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The thing was, O’Neil was a relative newbie to the world of television and had never really acted in front of a camera before. Sure, she first rocketed to fame on television nearly a decade earlier when, at 16, she took the top spot in Season 3 of Canadian Idol. But her post-Idol work has mostly been in musical theatre. Now, here she was playing Portia Lin, a.k.a. Two, the decisive and deadly leader of a group of seven space travellers who awaken with no memory of who they are or what they are doing. Most of it was shot in a studio, often using green screens. Her co-stars, while also young, all seemed to have long resumes in Canadian and American TV.

“It can be very comical when you don’t understand the lingo and what people are talking about,” O’Neil says. “There’s tape marks on the ground everywhere. You’re just trying to keep up.”

So it’s a testament to O’Neil’s acting chops that she is so good at conveying no-nonsense authority when dealing with her fellow travellers on the series. Debuting two weeks ago on the Space channel, Dark Matter drew in 273,000 viewers with its tantalizing premise and attractive cast. It was an impressive debut for a Canadian specialty channel and has all the hallmarks of a cult series. Created by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, who both cut their teeth in the popular Stargate franchise, it’s based on their graphic novel of the same name. There’s action, special effects, power struggles, a perky android and a foreboding sense of deep-space isolation. Future episodes will even bring in geek royalty Will Wheaton for a recurring role.

So it’s no surprise that things got off to a promisingly twisty start two week ago.

By the end of the first episode — spoiler alert!— Two and her memory-wiped crew discover some unsettling facts about themselves, namely that they are a pack of nasty mercenaries with rap sheets a mile long. Their mission, they discover with some dismay, is to terrorize a remote mining settlement on behalf of a soulless corporation that wants to take over the planet’s resources.