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On the season 11 premiere of Ghost Hunters, TAPS heads to Cleveland to investigate a historic roundhouse and rail yard connected to more than just old trains. The frightening remnants of a serial killer, horrific accidents, and one of the worst train crashes have two people questioning strange encounters and desperately needing TAPS’ help. Tune in Wednesday, August 3rd @ 9:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. CT for All Aboard the Ghost Train on Syfy US.
The one-hour drama series Westworld kicks off its ten-episode season Sunday, October 2nd @ 9:00 p.m. EST/PST, exclusively on HBO. Created for television by Jonathan Nolan (Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Person of Interest) and Lisa Joy (Pushing Daisies, Burn Notice), both of whom are executive producing and writing, with Nolan also directing, the series was inspired by the 1973 motion picture Westworld, written and directed by Michael Crichton.
Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged. Co-creator Nolan explains, “Building on the incredibly evocative concept of the original film, we wanted to pose the question: If you could be completely immersed in a fantasy, one in which you could do whatever you wanted, would you discover things about yourself that you didn’t want to know?”
Co-creator Joy adds, “We also wanted to explore what it means to be human from the outside in – through the eyes of the ‘hosts’: the lifelike AI characters that are the main attractions of the park. It’s a meditation on consciousness – the blessing and the burden of it – beautifully portrayed by our remarkable cast.”
Westworld stars Anthony Hopkins ( Academy Award winner for The Silence of the Lambs; Academy Award nominee for Remains of the Day, Nixon, Amistad), Ed Harris (Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee for HBO’s Game Change; Academy Award nominee for Pollock, Apollo 13), Evan Rachel Wood (Golden Globe nominee for Thirteen; Emmy and Golden Globe nominee for HBO’s Mildred Pierce), James Marsden (the X-Men feature film franchise), Thandie Newton (Mission: Impossible II) and Jeffrey Wright (HBO’s Confirmation; Emmy and Golden Globe winner for HBO’s Angels in America).
The series also stars Tessa Thompson (Creed), Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen), Jimmi Simpson (HBO’s The Newsroom), Rodrigo Santoro (Focus, The 33), Shannon Woodward (Raising Hope), Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Chernobyl Diaries), Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia films), Simon Quarterman (The Devil Inside), Angela Sarafyan (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) , Luke Hemsworth (Infini) and Clifton Collins, Jr. (Star Trek).
Among Westworld’s main players are: Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and founder of Westworld, who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park. The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is the distillation of pure villainy into one man. Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) is a provincial, beautiful and kind rancher’s daughter, who begins to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.
Teddy Flood (James Marsden), a new arrival to a small frontier town, quickly proves both his charm and talent with a revolver. Beautiful, razor-sharp madam Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) has a genius for reading people and a knack for survival, but her seen-it-all-before worldview is about to be challenged. Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) is the brilliant and quixotic head of the park’s Programming Division, whose keen observation of human nature provides him with boundless inspiration for his life’s work: creating artificial people .
Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) is a mysterious and savvy provocateur with a unique perspective on Westworld. Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), Westworld’s head of Quality Assurance, is responsible for keeping the park from sliding into unscripted chaos. A first-time visitor, William (Jimmi Simpson) is initially wary of the park’s more lascivious attractions, but slowly uncovers a deeper meaning.
Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), Westworld’s perennial “most wanted” bandit, subscribes to the theory that the West is a wild place, and the only way to survive is to embrace the role of predator. Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward), a sardonic rising star in the Behavior Department, is charged with diagnosing the odd quirks of behavior in the park’s hosts. Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) is a savage fighter and brutal bandit, whose ruthlessness is surpassed only by her abiding loyalty to her fellow outlaws.
Logan (Ben Barnes) is a veteran guest whose hedonistic romp through the park is equally motivated by self-indulgence and a desire to help his friend, William. Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) is the head of Narrative, whose storylines tantalize the guests, while his temperament grates on his colleagues. Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan), one of Westworld’s most popular attractions, is perfectly beguiling, by design.
Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) is the no-nonsense head of Security, charged with monitoring host and human interactions and ensuring the safety of the guests. Lawrence (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a charming but lethal outlaw, has a knack for maneuvering and negotiating the various criminal elements of Westworld.
Westworld was inspired by the motion picture Westworld, written and directed by Michael Crichton. Production companies, Kilter Films, Bad Robot Productions, and Jerry Weintraub Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Executive producer/writer/director, Jonathan Nolan; executive producer/writer, Lisa Joy; executive producers, J.J. Abrams, Jerry Weintraub, Bryan Burk.
Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell in Battlestar Galactica. Photo copyright of Syfy.
Once again, I have decided to open up the interview vault and revisit some of the many interviews I have had the pleasure of writing over the years and that just appeared in-print and not on-line. Today's interview is with Mary McDonnell, who talks about her work in Battlestar Galactica. Enjoy, and keep coming back for more familiar faces and shows!
Having survived not only the initial Cylon sneak attack on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, but also a bout with cancer, Laura Roslin faced yet another upheaval in her life when, at the end of Battlestar Galactica’s second season, she lost her bid for presidential reelection to Gaius Baltar. Roslin subsequently took up residency on New Caprica and began teaching again, only to have her future and those of her fellow humans threatened with the arrival of the Cylons. When the show’s third season opened, the ex-president went from educator to underground insurgent, giving her alter ego, actress Mary McDonnell, that much more to think about when playing Roslin.
“It was wonderful to step back into the role at the start of season three because I love playing my character so much,” says McDonnell. “From Laura’s standpoint, it was fascinating to step back into the position of teaching, and she really did enjoy being with the children again in that little schoolhouse. I wish the circumstances on New Caprica weren’t so abysmal because it would have been quite interesting to explore her natural talents as an educator.
“The fictional situation of living in an occupied nation, on the other hand, was basically a nightmare, and the realty of it was very difficult for us as actors to process insofar as what it means and having to come to terms with one’s response to being occupied. Not only that, but also coming to terms with young people making choices to become suicide bombers, and to join forces as an insurgency was an intriguing and very humbling experience. It would have been nice, though, if we’d had a little more time to spend really fleshing out some of the issues and to dig deeper into what went on there. However, Battlestar has such a big story to tell, so we had to move on.”
And move on they did. After a few months living under Cylon occupation, Laura and most of the colonists were rescued thanks to a daring plan executed by the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus. In the second half of the third season two-parter Exodus, the Cylons abandon New Caprica, now in ruins, taking Gaius Baltar (James Callis) with them. His forced leaving allowed Laura to resume her presidential duties, but the woman who stepped back into office wasn’t quite the same after her time on New Caprica.
“I think Laura has become more economical in her position,” muses McDonnell. “The realities of being part of an insurgency certainly created in her, I wouldn’t call it a cynicism, but a toughening that I don’t believe she had prior to that. So when she regained presidential office, the issues were easier to wrestle with and there was less ambivalence when making a decision and standing by it.
“Her surge in confidence was borne from experience and her being out there in a war zone in a way she had never been before. It helped her feel more at ease in her position. I mean, up to this point, other than being on the Galactica during moments of Cylon attack, and the one time when Cylons actually boarded the ship, Laura was never a ‘soldier,’ do you know what I mean? She was never on the front lines or truly participating within the military. Granted, an insurgency is a whole different thing, but it also requires the participation of many people, of which she was one. Once you take that step I think it changes how you perceive yourself as well as how you perceive reality, and that’s the case with Laura. She’s since become a tougher individual and, perhaps, a little bit of a darker one, too.”
Halfway through Galactica’s third season, a standoff between humans and Cylons results in the robots returning Gaius Baltar to his own people. The episode Taking a Break from All Your Worries, which was directed by Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama), opens with President Roslin physically threatening to eject Baltar out an airlock if he doesn’t reveal tactical information regarding the Cylons and their knowledge of Earth. That particular scene was an emotional tour de force for McDonnell, who took great pleasure in being directed by her co-star.
