Before The Rookie, Melissa O'Neil Starred In A Sci-Fi Series That Was Canceled Too Soon

Melissa O'Neil may star in ABC's hit police procedural "The Rookie," but she's certainly no rookie when it comes to television. O'Neil's breakout acting role came three years before "The Rookie" premiered, when she starred in "Dark Matter," an underrated sci-fi series that was canceled on a huge cliffhanger.

O'Neil rose to prominence as a singer after winning Season 3 of "Canadian Idol" in 2005. Her acting career took off a decade later; "Dark Matter" was only the third TV show she auditioned for, and she got the part. The show, a co-production that premiered in 2015 on the Canadian channel Space and Syfy in the U.S., follows a group of people in the future who all wake up in stasis pods aboard a spaceship with no memory of who they are. The six passengers name themselves in the order they woke up. At the end of the pilot episode, they learn a shocking truth: The six of them are some of the worst, most-wanted criminals in the galaxy, even if they have no memory of those past crimes or identities. O'Neil plays Two, the tough leader of the group.

"If you wake up with no memory of who you are, are you able to be someone else?" O'Neil said of the premise while speaking with Lovingseries. "Are you destined to repeat your history if you have no recollection of it? And, specifically, with our crew of mercenaries, are these people capable of redemption?"

"Dark Matter," which was created by "Stargate" writers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie and based on a comic, got just-okay reviews for Season 1. Fans of the show, however, appreciated the heady sci-fi that worked despite not having a large budget, and "Dark Matter" only grew more competent and complex in Seasons 2 and 3. The Season 3 finale, "Nowhere to Go," aired in August 2017 and ended on a huge cliffhanger as massive spacecraft emerged from a spatial abnormality. It was the midpoint for what the creators said was a five-season plan.

However, Syfy canceled the series the following week. "Dark Matter" fans blame this premature cancellation for preventing "Dark Matter" from becoming a classic sci-fi series. (Some of these fans even begrudge "Killjoys" — another Syfy series with a vaguely similar premise — for getting two additional seasons after "Dark Matter" got the axe.)

Melissa O'Neil bounced back pretty quickly. In 2018, she had recurring roles in the DC Comics adaptation "iZombie" and the thriller series "Condor." That year also marked her debut as Sergeant Lucy Chen, one of the leads of "The Rookie." Meanwhile, "Dark Matter" would not continue, at least not officially. On his website, Joseph Mallozzi shared his concept for how Season 4 would have gone, but there was no revival. The Apple TV sci-fi series of the same name that premiered in 2024 has no connection to the Syfy/Space show.