Hi readers! Heads up, this post will contain spoilers for Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and the Apple TV show. You can watch the show on Apple TV and can purchase the book from Amazon.
All Amazon links are affiliate links. This doesn’t cost you more but does help me with website fees. I was not compensated for this novel and all opinions are my own.
After a friend recommended the TV show Dark Matter, my husband and I watched the trailer on YouTube and were immediately intrigued.
Synopsis (TV Show):
A man is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could’ve lived, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from a most terrifying foe: himself. From IMDB.
After verifying that the show was “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes (83% critic score) we began episode one. Immediately, we were hooked and finished the 9-episode series within a week.
I really enjoyed the series and when I found out it was based on the book Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, I immediately downloaded the book.
Synopsis (Book):
Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream?
And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. From Goodreads.
**Spoilers Ahead**
When Jason met Daniella, his life changed forever. Jason was pursuing his PhD when he met his now wife, Daniella, an up-and-coming artist. When Daniella finds out she is pregnant, her dreams of becoming an artist shift to prioritize raising a family. Jason does not continue with his research due to long hours in the lab that aren’t suited for raising a family and instead becomes a physics professor at a local college.
Daniella getting pregnant and Jason deciding to stay with Daniella and begin a family was a key moment in both their lives. The decision to start a family with Daniella is a point where they both look back on and imagine what life would have been like if Daniella decided not to have the baby. Would they even end up together? Would Jason have breakthrough research discovery in physics? Would Daniella become a famous artist?
“It’s terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches off into a new world.”
Dark Matter let’s the readers and viewers imagine the “what ifs” in Jason’s life because this story uses advanced physics to interpret quantum superposition aka the multiverse. The multiverse is theoretical concept that there is an infinite number parallel universes that exist in the same time. In this theory, if the multiverse does in fact exist, there could be another you somewhere out there doing exactly what you are doing now.
Don’t let the science and multiverse scare you away from this story! I’m usually not a big fan of the multiverse – Marvel ruined it for me after they came out with seemingly endless amount of shows and movies. However, the use of the multiverse and physics in the book and the TV show is easily understood.
Using the multiverse, there is another Jason who went on to become a great physicist working at a top secret physics lab called Velocity Labs, but the one thing (person) in his life that is missing is Daniella. That version of Jason regrets his decision and uses his influence and capital to create a way to move throughout the multiverse using a life sized version of Schrödinger’s box (further explained below). For the sake of this article, I am going to call Jason 1 (original timeline Jason, married to Daniella, and has a son Charlie) and Jason 2 (alternate timeline Jason, no wife or children).
“We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.”
Moving on with the Storyline…
Both the book and the movie use the concept of “the box.” The box is based off the thought experiment known as Schrödinger’s Cat. In this experiment a hypothetical cat is sealed in a box containing a radioactive substance controlling a vial of poison. As the radioactive substance decays it will eventually trigger the poison to be released thus killing the cat. However, until someone opens the box, we won’t know if the cat is alive or dead. Therefore, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time in a superposition state. That being said, a quantum system exists in all of its possible states at the same time – this is where the multiverse comes in. Only when an observation is made (the box opening) the true state of the system can be confirmed.
Jason 2 uses the life sized version of the box he built to travel to the timeline where he and Daniella decided to stay together and raise a family (Jason 1’s timeline). When Jason 2 arrives to this timeline, he plans to take over that Jason’s life. Instead of murdering that timeline’s version of himself, Jason 2 kidnaps Jason 1 and drops Jason 1 off into Jason 2’s timeline. Jason 2 then proceeds back to Jason 1’s timeline to seamlessly take the place of the now indisposed Jason 1. Besides not wanting to murder himself, Jason 2 wants to give Jason 1 a chance of the life he could have had.
“No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic.”
Whew! Basically Jason was kidnapped by himself. Jason 2 believes he is doing Jason 1 a favor by switching timelines with him, so Jason 1 can live out his long forgotten dream of becoming an esteemed physicist.
