Dark Matter, on Apple TV+

Somewhere in the multiverse, there must be an alternate Chicago that is a safe, peaceful city, with high-performing schools and a thriving economy. Obviously, that is not the Chicago of our universe. It is not Jason Dessen’s Chicago either, but he is definitely trying to find it again, to reunite with his wife and son—the ones he knows. Dessen’s unwilling odyssey through the multiverse unfolds in creator Blake Crouch’s 9-episode Dark Matter, adapted from his original novel, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

Instead of becoming Richard Feynman, Dessen married Daniela Vargas and had his moody teenaged son, Charlie. It was worth it, but sometimes he wonders what might have been. The other Jason Dessen does not have to wonder. He became a hot shot physicist who built the “box” that serves as a portal between parallel universes, but he envies our Dessen’s happy family life. Consequently, he kidnaps the Dessen viewers identify with, marooning him in his own universe, so he can replace “our” Dessen with his family.

Despite his new wealth, Dessen desperately wants to return to his family, once he figures out why his life is suddenly so radically different. Amanda Lucas, the alternate Dessen’s lover and co-worker agrees to help him escape their industrialist boss, but navigating the box is a tricky endeavor. The first few doors they open nearly lead to disastrous consequences.

The box is a very cool riff on Schrodinger that sort of symbolically puts those who enter into super-position, with the help of psychotropic drugs. It is complicated to explain, but it represents some nifty speculative science fiction. Unfortunately, the characters are not nearly as interesting. In fact, they are mostly a rather annoying assembly of dull, joyless neurotics. That definitely includes Dessen—all of them.

That human factor definitely matters. It is ironic that we need to make that point regarding Dark Matter, since that is ostensibly the whole point of the series. The notable exception would be Jennifer Connelly’s various performances as the multi-Vargas Dessens. She has the most opportunities to play variations on her character, which she fully capitalizes on. Each multi-verse Daniela is recognizably similar, yet distinctive in her own ways.

Snowpiercer, the TV Show

It is sort of like a dystopian Jules Verne yarn, wherein the last dregs of humanity survive the apocalypse in a train perpetually circling the earth, managed by Wilford Industries. The corporation has saved humanity, but of course they are the bad guys. That was conspicuously and gratingly so in Bong Joon-ho’s criminally over-rated film. However, there is a lot more nuance and dramatically richer characterization in the first fresh-start, blank-slate season of the TV adaption of Snowpiercer, which premieres this Sunday on TNT.

Global warming panic lead scientists to develop a planetary cooling scheme that worked too well. Now the planet is an ice ball and most life is dead. Fortunately, Wilford Industries produced Snowpiercer, a train one thousand and one cars long that must remain in constant motion to beat the freeze. Melanie Cavill is the public face of the Wilford company. It is her soothing voice that makes the PA announcements, but she also serves as Mr. Wilford’s direct lieutenant when it comes to maintaining order.

Andre Layton is the leader of the opposition. As a “Tailie,” he was not even supposed to be on Snowpiercer, but he and his fellow proles forced their way into the tail-section before the train left Chicago. Now they live off scraps and resentment, which often ignites battles with the “Brakemen,” Snowpiercer’s axe-wielding cops (guns pose a risk of rupturing the train’s environmental seals). Layton is definitely a fist-raising revolutionary, but he was also a homicide detective during his previous life, so Cavill is forced to send for him when a murder is committed up train. Of course, his investigation will uncover more of the train’s dirty secrets than Cavill imagined.

The Snowpiercer series is drastically different from the movie—and each and every change is for the better. Showrunner Graeme Manson deserves a great deal of credit for ditching the crude caricatures and in-your-face class warfare didacticism that made the film so abrasive. This time around, there really are two sides to the story, order versus equality. That in turn gives rise to real drama.

At the center of it all is Cavill, who is an endlessly intriguing and ultimately acutely human character. Thanks to Jennifer Connelly’s extraordinary portrayal, we come to understand the compromises she made and how each agonizing choice inevitably leads to another. Honestly, this could be the best genre television performance of the year.

Daveed Diggs also covers a lot of emotional terrain, humanizing Layton far beyond a stick-figure proletarian rebel. He is at his best fencing with either Connelly’s Cavill or Sheila Vand as Layton’s former fiancé, Zarah Ferami, who betrayed her class by accepting a new life working in a third-class nightclub. Like Cavill, Ferami is a complicated character, who must live with the consequences of her decisions every day.