Dark Matter Review: Apple TV Plus’s Mind-Bending Sci-Fi Thriller

Based on Blake Crouch’s bestselling novel, Dark Matter asks a deceptively simple question: what would happen if you met the version of yourself who made every different choice? Joel Edgerton stars as Jason Dessen, a college physics professor in Chicago, who is abducted and wakes up in an alternate reality where he is a celebrated genius who invented a technology that allows travel between parallel universes — but who never married his wife or had his son. The result is a propulsive nine-episode thriller that blends multiverse science fiction with a deeply personal love story.

How We Reviewed: Our assessment is based on analysis of writing, direction, and ensemble performance and viewing all available episodes before publishing. Ratings reflect full-season viewing, critical analysis, and production quality assessment. Brands featured did not pay for or influence their inclusion.

The Premise

Jason Dessen is content with his ordinary life. He teaches physics, loves his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), and adores his teenage son Charlie. One night he is kidnapped by a masked figure, injected with a substance, and wakes up in a world where everyone knows him as the brilliant inventor of “the Box” — a quantum superposition device that opens doorways to parallel realities. But this world’s Jason Dessen never married Daniela. Never had Charlie. This Jason chose ambition over love.

The hook is immediately gripping. Jason must figure out who took him, why, and how to get back to his family. The answer involves navigating an infinite number of parallel worlds, each one a variation on the choices that define a life. Edgerton carries the show with a performance that balances intellectual curiosity with primal desperation — he is a man of science facing a problem that science alone cannot solve.

Jennifer Connelly’s Dual Role

Jennifer Connelly is excellent in what amounts to a dual performance. The Daniela in Jason’s original world is a former artist who chose family over career, while the Daniela in the alternate world is a celebrated gallery owner who never met Jason. Connelly distinguishes the two versions with subtle differences in posture, confidence, and emotional availability, and the show’s most poignant scenes come from watching these variations illuminate what the other Daniela sacrificed.

The Multiverse Done Right

Where Dark Matter succeeds brilliantly is in using the multiverse as an emotional concept rather than just a plot device. Every alternate reality Jason visits represents a road not taken, and the show forces him — and the audience — to grapple with the implications. Is the life you have the one you would choose again? Are the sacrifices you made worth what you gained? These questions give the science fiction machinery genuine philosophical weight.

The visual representation of the multiverse is inventive and often beautiful. The transitions between realities use a fog-like corridor that is simultaneously disorienting and hypnotic, and each alternate world has its own distinct visual palette that communicates its nature before a word is spoken.

The Antagonist

The central villain is, appropriately, another version of Jason himself — the alternate Jason who stole his life because he realized too late that love matters more than achievement. This doppelganger dynamic creates tension that is both external and internal, and the later episodes, when multiple versions of Jason begin converging, push the concept to its most unsettling implications.

Pacing

The show maintains momentum across its nine episodes, though the middle section — where Jason navigates a series of increasingly dangerous alternate realities — occasionally feels repetitive. The strongest episodes are the first two (which establish the mystery with elegant efficiency) and the final three (which deliver an escalating confrontation that is both thrilling and emotionally devastating).

Verdict

Dark Matter is smart, suspenseful science fiction anchored by strong performances from Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. It takes a high-concept premise and grounds it in recognizable human emotions, making the multiverse feel personal rather than abstract. One of Apple TV Plus’s strongest original series.

Rating: 8/10

For more sci-fi on Apple TV Plus, see our reviews of Severance Season 2 and Silo Season 2. Explore more in our Best Sci-Fi Shows Streaming in 2025 guide.