Apple TV’s Mind-Bending Multiversal Sci-Fi Officially Returns In Just 1 Month

1 day ago 11

Joel Edgerton sits on the ground with a flashlight in Dark Matter on Apple TV

Published Jul 28, 2026, 11:16 PM EDT

Dani Kessel Odom (they/them) is an autistic lead writer and TV critic who covers sci-fi shows like Doctor Who and Pluribus, fantasy shows like The Magicians and Percy Jackson, and horror of all kinds. They also cover Marvel and DC TV shows and movies, with a robust knowledge of comic books. Their TV reviews can be found on Rotten Tomatoes.

Dani is also part of ScreenRant's books team, using their fiction writing and literature studies as the backbone for their book analyses.

They have covered events, such as the Denver Fan Expo. Professionals in the field, such as Damien Leone and Lucy Hale, have shared their articles. Their review of Ponies was quoted in the show's TV trailer.

In university, they majored in English Writing with a minor in psychology. They have always had a passion for analyzing TV and movies, even taking filmography and scriptwriting classes in university. They also studied and participated in onstage and onscreen acting extensively from the ages of 7 to 18.

Aside from working at Screen Rant, Dani has worked as a freelance editor and writer over the past decade, often in a ghostwriting capacity.

Apple TV+ put out a mind-bending multiversal TV show two years ago to high critical and audience acclaim, and it’s finally returning for a second season in just a month. Alternate universes exist all over the place in the sci-fi genre, with beloved stories like the MCU, Fringe, and Everything Everywhere All At Once exploring the idea.

However, the unique ways different stories use the plot device are what make multiversal TV shows and movies special. The basics of quantum physics might form the foundation in most, but they all have their own approach in what they look like and how they weave together. Luckily, the best streamer for sci-fi, Apple TV+, took on the idea in one of their fantastic TV shows, Dark Matter.

Now Playing · Sound On How Well Do You Know Apple TV+? “Believe.”

🍪Ted
LassoBiscuits with the boss

🧠SeverancePraise Kier

🐎Slow
HorsesSlough House

☕Morning
ShowLive from NYC

🚀For All
MankindWhat if...?

PRESS PLAY →

Apple TV+’s breakout comedy about a relentlessly optimistic American football coach hired to manage an English Premier League team won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Who plays Ted?

AJason Sudeikis BJon Hamm CWill Ferrell DBrendan Hunt

✓ Correct! Jason Sudeikis — the former SNL cast member who originally played Ted in 2013 NBC Sports Premier League promos. He co-created the series with Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly. Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy. A Season 4 is officially in production for 2026.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jason Sudeikis. Jon Hamm is Mad Men (and later showed up as himself in Ted Lasso Season 2). Will Ferrell hasn’t done an Apple TV+ show. Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard — Ted’s silent assistant — and was a co-creator, but Sudeikis is the title character and won two Best Actor Emmys for the role.

Ben Stiller-directed sci-fi thriller Severance became a cultural phenomenon with its eerie Macrodata Refinement floors and “praise Kier” cultishness. What is the name of the sinister biotech corporation at its centre?

AApex Corporation BLumon Industries CWeyland-Yutani DUmbrella Corp

✓ Correct! Lumon Industries — the unsettling corporation founded by the cult-like Eagan family, whose “severance procedure” surgically splits an employee’s work memories from their outside life. Weyland-Yutani is from Alien; Umbrella Corp is Resident Evil; Apex is fictional but not this show. Lumon’s retro-futuristic aesthetic (beige Macbook-era CRTs and long hallways) has become instantly iconic.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is Lumon Industries. Weyland-Yutani is the Alien franchise’s evil megacorp. Umbrella Corp runs Resident Evil. Apex isn’t a recognisable fictional company. Lumon is the creepy biotech behind Severance — with its Kier Eagan cult of personality, waffle parties, and surgically separated “innies” and “outies.”

In March 2022, Apple TV+ made streaming history when one of its films became the first from any streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Which film was it?

