Exact opposite for me. I'm really enjoying Dark Matter, but have yet to really get drawn into Killjoys outside of "A Glitch in the System" (Derelict Ship episode). I think besides five (the kid, she constantly overacts) the acting is superior and the premise is much more interesting. I feel that Dark Matter has way more potential material as a show than Killjoys and can be rolled out in a more interesting fashion. As far is KJ's I really like Johnny, Dutch is fine, but Davin is the weak point of the show, I think he's poorly written and all the cliched drama around his character is getting taxing.
I hope they both get renewed but at this point I'd prefer it was Dark Matter if we could only have one.
I hope they both get renewed also, and I respect the opinions of people that prefer Dark Matter, but I couldn't disagree more with your take on KJs. Davin may be a stereotype of the macho soldier, but this show tackling his PTSD is serious business. I'm not sure how you could look at last week's episode where he beats the crap out of the woman (and teammate) he just slept with and say it was uninteresting or badly written or conventional. I think the writing is intelligent and pretty daring, and the actors do a great job with it. How many other sci-fi shows would go in that real? There's thousands of soldiers in real life dealing with these issues and having the same kinds of breakdowns. Or look at the deadly acid rain caused by corporate greed, or the appropriation of lands and pushing the natives into a lower caste. Killjoys is trying to do sci-fi in the classic vein, using the genre to present a future while also critiquing the problems of the present. And the writers are pretty much succeeding episode after episode, while still making it fun to watch as action fare. And the world they've already built feels really well-formed; I wouldn't mind playing a game set in this universe.
Meanwhile, when I stopped watching Dark Matter a couple weeks back it was still feeling like Clue in space. DM has some serviceable actors (and some terrible ones, like One), but the writing they're given is really wooden, predictable C-level sci-fi camp where nothing provocative truly happens. I also feel it is very much written for adolescent males (the pleasure-bot episode was cringeworthy) and lacks much diversity in the cast.
holy shit
they didn't do the "his trick fixes the team the next episode" cliche
I'm impressed
Yeah, we're so trained by television scripts to expect everything will just work out. I think the writer set it up to give us that expectation on purpose. Unbelievably, this show actually seems to care about emotional continuity with the characters. Dutch truly does not trust Davin anymore. Things are not gonna just work out by being confessional and telling some life anecdotes. Actions actually have consequences on this show.
I'm also continually impressed by the pacing of these episodes, jumping from one narrative to another without feeling whiplash or like the plot was rushed to fit things in.