jayne, and Five is a combination of Kaylee and River, with One, Six and Two arguably mapping to Simon, Book and a combination of Mal and Zoe, respectively), premises (crew of miscreants trying to make a living), and universe details (some Eastern influences and a massive galactic authority). Joe Mallozzi has stated that Firefly was not one of his inspirations, however. Similarities are down to the two shows sharing influences from older works.
When the series was still in development and showrunner Joseph Mallozzi posted character descriptions on his blog, he listed each character's "Stargate equivalent" (Mallozzi and Paul Mullie were also showrunners of all three Stargate shows before co-creating Dark Matter), though to be honest some of them are stretches: One - Eli Wallace, Two - Samantha Carter, Three - Vala Mal Doran, Four - Teal'c, Five - Aiden Ford, Six - Ronon Dex, The Android - Richard Woolsey.
Mallozzi also stated that the character of John Crichton from Farscape was a partial inspiration for One (such as in being the odd man out on a ship of criminals), and the character was described as "a Ben Browder type" in Mallozzi's art design notes for the graphic novel.
In addition to Stargate and Farscape, Mallozzi has listed the show's influences as: Blake's 7, The Seven Samurai, The Dirty Dozen, The Shield, Cowboy Bebop (just compare Five and Radical Ed) and Thunderbolts, as well as anime from the "swords in space" genre like Code Geass and Gundam inspiring the Principality of Zairon (named for the Principality of Zeon in the latter).
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A common complaint about Season 2. The show's been accused of abandoning its roots and introducing too many new characters. The ratings declined after the season premiere, where One was killed, and perked up temporarily for the episodes where Marc Bendavid guest starred.
The show's central premise that makes it unique—that memories influence identity, and that the main characters are trying to redeem themselves after a lifetime of cruelty—often has to jockey for position with more standard sci-fi tropes that could exist in any other show, and doesn't always get the focal time it deserves.
One's storyline contains some breathtaking violations of the Rule of Drama (which, to restate it here, is not about melodrama or shock value but about taking fullest advantage of the potential for conflict, both external and internal). For starters, his not really being a criminal takes away from the aforementioned central premise. As the character who was most focused on redemption in the pilot, it undercuts the point for him to *shrug* turn out not to need it anyway. By the Rule of Drama the character who most wants redemption should need it most, or at least need it just as much as another character who serves as a Foil (like Three). At the very least, if he had been a clone of Jace Corso, possibly with a copy of Derrick Moss's personality, and his vendetta against Three had been a Sleeper Agent thing, the show could have played with the Nature vs. Nurture theme, while also serving as even more of a Red Herring for Six turning out to be the actual Mole. Instead, it went for the most mundane possible explanation (Magic Plastic Surgery), instead of taking advantage of the possibilities inherent in being a science fiction setting.
This is especially true in combination with Six being an undercover cop and not a former criminal either. Now Two is the only crewmember fulfilling the pilot episodes' premise by having a sharp contrast between her pre-mindwipe life and her post-mindwipe personality (Three and Four are much more like their original selves but just toned down). It turns out that when One and Six vote with Two on the moral side of group votes, they're just doing what they always would have done anyway before the wipe, which is inherently less interesting. One or the other backstory subversion diluting the "former bad guys" premise would be better than both, and One's seems more sacrificable than Six's, since the latter is central to the "who wiped their memories?" plot.
A dead wife or girlfriend has been done to death (no pun intended) as a motivational backstory for male characters to the point that it's a well-known and much-hated trope, and we already got the same thing with Three. Sarah we at least got to know somewhat; Catherine Moss is a cipher whom we can't care about. All Darius van Hoeven can think of to say about her is the stock "She was a beautiful woman." We don't even learn how she and Derrick met. The widespread upset about One being killed off has a lot more to do with how well Marc Bendavid did with the material he was given, and the crew dynamic missing something without all seven personalities to balance each other out, than with what his backstory turned out to be.
And Three not actually having killed One's wife is the safe option and a conflict-killer, because then One doesn't actually have to do the harder thing and forgive him after all, and form a real friendship with this man despite that.
At the end of the Season Two premiere, One is offed by his Evil Twin Jace Corso... who then does not proceed to take his place and infiltrate the Raza. With a hit out on him, he could have thought the ship would be a safer place, or the people who hired him could also have wanted him to do something else on the ship, like how Arax was to steal the Blink Drive key, or Corso could have taken on that plot instead of Arax. Which would have been fitting for him, because what's the point of an Evil Twin if you don't actually use him in an impersonation plot and use a new character instead of a narrative resource you already have right there? In fact, stealing the key would have made even more sense for Corso than a new character, as his way of making up to Ferrous Corp for his earlier failure to show up at the mining colony. The fact that the crew's botching of that mission should have put Corso in Ferrous's bad books as well was never addressed by the show. An episode or two of him fooling the crew and then being discovered would have been much more dramatic than what we got.