“It was really quite extraordinary,” notes the actress. “First off, Eddie and I work so well together as actors. It’s very impulsive and there is great trust, which allows us to go to so many places in our performances. I think that’s part of why Adama’s and Laura’s relationship has evolved rather impulsively as well and that they’ve grown closer. So when that person, in this case Eddie, steps into the role of director, you already have that trust to begin with. I should preface this, too, by saying that it’s the same with James Callis. The two of us also share a tremendous trust. He’s phenomenally talented and really wonderful to work with.
“So there were the three of us trying to figure this episode out, and it became apparent to Eddie first, I have to say, that the story had to be driven with Laura’s energy, and I wasn’t very clear about that at the beginning. So Eddie had to challenge me to do it, and I was happy to take up that challenge. And we went at it with full throttle when it came to that scene with Laura and Baltar, and I must tell you that on the day we shot it, our crew was truly a marvel. They didn’t expect what we were going to do and weren’t necessarily prepared for it, but they were right there for us. It was especially gratifying for them after three years to finally get to see Laura Roslin cut loose if you will.”
In Galactica’s third season finale, the two-part Crossroads, Gaius Baltar is finally put on trial for his crimes against humanity and, much to President Roslin’s disgust, he is acquitted. For her, it comes on the heels of more bad news. “Unfortunately, my character’s cancer has returned, and that’s going to be a pain in the-you-know-what,” says McDonnell. “It’s not something, though, that Laura is going to dwell on. She’s going to put as little attention on it as humanly possible. I’m sure there will be issues that come from it, but that’s how I see Laura coping with it, and she’s going to fight it [the disease] with more traditional medicine.
“At the end of season three, Laura’s focus was not on her cancer, it was on Baltar. His getting off at that trial isn’t something she’s going to forget. It’s not a good thing from her point of view, and I don’t know where that will sit inside her or what it will motivate in her. There’s an even bigger question, however, and that is what kind of presence will Baltar be in season four. On top of all this, we find out at the end of Crossroads that there are more human-form Cylons among us, or are there? We don’t know for certain whether or not they are Cylons, but if that turns out to be the case, then what are they up to? We’ll have to wait and see.”
While receiving treatment for her cancer in Crossroads, Laura Roslin is surprised to discover that she can access the thoughts of Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer), who is trying to mentally contact Athena’s (Grace Park) baby, Hera. “My character’s ability to ‘step’ into Cylon projections is opening up a whole new kettle of fish,” says McDonnell. “For me, it was a neat opportunity to shoot a scene with Grace and Tricia. Prior to that, the three of us had never been in the same room together.
“As far as Laura is concerned, I’m guessing that the connection she has with the Cylons has to do with the blood or DNA that she shares with both Hera and her mother, Athena, and God knows what other Cylons. I wonder what that will mean to Laura and, in fact, humanity as a whole. Could my character having Cylon blood ultimately provide a bridge between humans and Cylons? I assume they’re both going to end up on Earth together. What are they going to find when they get there, and what will both species be to each other by then? Those are two questions that are very interesting to me as we approach season four.”
With production already up and running in Vancouver on Galactica’s fourth season, what are McDonnell’s hopes for her character going into these new episodes? “My hope always is that a character grows spiritually,” says the actress. “I think Laura has grown a great deal as far as understanding what it is to be president. She’s come to terms with the power of the office and being rather comfortable with it. So how do you maybe take that to a level of spirituality or humanity that she’s as yet been unable to achieve? Again, perhaps the idea of her shared DNA with the Cylons will allow her to perceive a bigger solution to her peoples’ current dilemma. Only time will tell.”
Steve Eramo
L to R – D.J. Cotrona (Seth Gecko) and Zane Holtz (Richie Gecko) in From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series. Photo credit: El Rey Network/Robert Rodriguez.
Miramax and El Rey Network released today the all new trailer from the third Season of the dark and highly-addictive original drama From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, which premieres Tuesday, September 6th @ 9:00 p.m EST on the El Rey Network. This season the Gecko brothers find themselves in the vortex of the culebra world, thrust into a fight against the forces of Hel as they assemble an unlikely crew to take on the new enemies determined to take them down.
