Hot damn this show is awesome.

With their financing problem taken care of and the Seers off their back for the moment, the crew of the Raza prepares to take the offensive. Their target is the former owner of Five’s stolen “key.” They hope to learn the nature of the device and perhaps turn it to their advantage.

It won’t be easy to break into one of the most secure corporate fortresses in the galaxy, but this is the crew of the Raza. There’s a reason they’re the most infamous criminals alive.

Along the way they “request” the assistance of their former handler, Rodney McKay Calchek. Add some appropriated Transfer Transit tech and Five’s usual technical brilliance, and the heist is on.

Meanwhile, Nyx mourns losing her brother again, but she has little time to avail herself of the support of the crew before she herself becomes the helper as Devon goes into a downward spiral.

“She’s One of Them Now” is an example of Dark Matter at its best. There’s tension and excitement, there’s strong character development, and there are some great twists.

The action and the quips flow hard and fast and the episode never stops being endlessly, delightfully entertaining. Dark Matter isn’t necessarily the deepest or most profound work of sci-fi ever made, but you’d hard-pressed to surpass it when it comes to sheer fun.

This episode is also another case of Five being put in the spotlight, which just makes me so happy. Even in a genre aimed at geeks, it’s so incredibly rare to see the geeky types playing the hero, and so refreshing when it does happen. So often in stories like this we see characters succeeding mainly through martial strength; it’s a wonderful change of pace to see one winning the day through sheer guile and wit.

Add to that not one but two intense cliff-hangers, and you have an excellent episode.

Devon and Nyx’s side-plot, while less spectacular than the main story, is also welcome. About time we learned a bit more about Devon, though admittedly it’s not much we couldn’t have guessed. It does feel a bit strange that there still seems to be a sharp division between the old crew and the newcomers, but I suppose it does make sense for the Raza crew to be a bit slow to trust, under the circumstances.

My one complaint is that I don’t know why we spent so much time on McKay. Sorry, Calchek. But let’s be honest: He’s pretty much McKay. They’re not even being subtle about it anymore. I half-expected him to bring up his fear of lemons at some point.

Anyway, he didn’t seem to be a necessary part of the episode. I certainly don’t see a good reason to give him as much screen time as they did. I mean, I liked Rodney, too, but Atlantis is over. This is Dark Matter. Even if it has a lot of the same creative talent behind the scenes and a similar writing style, it’s still its own show and shouldn’t trying to ride the coattails of Stargate.

It feels like David Hewlett had some bills to pay so the Dark Matter producers just threw him a role for old time’s sake or something.

But that one stumble is nowhere near enough to spoil an otherwise fantastic episode.

Overall rating: 8.5/10

I’m having a hard time not seeing this as some sort of weird Dark Matter/Secret World crossover.

The Raza crew needs cash. The only way they know how to get it is through some good old fashioned space piracy.

Nyx has a suggestion for the perfect mark… or so she says. This being Dark Matter, of course she has an ulterior motive. In the process, we learn her history and the source of her preternatural combat skills.

Basically, she’s one of the Connected. Somehow I’m not surprised the Dragon made it to the space age.

This was a very well-balanced episode. We got some action, we learned a lot about Nyx, we got some development of for rest of the cast, and we discovered a new faction in the galactic mix. A little something for everyone.

The Connected Seers make for an interesting addition, a bit more heavy on the sci-fi than what we’ve seen on Dark Matter so far. On the whole I welcome their addition, but I am a little concerned the show’s villains’ gallery is getting a little crowded. Now we’ve got Seers, the empress of Space Japan, the corporations, and Wesley Crusher to deal with. That’s a lot of ground to cover for a show with only thirteen episodes to a season.

It was good to see Nyx get fleshed out some, but I think I liked the smaller developments for the other cast members better. Six and Three’s bit seemed a little by the numbers, but it needed to happen. Five developing some suspicions of Devon is good. I like that Sally can apparently switch back and forth between her old and new personas — I think I would have missed her old one if it was gone for good.

What really impressed me was Four’s solution at the end. I saw it coming (har har), but I wasn’t sure the show would be willing to go there. I’m glad they did. Bodes well for the future that the writers aren’t the sort to pull their punches.

This also marks arguably the first time we’ve seen significant space battles on the show. It was good to see those cannons on the Raza finally get some use. A portend of things to come?

Overall rating: 8/10

So if the Seers are the Dragon, I guess that means the corporations are Illuminati. Come to think of it, the GA uniforms do look a little like the Lumie PvP armour.

No Templars in sight, though. I suppose they’re probably stuck on Earth while this century’s Dame Julia struggles in vain to figure out how to fly a space ship.