Corso is summarily killed in his very next appearance, as opposed to becoming a recurring antagonist. Thanks in part to hesitating before taking a shot and then being trapped by an explosion he himself set off, despite supposedly being a capable mercenary who could conceivably have evaded the crew for multiple episodes or been forced into an Enemy Mine situation given that many of the same people who want them dead would want him dead. Plus it stretches credulity that his old "drinking buddy" (but not a real friend) Danny Bones knew exactly where he'd be in real time and not just some places to look (especially when even well-connected people like Tabor Calchek, Commander Nieman and Delaney Truffault all apparently had no clue Corso wasn't on the Raza in Season One), which is obvious corner-cutting by the script so that the crew can quickly find him.
This stands out all the more because in an interview, Joseph Mallozzi said that when he made the phone call breaking the news to Marc Bendavid that the studio was making them kill One off, Mallozzi reminded him that he played two characters and could still appear as Corso. If Corso dies in his very next appearance, then that's not really true. And regardless of how, these entries themselves prove that it only takes a little imagination to come up with multiple ways of making his continued presence throughout Season Two happen.
For that matter, it's a wasted dramatic opportunity for the crew not to give Corso a more Laser-Guided Karma type of punishment like subjecting him to a mindwipe of his own (the way he would have been if he had joined them pre-series like he intended to, if not for a sudden twist of fate) and leaving him on a random planet with no idea who he is, continuing the main theme of the series supposedly being about memory and identity; the theme that, as noted above, doesn't get enough actual screentime. Corso is like the crew used to be and his face was right next to theirs in the pilot; they killed plenty of other people's loved ones and didn't do anything to deserve the second chance they got, which makes them hypocritical here by deciding to just kill him in a way that goes unanalyzed. Especially after getting a close look at their original selves just two episodes before this one. One himself wasn't a bloodthirsty person and would probably consider ending Corso with a mindwipe more poetic, and it stands out like a sore thumb that the crew never even discuss what One would want them to do when they go after Corso, which since he's the victim is what should really matter. All of which seem like points Six totally would have made.
Getting rid of the plotline of Five having all the other five human crewmembers' memories in her dreams in Season Three's "It Doesn't Have to Be Like This", which was one of the draws of her character and the series itself since the pilot episode and allowed Jodelle Ferland to give command performances as the others in "Episode Six". Instead, the episodes where Five talks about her memory dreams with the crew are now Early-Installment Weirdness, and without them both her character and the show are tilted more towards the generic side of the Force.
In fact, One's memories are the only ones she hasn't been shown accessing, but they're there along with the others, including all his memories of his relationship with his wife Catherine. Some flashbacks to that would have made it easier to attempt to care about that storyline.
For all that redemption is supposed to be a theme of the series, the Raza crew has yet to actually encounter a good person who was victimized by their original selves so that they have the opportunity to be forgiven by someone, despite discussing the possibility of running into former victims or their loved ones in "Episode 2".
In "But First We Save the Galaxy", no one makes what would have been the highly appropriate observation that saving Eos-7 is what One would've wanted them to do.
There must have been a funeral for Derrick Moss, but we don't get to see the crew complaining about being unable to attend or deriding a clip of Darius van Hoeven saying something insincere at the occasion.
Another case of the show neglecting to take advantage of the storytelling possibilities inherent in the Evil Twin thing: in the video on showrunner Joseph Mallozzi's Youtube channel showing how he revealed to the cast which of their characters was the mole while filming the finale of Season One, Mallozzi starts by telling Marc Bendavid that One is not the mole, and later comes back to him to tell him "your other character, Jace Corso... is also not the mole!". But of course not, because Corso wasn't on the ship. If there had actually been a moment late in the season where the audience but not the characters knew it was possible Corso had switched places with One, it would have heightened tensions for the viewer in "Episode Thirteen" considerably before it was ultimately revealed otherwise (like the false hints that Two's mind had been messed with). But there was no such moment where it could be hinted it might have happened, which is a missed opportunity.
The series didn't really explore any angst for One after "Episode 4" over now not having any idea who or what he was, before learning the truth in "Episode 8".
The series has never explored the possibility, or the ethical implications, of the crew giving an antagonist who's in a similar state of being to their original selves (ex. Jace Corso, Wexler's crew, the mercenaries sent after them by Emperor Ryo, etc.) a mindwipe like their own, voluntarily or otherwise. Yet the very premise of the show being about hardened criminals given a second chance by losing their memories raises the question of if them, why not others?
The crew members have never interacted extensively with their own personal AU counterparts or had an argument with them about their divergent goals and philosophies.