Season three features a returning ensemble cast including D.J. Cotrona, Zane Holtz, Eiza González, Jesse Garcia, Madison Davenport, Brandon Soo Hoo, Emily Rios and Jake Busey. New cast joining the third season are: Ana de la Reguera (Jane the Virgin, Narcos) who will have a recurring role as Lord Venganza Verdugo, one of the seven remaining culebra Lords; Marko Zaror (Machete Kills) as Zolo, an Aztec warrior trained in hell; Tom Savini (Friday the 13th, From Dusk Till Dawn) as Burt, a retired demon hunter who smokes more medical marijuana than he sells; Maurice Compte (Breaking Bad, Narcos) as Brasa, a mysterious Rasputin-like figure who takes on the Gecko brothers; and Nicky Whelan (House of Lies, The Wedding Ringer) whose character will be revealed during the season.
Miramax is distributing From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series internationally in all territories. Check out the trailer below!
Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit) in "What Lurks Within." Photo by Kent Smith and copyright of Fox International Studios.
This week on an all-new Outcast, the Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) finds himself increasingly alienated. Meanwhile, Kyle (Patrick Fugit) has a stunning revelation from Sidney (Brent Spiner). Written by Tony Basgallop and directed by Scott Winant, What Lurks Within airs Friday, July 29th @ 10:00 p.m. EST/PST on Cinemax. Check out the clip below and then make sure to tune in tomorrow night!
Killjoys' Khlyen (Rob Stewart). Photo copyright of Bell Media/SPACE.
When it comes to playing a villain, Rob Stewart has all the proverbial ducks lined up in a row. As Khlyen on TV’s Killjoys, the Canadian-born actor is, among other things, highly intelligent, sophisticated, cunning, physically adept, and one heck of a snazzy dresser, When the show’s heroine, Dutch, was a mere child of eight years old, Khlyen began training her to be an expert assassin and covert intelligence agent. In order to hone her skills, he forced Dutch more than once to kill in cold blood, and if she failed, it would mean her own death at the hands of her target. In addition to serving as Dutch’s tutor, Khlyen also became her surrogate father.
It was Dutch’s real father who sent Khlyen to instruct his daughter, who was being raised in a royal harem. However, this enigmatic stranger has also always had his own private agenda with regard to his young protégé. Khlyen has played his cards close to his chest ever since viewers were introduced to him in Killjoys’ first season. That air of mystery surrounded the character when Stewart originally tried out for the role, and the actor was none the wiser about Khlyen’s true motives when first stepping into his boots.
“My first audition was rather strange,” recalls Stewart with a grin, sitting down for a chat in The Royale bar on the show’s Toronto set. “The casting agent actually stopped me in the middle of it and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ That had never happened to me before. At the time, I had no idea what the show was about. I was given audition sides with scenes between Khlyen and Yalena [young Dutch] from episodes one and two [Bangarang and The Sugar Point Run]. I was miming something to do with a knife, which apparently didn’t make a lot of sense to the casting agent.
“They must have, however, either seen something in me or had an idea beforehand that they wanted to cast me, because I can’t imagine my first audition was good enough for me to get the part. I didn’t find out, though, until a month later. I was in Ottawa working on a movie when I got the call telling me I had the job. I’m not entirely sure what happened in the meantime to convince them, but I’m thankful that things worked out.
“Of course, I still had precious little about Khlyen to go on when filming began on Killjoys, which ended up being a good thing. Two interesting things happened. First off, I’m a father myself, so I feel very comfortable playing a father/child dynamic. Even though this is a twisted version of parenthood, I played Khlyen as a father because I didn’t know any better, right? Obviously, back then we didn’t know what he was to Yalena. Secondly, and this is quite curious, Michelle Lovretta’s [series creator/executive producer/writer] words just made me feel the character as soon as I opened my mouth and spoke them. In that respect, it was almost a subconscious thing with me and Khlyen.
