Dark Matter’s second season expands beyond the first season’s adaptation of Blake Crouch’s novel, exploring the wider consequences of multiversal travel while continuing Jason Dessen’s attempt to rebuild his family life. The review finds this ambition uneven: the show is most powerful when examining identity, loss, love and regret, but less convincing when it shifts towards conspiracies, plagues and competing versions of tech entrepreneur Leighton Vance.

Jason, Daniela and their son Charlie have fled their original reality after multiple versions of Jason threatened them, yet their reunion cannot restore what was lost. Supporting characters Ryan and Amanda search alternate, often apocalyptic Chicagos for their own reality, while Leighton gathers variants of himself to pursue multiversal technology. Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly are praised for bringing emotional weight to the family’s strained relationship, with particular episodes described as among the year’s best television.