AThe Morning Show BGreyhound CCODA DKillers of the Flower Moon

✓ Correct! CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) — Sian Heder’s drama about a hearing daughter of a deaf family in Massachusetts — won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, beating The Power of the Dog (the heavy favourite). Troy Kotsur’s supporting-actor win was the first for a deaf male actor. The Morning Show is a TV series, Greyhound is Apple’s Tom Hanks WWII film, Killers is an Apple film but was released later.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is CODA. The Morning Show is a series. Greyhound is Apple’s 2020 Tom Hanks WWII film (a solid hit but not an Oscar winner). Killers of the Flower Moon — Scorsese’s 2023 Apple release — was nominated for 10 Oscars but won none. CODA’s 2022 Best Picture win made Apple the first streamer to break through in the category.

The scruffy, flatulent, ruthlessly cynical MI5 exile Jackson Lamb — running the Slough House dumping ground for disgraced spies — is one of modern TV’s most acclaimed performances. Which veteran actor plays him?

AAnthony Hopkins BColin Firth CGary Oldman DJim Broadbent

✓ Correct! Gary Oldman — Oscar winner for Darkest Hour — plays Jackson Lamb opposite Kristin Scott Thomas’ glacial Diana Taverner. The series adapts Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and has become Apple’s most quietly successful long-running drama, renewed through at least Season 6. Oldman has repeatedly called Lamb his favourite role of his career.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is Gary Oldman. Anthony Hopkins hasn’t done an Apple TV+ series of this prominence. Colin Firth was reportedly in contention for different spy roles (including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s George Smiley, which Oldman also played). Jim Broadbent appears elsewhere. Oldman’s Lamb is one of TV’s most delightfully unpleasant protagonists.

Apple TV+’s flagship prestige drama on launch day — a #MeToo-era newsroom saga about the on-air partners of a fictional morning TV show — was anchored by two huge Hollywood names as its co-leads and producers. Who are they?

ANicole Kidman & Meryl Streep BReese Witherspoon & Laura Dern CJennifer Aniston & Nicole Kidman DJennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon

✓ Correct! Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon — both also executive producers — anchor the show as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Reportedly each earned a then-record $1.1 million per episode. Steve Carell co-stars as the disgraced anchor whose firing kicks off the entire series. Aniston earned her first Emmy nomination for dramatic work for the role in 2020.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon & Dern did Big Little Lies (on HBO). Kidman was also in Big Little Lies. Meryl Streep joined The Morning Show in later seasons (a supporting role). Aniston and Witherspoon lead and produce — both reportedly making $1.1M per episode in one of streaming’s richest-ever deals.

Ronald D. Moore’s alt-history space epic For All Mankind — one of Apple TV+’s original launch titles — jumps forward in time each season. What is the show’s central point of divergence from real history?

AThe Soviets land on the Moon first BAliens contact Earth in 1969 CMars is colonised in 1970 DNASA is privatised in the 1960s

✓ Correct! The Soviets beat Apollo 11 to the Moon in June 1969 — keeping the Space Race alive and turning NASA into a permanently ascendant institution. That single change cascades across decades: women astronauts are pushed early, lunar bases are built in the 1970s, Mars is reached in the 1990s, and so on. Each season time-jumps ahead a decade, showing how this different history snowballs.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is the Soviets landing on the Moon first — June 1969, beating Apollo 11. That single change drives everything: continued funding, expanded NASA, women astronauts, a permanent lunar base by the 1980s, Mars missions in the 1990s. Aliens aren’t in the show. Mars gets colonised, but much later. NASA remains public throughout the series.

Apple TV+ launched with a small lineup of nine originals — including The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, and For All Mankind — at the aggressively low price of $4.99 a month. When did the service officially go live?

AJanuary 2017 BNovember 2019 CMarch 2020 DSeptember 2021

✓ Correct! Apple TV+ launched on November 1, 2019 — just before Disney+ beat it to market by 11 days. Apple went in with a tiny roster of about nine originals (versus Disney+’s massive back catalogue) but compensated with $1 billion in original content spend and a one-year free trial for Apple hardware buyers. Its quality-over-quantity bet has since paid off in awards and prestige.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is November 2019 — specifically November 1st, just 11 days before Disney+ launched (a deliberate piece of scheduling brinkmanship). Apple launched with only nine originals and priced at $4.99/month to try to get ahead of Netflix and Disney. The service went live just before the pandemic turbocharged streaming growth everywhere.

Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic thriller Silo — starring Rebecca Ferguson in a 10,000-person underground society — adapts a bestselling series of novels originally self-published as a 2011 short story. Who wrote them?

AAndy Weir BBlake Crouch CTed Chiang DHugh Howey

✓ Correct! Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a short story on Amazon in 2011; word-of-mouth turned it into a trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) and eventually a publishing phenomenon. Apple’s adaptation, retitled Silo, premiered in 2023. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Ted Chiang wrote the novella that became Arrival.

✗ Cut it off! The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir is The Martian/Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch is Dark Matter/Recursion (also recently adapted to Apple TV+, hence the mix-up). Ted Chiang is Arrival’s source. Howey’s Wool trilogy — Silo’s source — started as a self-published Amazon short story in 2011 before exploding into a bestseller.

REVEAL MY SCORE →

End Credits · Autoplay Paused Your Apple TV+ Rank

🍏

/ 8

Cupertino completionist — or still on the free trial?

⤴ PLAY AGAIN

Dark Matter was the most wonderfully mind-bending TV show that Apple TV has ever put out, not just because it explores a multiverse but because different versions of the main character feel chilling. After two years of waiting, Dark Matter is returning in just a month with a new weekly release schedule. If you haven’t had the chance to watch the Apple TV+ show yet, now is the perfect time to catch up on the sci-fi series. If you have, you have enough time to binge all the episodes again before the new episodes start.

Apple TV’s Dark Matter Debuts August 28 With Weekly Episode Releases

Based on the titular sci-fi book by Blake Crouch, the show centers on quantum physics professor and loving family man Jason Dessen, who wakes in an alternate reality version of his life and must traverse Dark Matter's multiverse to get back to his wife, Daniela, and his son, Charlie. The second season of the multiversal story will take audiences on a whole new adventure, picking up where Dark Matter season 1 ended.

From the season 2 trailer, it looks like it will bring back all the same things that made Dark Matter season 1 great. Incredible worldbuilding and production values are necessary for a multiversal story, and the alternate universes feel like they will be just as distinguishable from each other in the future episodes. What’s more, Golden Globe nominee Joel Edgerton anchors the story with his vulnerability and love for his family, which will continue as the characters embark on a journey.

The first episode of season 2, which has ten total, debuts globally on August 28, with one episode releasing every Friday afterward. Because the show drops in Eastern Time, viewers on the West Coast should be able to watch it on Thursday night around 9 pm. This release schedule is a change from season 1, which debuted two episodes at once with new episodes every Wednesday.

Episode

Release Date

#1	August 28
#2	September 4
#3	September 11
#4	September 18
#5	September 25
#6	October 2
#7	October 9
#8	October 16
#9	October 23
#10	October 30

Like in season 1, author Blake Crouch will continue to serve as creator, executive producer, writer, and showrunner. Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry will continue to executive produce and co-write the scripts. Matt Tolmach and Richard Lederer will continue to executive produce.

Dark Matter Season 2 Will Be Completely Uncharted Territory

Joel Edgerton and Dayo Okeniyi’s characters looking at the sunset in Apple TV’s Dark Matter

With Blake Crouch involved in every aspect of the Apple TV show, Dark Matter will maintain the vision of the person who created the story to begin with. That doesn’t change how risky the season will be. It’s a good thing that Dark Matter season 2 is seemingly sticking with the creative decisions from the first season because, narratively, the whole thing will be uncharted territory. Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter book ended with season 1. Everything from this point will be created solely for the TV show.

The only thing that gives me confidence that it will continue to do well is that it’s in Blake Crouch’s hands. Based on the AMA the author did on Reddit after season 1, it’s obvious that the author is passionate about the book. He had ideas for season 2 immediately after the first season came out, even before Apple TV made the decision to continue.

What’s more, Blake Crouch pitched the idea of the continuation of Dark Matter to the streamer as two more seasons. He has a trilogy in mind, with clear direction on how to get there. The clarity of the end goal will bode well for the TV show, as the second season won’t have to flounder on where to end and how to possibly connect it to another season. Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see what Dark Matter season 2 does with its newfound freedom and whether continuing the show was the right choice.