My wife and I spent an entire Saturday re-watching Dark Matter on Apple TV and, honestly, it was a day well spent. Holy shit, what a show! But the thing that surprised me the most, having finished re-reading the book days before and then watching the show again, was just how much more refined the show was than the book.
I think in the opener to this series, I made a comparison of Blake Crouch not yet being Michael Crichton. And that is true. But whenever a movie or series was made of a Crichton property, so much of the science and various scenes were cut from the end product. With Crouch, it was almost as if the book functioned as a rough outline and the show was the final product.
They weren’t so much adapting the book as filling in the gaps the outline left for additional character work and emotion.
For the rest of this article, I’m going to go through various aspects of the story and illustrate where the book and show deviate and, more often than not, praise how the show handled the change. By the end, I hope we’ll all agree that the show was a massive improvement on an already solid text.
Before I go into crazy, analytical detail, I thought it would be worth pointing out that the greatest difference between the book and the show is just the sheer amount of character work the show achieved that the book did not. At about 350 pages, Dark Matter is a relatively slim sci-fi tome when you have to factor the plot and conceit into it all. But, unfortunately, it did leave the characters a little spare. But, where the characters can feel a little thin at times in the book, they more than make up for it in the show. Even minor characters that made the transition were more fully flushed out and, then, there’s Blair who wasn’t in the books at all who actually was pretty compelling on screen.
So there’s a definite theme here.
Daniella Dessen (née Vargas)
Daniella is the easiest character to discuss because, in the book, she was merely an object of desire. The book had one scene where she noticed that Jason2 was different from her Jason but there was not a whole lot the there there, otherwise.
In the show we really got to see the difference between the successful artist Daniella Vargas and the content mother and wife Daniella Dessen. Obviously, artist Daniella was a scene in the book but, since we barely ever got to see mother Daniella, who really knew what her internal state was? Now, we actually got to know her. Obviously, the most powerful scene in this respect was the charity auction scene where Jason2 took her painting and had it hung.
Perhaps it has something to do with my own age but, at a certain point in your life, you realize that you’re not everything the younger version of you may have hoped to be. I’m not a great guitarist and song writer. I’m not a best selling novelist. Daniella isn’t a famous artist and isn’t even sure painting still brings her joy. So to have her painting essentially stolen and then hung in the gallery she worked at, you really feel the betrayal. And this is probably the turning point in her relationship with Jason2. It’s certainly the moment when she seems to settle on the idea that he’s not the same man that she changed her life for.
They really do a good job bringing her to life with her own motivations and wants, separate from Jason’s and it does far more to show us why Jason is so desperate to get back to her than all the times book-Jason whines about how much he misses his wife. Yeah, Jason, she sounds like a swell gal but I really don’t know anything about her…
Amanda Lucas
Speaking of not knowing someone. Perhaps only second to Daniella in terms of cardboard to living character was Amanda Lucas. In the book she was little more than a sounding board for Jason, a reason for him to speak out loud rather than just be in his thoughts the entire time. Because she brought almost nothing to the story. The one action she had remained the same between book and show, and that was her charging out into the snow storm. But, aside from this, she seemed mostly along for the ride.
In the show we don’t just get to know her, we get to know various versions of her. One version of her managed a White Castle? That’s a far sight from the psychologist we meet originally. But in seeing variations of her, it expands the universe hopping concept far more than just random versions of Jason. You can only make a single character so load bearing before you wonder if the entire concept wouldn’t collapse if the character was anyone else.
Amanda was even responsible for perhaps one of the most charming moments that was unique to the show, the discussion of various candies and the realization that some worlds had one candy and not another. It’s one of those little concept explorations that actually kind of blows your mind when you think of the larger ramifications. It’s why people have a hard time being an expat. When I first moved to Germany, Hellman’s mayonnaise was a speciality item. I was paying €10 for a small squeeze bottle! How can something like mayonnaise be that different between here and there but one of them tastes like America and the other just tastes… wrong…
The other nice thing they did with Amanda, because she was a real character, was they gave her a nice send-off. In book, she just Dear Johns Jason, it’s a note on a page. In the show, we get the nice goodbye, the reason why she’s decided to stay behind, the fact that she’s set herself up as the version of her that had disappeared. It almost makes you wish her part in the story didn’t have to end (and, spoilers… it doesn’t look like it is…)
Charlie Dessen
Charlie wasn’t just a thin character on the page, he was essentially absent until the very last act. Charlie in the show had a hobby (skateboarding), a dead twin (totally new), a crush on a girl (who we see in passing but still…) He was a fact of existence in the book, he was the crux around which the decision to become a family man over a famous scientist revolved but we didn’t know the kid.
I’m not sure Blake Crouch did either.
Thinking back on Charlie from the book, I can’t think of a single fact about him that wasn’t about the decision to keep him. Again, because the point of view, except for a single scene, was entirely told through Jason, we literally never got to know him. Which was fine in the book. He was part of the package Jason was trying to get back to. We really didn’t need to know him. We knew he was important. I mean, Jesus H Christ, it was in every other sentence how important his family was to him. But unless the plot is really going to involve him, we don’t really need to know him.
The show is, of course, different. We see Jason2 take over Jason’s life, his attempts to integrate and then maintain. And how that affects his family. In this case, getting to know Charlie is much more important because we need to see that both he and Daniella are clocking that something is off. But, from a story perspective, Charlie is essentially a creation out of whole cloth for the show.
Leighton Vance
Another interesting choice. In the book, Leighton was the Chief Executive and Medical Officer of the startup that created The Box. He states that they’re colleagues and friends but he’s functionally only in two scenes: the first where Jason wakes up in the new world and the second where Jason’s brought back after Daniella was killed in her apartment. We never meet “our world” Leighton.