“The wardrobe also contributed a great deal to my performance. I spent three hours in the initial wardrobe fitting, which is something else I’d never done before in my career. Trysha Bakker [costumer designer] and Donna Butt [assistant costume designer] were having me try on all sorts of things, and we really built Khlyen’s look organically from the ground up. By the time I was fully clothed, there were no more questions. I had found the character. The first half of the process involved the words coming out; I used a deeper voice and a sort of sonorous rhythm when speaking the dialogue that Michelle had written. The costume then clicked into place the other half of my character. The icing on the cake subsequently just came from looking in Hannah John-Kamen’s [the adult Dutch] eyes and developing our characters’ onscreen relationship.”
When Dutch grew older, she married a prince, which had no place in Khlyen’s plans for her, so he killed her husband. She was able to later escape from Khlyen and eventually joined the RAC (Reclamation Apprehension Coalition), where she became a bounty hunter or “killjoy.” Currently a Level 5 RAC agent, she works alongside her longtime partner Johnny Jaqobis (Aaron Ashmore) and his brother D’avin (Luke Macfarlane). While Dutch thought she left Khlyen in her past, he resurfaced at the start of Killjoys’ first season. Khlyen still has plans for her, not the least of which involves her skills as an assassin. During season one, he occasionally left Dutch a red box along with a weapon, which was his subtle way of ordering her to kill someone. While Khlyen was initially tagged as a cold blooded calculating murderer, Stewart has been able to decipher hints that his character might not be totally bad to the bone.
“I think episode six [One Blood] from last year started to turn the tide a bit with Khlyen,” muses the actor. “It was directed by Michael Nankin, a wonderful director who I had the pleasure of working with on Defiance. He gave me a little note when I was doing a scene with Hannah, which I didn’t expect, which read, ‘You love her.’ I was playing that in my own way, but wasn’t sure how strong and clear I should be. That was a great note, and Michael’s advice took me all the way through to the end of season one and Khlyen feeling that way. So I feel like my character went from being this ominous, sinister captor who tortured a child, to a person who loves her more than anything in the world and for reasons that we don’t know completely yet, and won’t until the end of season two. Again, though, Khlyen’s feelings for Dutch shifted from a dark place to one of pure love, and I think this year you’re going to see that develop more and more.”
Last season on Killjoys it was revealed that Khlyen is a Level 6 RAC agent, which Dutch always believed to be nothing but an urban myth. In the first season finale Escape Velocity, Khlyen kidnapped D’avin with the intent of transforming him into a Level 6 by means of a bizarre medical procedure using “green goo.” However, as fans saw, that plan backfired in the season two opener Dutch and the Real Girl, with D’avin’s body rejecting the process. Khlyen ultimately let him go, much to the chagrin of his higher-ups, who zapped Khlyen and put him on ice, literally. At the end of last week’s Shaft, RAC agent Fancy Lee (Sean Baek) liberated Khlyen from stasis, and he is sure to cross paths again with Dutch and company in the upcoming weeks.
“My character only interacted with Dutch until the very end of last year, and then with D’avin, where Khlyen basically spoke about how he feels about him,” says Stewart. “D’avin is the ‘boyfriend,’ and Khlyen has precious little time for someone he considers a child coming into his little Yalena’s life. However, that changes in a hurry. I had a wonderful scene with Luke in the second season opener. He and I did a fight scene last year, but this was the first time the two of us got to work together as fellow actors, and it was a pleasure. Luke is a great actor and I had a fun time with him.
“Getting back to Khlyen, I think he has a more profound sense of jealousy towards Johnny than he does D’avin. After two years, I’m actually doing my first scene later today with Aaron Ashmore. We’ve seen each other outside of work, but the two of us have never been on-set together, so I really can’t wait. Aaron is an amazing actor and there is such a quiet truth to him. Although Khlyen calls D’avin the boyfriend, he’s far more jealous of Dutch’s and Johnny’s relationship, which is pure as well as platonic. Because of that, Khlyen knows that Dutch would choose Johnny over him.”
Along with Killjoys and the aforementioned Defiance, Stewart’s other TV genre credits include The Collector, Highlander, Lost Girl, Beauty and the Beast, Nikita, Dark Matter and Painkiller Jane, in which he played the series regular role of Andre McBride. He was also recently seen as Alan Henry in the Canadian-made horror series Slasher, which aired earlier this year on the Chiller Network, and is currently streaming on Netflix US.
