Here’s an interesting find. _The Dark_ is a sci-fi series that will be broadcast exclusively on the Internet. Currently, there are two free episodes online to generate interest with plans to have a new 12-minute episode available weekly. The subscription fee is a initial payment of $20 with a $1 fee per episode.
From the website:
Space is dark … silent … lethal.
Ships stay quiet when they can and when they can’t, it’s because they’re too damned big. Either way, no spotlights shining on white hulls, no glowing nacelles. Nobody hails anybody. Space is an unlit sea and everything swimming in it is hungry. Planet systems mean resources and, unless someone says otherwise, they’re there for the taking.
It has been decades since the last independent nation on Earth was absorbed by the Community of Aligned Nations (aka. Generica). The solar system has been colonized, more or less, and things are going swimmingly for the genetically optimized citizens of Generica, until, that is, aliens arrive to obliterate most everything.
Mysterious aliens; no one has actually seen them, just their massive, all-devouring ships, and no two of which are alike. There has been no communication either, and Generica’s increasingly desperate pleas to negotiate go unanswered. It’s war, and for humans, it’s going very badly indeed. In the unlit labyrinth of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, three old ships from a long-defunct independent republic drop out of deep-freeze and begin waging their own kind of war against the aliens. Crewed by misfits, genetically randomized (normal folk), the Widow, Wolf and the Recluse begin an unrelenting campaign using stealth tactics, snatching small victories where great navies find only destruction. Like the hunter subs of the first cold war, they lurk in the dark, communicating with no one (not even, no especially not, Generica), with no base to call their own, and each operating with fierce independence.
This is the story of one of those ships: The Recluse. Damn near invisible in space, powered by a throbbing fusion reactor, and inhabited by a crew for whom cabin-fever is a way of life. Each crew member is a study in paranoia, neuroses and just plain weirdness. These men and women are our heroes.
The acting in the two free episodes remind me a bit of a ‘B’-movie, but I’m intrigued by the concept behind this series. I’m a bit disappointed that they haven’t shown more engagement with the aliens, but then again, 12 minutes isn’t a lot of time for storytelling. It’s something that I may be interested in checking out further as they develop this.
In the meantime, go check it out and then come back here and tell me what _you_ think. I’d be curious what other people’s reactions are.
