Trail of Dark Matter

Five dramatic and sinister stories about the complexities of life.

Created by Roshaun Akeem Page, this TV mini series consists of five episodes, each with a duration between fifteen and twenty-five minutes and each with its own title and story, although they all take place in the same universe. Every episode is basically long and meaningful conversations and confrontations about a variety of subjects, including the qualities that make a decent person such as honesty, generosity and caring, but also about the effects of hurting others and being self-centred. Each story ends (one actually begins) with a dark note, be it a dark plot twist or a terrible event.

To go into more detail, each episode should be analysed further. One is about a middle-aged woman who invites her former partner to her home with the intention of understanding why he left her. He ends up explaining to her that she ignored him, that there is more to life than money and that people spend way too much time on their mobile phones. Another focuses on two young women who meet by accident and for the first time in a launderette and end up having a friendly conversation about their lives, their ambitions, overcoming obstacles, dating and awkward experiences. Interestingly, this story also touches on the subject regarding how phones take over people's lives. These two episodes have a calm atmosphere throughout, no altercations and the themes are...lets say innocent. The other three are significantly more dramatic and sinister. To begin, two siblings (a brother and his sister) are preparing for a get-together in a garden and chat about how one can decide who is the right person for them and how long-distance relationships can work. Then, their father arrives, with whom they are not on good terms due to the past and the mood changes completely, turning into a heated argument. In another story, two other siblings (again a sister and her brother) are at a restaurant with their father and the son has an important revelation he wants to make to his father, leading to an emotional confrontation. And finally, a woman and her ex-partner wake up to find themselves tied together to a pole, not knowing how they got there, and the man proceeds to accuse her of being selfish and an irresponsible parent. Every episode is an intriguing story with characters that are effectively explored, well-written dialogue and interesting conversations that can involve minor things or life-and-death situations. The performances are strong, particularly by Jillian Craighead and Martez Moore.

Each episode begins with an animated sequence with creative use of colours that involves fog and the camera zooming in to the pupil of an eye, where the face of a clock appears. All this is accompanied by a sinister score by Edward Antonio that incudes the sounds of ticking and clicking (which are also heard during the closing credits). It is quite an effective and memorable opening title sequence that lets the viewers know that they are in for suspense and dark moments.

This is an anthology about characters trying to cope with life. It is a series with stories that concern damaged relationships, bad parenting, trauma and self-reflection. There are light-hearted moments, emotional moments, tense moments and murders and each episode succeeds in exploring the characters and getting the audience's attention with the plot.