“Aaron Martin, who was a consulting producer and writer last year here on Killjoys, went off and created his own very unique thing in Slasher,” says the actor. “He wrote eight episodes all at once, which we then block-shot. It was a crazy, crazy idea, but it turned out very well. My character is a priest who has a little bit of a kink, both of which were on my bucket list, so I killed two birds with one stone playing a kinky priest,” jokes Stewart. “Patrick Garrow, who plays Turin in Killjoys, is also in Slasher, along with Mayko Nguyen [Delle Seyah Kendry] and a few other familiar faces. So I think Killjoys fans might enjoy checking it out.”
Steve Eramo
Killjoys airs Fridays @ 9:00 p.m EST on Syfy US and Canada's SPACE Channel (check local listings for other days and times). As noted above, photo copyright of Bell Media/SPACE, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
Having worked on Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and SGU Stargate Universe, Paul Mullie certainly knows his way around outer space (fictionally speaking, of course). For more than a year, the executive producer and writer has been busy helping steer the crew of the spaceship Raza on a course filled with plenty of action, adventure and intrigue on TV’s Dark Matter, which he co-created with longtime friend and writing/producing partner Joseph Mallozzi. On this, the first Tuesday in April 2016, Mullie is hard at work behind the camera, this time in “video village” directing Take the Shot, episode 10 of the show’s second season.
“This episode is, in terms of production, what you’d call a bottle show, which, funnily enough, is a description that I don’t really like to use,” says Mullie, who has very kindly taken some time out of his day to sit down for a chat. “The thing is, we were doing lots of set builds in the middle of the season with episodes five, six and seven. Even when we went to locations, they were really just blank canvases where the art department had to go in and build sets. You could tell that people were getting exhausted, and if we carried on, it would have reached a point where they would have been unable to build what was required in the time available.
“So we knew we needed a couple of episodes that took place mainly on our standing sets, and they turned out to be episode eight [Stuff to Steal, People To Kill You, which Joe wrote, and this one, episode 10 [Take The Shot]. Doing this gave the art department a little bit of a break, but conversely, you can’t let something like that dictate your stories. You want to have a good creative idea first, and it just so happened that we had a couple of ideas that could take place on our standing sets. When you’re writing a serialized arc for 13 episodes, you have to plan ahead and make sure everything is lining up. You can’t just all of a sudden step out of that arc. You have to make sure that events line up with what has already happened.
“Episode 10 focuses a lot on The Android [Zoie Palmer]. There are some developments earlier in the season in episodes four and five [We Were Family and We Voted Not to Space You] where that character evolves a bit, and this episode is kind of the payoff to that. It also harkens back to some of the events that transpired in episode 203 [I’ve Seen The Other Side of You] and the effects of the neural link on Two [Melissa O’Neil], Three [Anthony Lemke] and Four [Alex Mallari, Jr] where they were essentially transformed back into their old selves. We revisit that, not so much that they change personalities again, but they start to have hallucinations based on their previous experiences and people from their past are showing up on the ship.”
For the uninitiated, the first season of Dark Matter opened with our six heroes - including One (Marc Bendavid) and Six (Roger Cross) - awaking from stasis with their memories wiped and no idea what they were doing onboard the Raza. With the assistance of The Android as well as a strong desire to satisfy their own curiosity, they were able to fill in many of the blanks when it came to their true identities, but it was not exactly a flattering picture. Throughout the show’s first 13 episodes, the Raza crew did their best to leave their former selves behind, but their respective pasts managed to catch up with them in one way or another. Their struggle to start anew continues this year.
“Season one wasn’t so much about our people looking back as it was about them trying to figure out their pasts and who they are,” explains Mullie. “That continued a little bit at the start of season two with Six, who was revealed to be the ‘bad guy.’ However, pretty much last year, all kinds of things were happening to the Raza crew, who were at a loss most of the time because they had no idea why people were attacking them. Season one was designed that way, though, where Two and the others were constantly facing all these hurdles that they didn’t understand. However, over time, they came to realize who they are and what happened to them.