Honestly, though, this is one of the more clever inventions for the show. He’s mentioned as a rich guy Ryan and Jason knew in college and then we meet him on the other side as running Velocity. So meeting him as a bored playboy is actually a laugh out loud moment. And then seeing his mind get blown when Jason2 shows him The Box is a stand-in for the rest of us and how we’d handle it if we were shown something like that was possible. This is a case of the actor just bringing an energy to the variations in character between the worlds that took him from being a nothing character to something really great.
Jason Dessen
Here is one character that is probably only different based upon your reading of him versus Joel Edgerton’s performance of him. He is substantially similar if not the same as his character in the book. He’s kind of pathetic but happy being a dad and clearly still in love with his wife. He’s a man who’s settled and made peace with it. Not that it’s not hard to see his friends succeed. It’s a funny thing when you start more or less on the same level with someone. Then, one day, you see them far exceed your own accomplishments. But then you think about the choices you made, what you did that made you who you are now. And, hopefully, they might be choices you’d make again.
In both the show and the book, Jason is that guy. Until he’s forced to be more in order to get back to his family. It’s always interesting to watch an actor play multiple versions of the same character, like JK Simmons in Counterpart. It’s fun to watch and see what makes this version different from that one. And this is all in the performance because we never got to know Jason2 in the book. He’s the motivating force behind the story but, since we’re in “our” Jason’s head the whole time, we never see how he carries himself.
Edgerton does an amazing job in this. As “our” Jason, he walks with his head scrunched between his shoulders, like he’s constantly embarrassed. But as Jason2, he strolls into any room with the confidence of a man who is not just certain he’s the smartest there but has the actual awards to prove it. (They’re just in a parallel universe.) It’s best illustrated by the way he handles the teaching scenes at the college.
Unfortunately, the only real scene we ever get with Jason2 in the book is when Jason stabs him in the end. We know he thinks he did the right thing but, we kind of already figured that by that point in the book anyway. So there wasn’t any new information there.
Ryan Holder
In the book we really only see Ryan twice the whole time, the first time at the Village Tap and the second time at the get-together after Daniella’s art show. I’m 90% certain we never see the guy again after that.
What’s interesting about his larger role is that it seems the most out of place. In the book Ryan Holder is a college buddy Jason hasn’t seen in years who’s now just won the “Pavia” Prize and is having the victory celebration nearby so as to re-connect. He seems like a guy that’s definitely your friend… but one that’s been at a distance for a while. Catching up over drinks is the beginning of reconnecting. In the show, he’s much more a part of Jason’s life, to the point that Daniella just calls him up when she wants to have the ampules she discovered analyzed. He just shows up to a dinner party. The drinks over the prize feels much less like two old college buddies reconnecting in retrospect.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m always happy when Jimmi Simpson shows up in something but, of all the characters that got an increased role, his was perhaps the most out of place. That said, I’m here for fat Jimmi Simpson though.
The Ending
Interestingly, one of the biggest deviations from the book was actually the ending of the show, which was a surprise for me because I was pretty sure that the climax was almost word-for-word. But… then it couldn’t be, could it?
In the book, Jason2 is, essentially, a non-entity. Yes, his actions got the ball rolling but, because we were told the story through Jason’s eyes, we never got to know the guy. So, in the book, when he shows up at the lake house and wants to lecture Jason about how he’s the better version, beating Jason almost to death, it’s not exactly a low point when Charlie stabs him. And, since Charlie is, likewise, a non-entity, holding him to “account” doesn’t really factor in.
But in the show we know Jason2. He’s not “our” Jason but he, honestly, doesn’t seem like too bad of a guy. It’s the very premise of the show: but for a twist or turn here or there, they might be the same dude. And since we’ve also gotten to know Charlie, having the son of alternate-Jason stab his not-dad to death just kind of feels… bad! Instead, they turn it into a moment of redemption for Jason2. He’s not there to stop them. He realizes what he’s done wrong.
But what’s also interesting is that he found them, not because Charlie fucked up and texted a friend, enabling Jason2 to use Find-My-Phone, but because Blair had LoJacked her car and gave Jason2 access to its location. This is interesting because it involves taking a secondary character made up for the show (Blair) and actually makes her kind of instrumental in the resolution. Which is an interesting re-work of the plot since it would also feel bad to have Charlie mess things up now that we’ve gotten to know the kid and he actually seems kind of responsible but also because it explains why we need to know Blair from the beginning.
For an ending that was actually pretty good in the book, it’s a brave choice to rewrite it in this way but, also, sensible given our relationships with these characters now.
Wrapping Up!
Going through this, character by character, and then looking at the change to the ending, it’s almost funny to consider that a professionally written, edited, and published book might actually have been the rough draft to a story that didn’t see its full expression until it was adapted to the small screen.
What Crouch and team did to the story was expand it in all the ways that counted without really adding any fat. I wish I could say the same for Season Three of Silo (something we’ll dive into later) but I just can’t.
Michael Crichton was a brilliant man, by any estimation. But, while he played around in Hollywood, his core competency was clearly in the writing of books. Dark Matter may not be my favorite Blake Crouch book but Crouch is clearly a great novelist. But his screenwriting and the adaptation of his own story prove he might have what Crichton did not, a real talent in the visual medium as well as the written.
More than anything, this makes me excited for the second season of Dark Matter because I want to see where Crouch will take this material next, not in a Jurassic World, “how can we squeeze as much money out of this” sense, but more in a “let’s do an honest sequel on screen” kind of way that I think has only ever been done a handful of times.
Check back next week for the review of the season opener for season two of Dark Matter!