Jason 1 wakes up in this new timeline confused and scared. He has no idea what happened and all he wants to do is get home to his wife and son. Jason 1 eventually figures out that another version of himself made a life sized version of Schrödinger’s box and switched timelines. Jason, then goes on a trial and error journey to find his timeline where the possible timelines are infinite.
While the TV show was based off the book, there were a lot of differences between the two.
Main Differences
In the book, it was not immediately obvious that Jason 1 was not having a mental breakdown. He is constantly questioning himself and doubting his memories. It takes a while for him to realize that he is in a different timeline. The same is true in the TV show, however, viewers immediately know Jason abducted himself and can make the connection that Jason is now in a different timeline. From the TV trailer, it literally says “What if the person that abducted me is me?” If you watch the trailer you will know Jason abducted himself. Knowing this, the viewers will easily realize this happens due to Schrödinger’s box because in the first scenes of the show Jason 1 is teaching physics and talking about the theoretical box experiment with a cat, a radioactive substance, and a vial of poison.
The TV show and book have many of the same characters. The book is Jason 1’s perspective throughout, so readers mainly get his viewpoint and there is not a lot of character development with anyone besides Jason 1. However in the TV show we get scenes of other characters and learn more about them and their motives.
Another key difference between book and show is the relationship between Jason and Amanda. In the TV show and book Amanda is a psychiatrist that works for Velocity Labs in Jason 2’s timeline. She is crucial to Jason 1 using the box and making his way back to his timeline. In the TV show, Amanda is a main character, and we get some of her backstory. Additionally Amanda and Jason 2 were in a relationship, and we see her struggle to resist her feelings towards Jason 1 and come to terms that Jason 2 is a bad person. We don’t get any of this in the book version of Dark Matter.
Additionally, in the TV show we get more backstory on Jason 2. The TV show is split up into showing Jason 1 and Jason 2. The TV show did a great job at signaling to the viewers which timeline we were in (both Jason’s look the same) by using a snap sound when timelines changed.
“There’s a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.”
TV Show Pros
Cinematography: I loved the cinematography in the show, and I found it visually stimulating. I really enjoyed seeing the different timelines that Jason and Amanda went to because the book did not do a great job at detailing the different timelines.
Characters: The characters in the TV show really added to the overall watching experience, and I enjoyed the background the TV show gave compared to the book.
Book Pros
Jason’s thoughts: Because the book is mainly written in Jason 1’s perspective, we get more insight into how he is feeling. The author did a great job conveying how confused and frightened Jason 1 was when he woke up in Velocity Labs. The book also gives good insight to Jason 1’s thought process.
“If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?”
TV Show Cons
Length: There are 9 episodes of Dark Matter that range from 45 minutes to 60 minutes. So in all, about 9 hours of TV watching. I am not a big fan of any episodes longer than 45 minutes and do not watch TV that often. Even though I was entertained throughout the 9 episodes it was personally a lot of TV watching for me. In comparison, the book is 342 pages. I consider myself a fast reader and this book took me a little over a day to read.
Book Cons
The box is confusing: If I hadn’t watched the TV show first I would’ve been thoroughly confused on the box and how it worked. Since the box is an integral part of the story, I would have like to have more backstory explaining the physics and theory.
Writing style: I didn’t love the writing style because it felt detached at points – this may just be the author’s writing style, but it wasn’t my favorite. I like a lot of details and some scenes were hard for me to imagine given the lack of descriptors.
Bookmark, Watch, or Bin it?
Conclusion: Read then watch
Overall, I enjoyed both the book and the TV show. I enjoyed the TV show more than the book, but I think it was because I watched the TV show first and knew the major twist that comes in later in the series and towards the end of the book. The TV show did a great job visually creating the scenes that I had a difficult time imagining from the book.
If you have time to both read and watch, I recommend reading the book first and then watching the TV show. If you prefer to choose between watching or reading, I recommend watching the TV show over reading the book.
“We’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”
Thanks so much for reading my article comparing Dark Matter the book and TV show! Now it’s your turn! Have you read this novel or any others by Crouch and if so, what are your thoughts? Have you watched this series? Please feel free to share in the comments below!
Happy reading (and TV watching)! 😊