“This season is very different in that it’s now become more about them being active as opposed to reactive and trying to decide for themselves what their next step should be. That’s been a fun change in the tone and how stories are being written, which, in turn, freshens up the whole creative process.”
In Dark Matter’s season one finale, Six, who was, in fact, an undercover officer for the Galactic Authority, truly felt he was saving his crewmates’ lives by turning them in to his employers. Two, Three and Four later ended up prisoners in the Hyperion-8 maximum security facility in the season two opener, Welcome to Your New Home. Their incarceration was, thankfully, short-lived, and along with Five and The Android, they successfully staged a break-out in the next episode, Kill Them All. Our jailbirds were helped by Six as well as fellow inmates Nyx Harper (Melaine Liburd), Arex Nero (Mike Dopud) and Devon Taltherd (Shaun Sipos), all of whom hitched a ride onboard the Raza. These additions to the crew manifest have definitely shaken up the shipboard dynamics as well as helped further flesh out the show’s already-established characters.
“We knew when we ended season one, that we were going to start the second season with most of our people in prison, and we saw that as a good opportunity to bring some new blood into the mix,” says Mullie. “We also knew they would end up escaping sooner rather than later, but we thought, ‘What if they didn’t escape alone? They’re going to meet some people in prison who, at first, might seem like enemies, but turn out to be potential allies. So when they do escape prison, maybe some of these people come with them.’
“That’s what these new characters were all about, and by introducing them, it opened up all sorts of cool new creative avenues. Last year it was just these six people and The Android who were onboard the Raza. They barely knew one another and barely trusted each other, let alone outsiders. However, when Two and the others were in prison, they didn’t have a choice. They were forced to deal with strangers, which has affected them along with our story in some wonderful ways.
“As far as character development this year, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about them looking more forward instead of back,” continues the executive producer/writer. “It’s also becoming more about the group. I mean, this show is really about family and, ultimately, the family dynamic. I think that’s the emotional heart of Dark Matter. Again, these people were thrown together in season one and didn’t really have a choice in establishing this family-type relationship.
“This season, they all know who one another are, and now that they’ve gotten out of the predicament that we left them in at the end of season one, they each could have easily gone their own way. Instead, they’ve decided to carry on as group, which presents a host of new challenges. Will they continue being pirates and thieves, or will they try to go on the straight and narrow. If it’s the latter, will circumstances allow them to succeed? While some of them were career criminals, others had their circumstances thrust upon them. Six was an undercover cop, Five was essentially a street kid, One wasn’t a villain at all, just an ordinary guy, and Two hasn’t been around for very long and became who she was because of what was being done to her. Three and Four have their own stories, too. Now, though, they’re all different people, and this season we’re looking at what will keep them together and how they feel about themselves as well as each other. Creatively, that has been a great deal of fun.”
Steve Eramo
Dark Matter airs Fridays @ 10:00 p.m. EST on Syfy (US) and Canada's SPACE Channel (check local listings for other days/times).
Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things. Photo copyright of Netflix.
The Android (Zoie Palmer) in "We Voted Not to Space You." Photo copyright of Syfy/SPACE.
This week on an all-new episode of Dark Matter, The Android (Zoie Palmer) goes undercover to help the Raza crew track down a dangerous but familiar foe. Check out the clip below from We Voted Not To Space You and then jump onboard the Raza for all the action this Friday, July 29th @ 10:00 p.m. EST on Syfy US and Canada's SPACE Channel (check local listings for other days and times).
Aaron Ashmore as John and Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch in "Meet The Parents." Photo copyright of Syfy/SPACE.
On this week's all-new episode of Killjoys, Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) escorts Pawter (Sarah Power) home for a chilly family reunion while D’avin (Luke Macfarlane) experiences surprising side effects from Khlyen's (Rob Stewart) Red 17 experiments. Check out the clip below and then tune in for Meet The Parents on Friday, July 29th @ 9:00 p.m. EST on Syfy US and Canada's SPACE Channel (check local listings for other days/times).
