Dark Matter Is Getting A Second Season On Apple TV+, But What Could It Be About?

This post contains spoilers for “Dark Matter.”

I recently finished reading Blake Crouch’s mind-bending sci-fi novel “Dark Matter,” which was adapted into an Apple TV+ show earlier this year. I haven’t watched the show yet (I’m planning to catch up with it shortly), but we’ve called it “the best sci-fi series in years” and that praise makes sense, considering the show is apparently a very faithful adaptation of the largely excellent book. Last Friday, Apple announced that the show will be getting a second season — a somewhat curious decision, given that the book (and, from what I’ve heard, the first season) ends in a place where they easily could have delivered a satisfying story and called it a day.

At the end of the novel, the unwitting multiverse traveler Jason Dessen (played by Joel Edgerton in the show) finally manages to reunite with his real family in his original universe, but he and his wife (Jennifer Connelly) and son (Oakes Fegley) are basically forced to choose another universe to live in so they won’t spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders as alternate versions of Jason try to track them down. The family steps into the Box — a sort of multiversal access point — and lets their son decide which universe they’re going to live in. The emotional arc has peaked: It doesn’t matter where they go, as long as they’re together.

But, as with the successful courtroom drama “Presumed Innocent,” which also adapted the entirety of a popular book in its first season, “Dark Matter” is coming back for more because Apple wants to keep a good thing going. That’s a risky proposition (just ask any fan of “Big Little Lies” season 1), but with author Blake Crouch continuing to serve as the showrunner, perhaps there’s more to this story after all. But what it could be?

“In the process of writing and filming season one, we discovered that there’s so much more story to tell, and we’ve only scratched the surface of these characters as they fight for survival and to find their way home through a landscape of mind-bending realities,” Crouch said in a press release. “See you in the Box!”

That quote certainly makes it seem like the show will continue with the Dessen family as they step into the next chapter of their lives in a brand new universe. And there could be something interesting about that, given all of the insanity these characters have been through to this point. How do these people — especially a teenager — cope with the knowledge that they’re the only three people in the world who possess world-altering information, and the world they’re living in is not actually their own?

But what if Crouch’s quote is a bit of a bait and switch? What if season 2 actually picks up with Amanda Lucas, the alternate-universe therapist who helps Jason and escapes into the multiverse with him? The book version of Amanda disappears maybe three-quarters through the story, leaving Jason behind to find her own way because his obsession with reuniting with his family is endangering them both. I know Crouch says he’s “only scratched the surface of these characters as they fight for survival and to find their way home,” which seems like it’s teeing up more Dessen adventures, but haven’t the Dessens already found their new home? Amanda’s still out there searching, and it would be a ballsy and exciting decision to reorient the next season around her character, leaving the Dessen family’s future to our imaginations.

I spoke briefly about reading the novel on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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