Ahead of Apple TV’s ‘Dark Matter’ Season 2, Sci-Fi Fans Need To Binge This Hidden Gem

Ahead of Apple TV's "Dark Matter" returning for its second season on 28 August, fans awaiting the sci-fi drama are being pointed towards "Counterpart", an earlier series exploring similar themes of parallel worlds and identity. Created in 2017 by Justin Marks, who went on to co-create the Emmy-winning "Shōgun", the two-season Starz show is being highlighted as a hidden gem worth revisiting, or discovering for the first time, while viewers wait for new episodes.

"Counterpart" imagines a Cold War-era experiment that splits the world into two parallel Earths, the original "Alpha World" and a divergent "Prime World", connected via a secret Berlin-based Office of Interchange. J.K. Simmons plays dual roles as Howard Silk and his more ruthless counterpart from the other side, echoing the format later used by Joel Edgerton in "Dark Matter". Where "Dark Matter" leans into quantum physics, "Counterpart" is framed more as an espionage thriller, involving a terrorist cell called the "Others" seeking revenge for a deadly flu pandemic they blame on the Alpha side.