Dark: the German Netflix series that's like an amalgamation of Twin Peaks, Back to the Future, and X-Files (SPOILERS!)

Just finished watching the first season of this, and there doesn't seem to a be much talk about it here, so I decided to start one.

I thought this was pretty enjoyable, especially when it comes to the visual atmosphere and the general creepiness of it. Also, the kid actors were all pretty good, and it's uncanny how they managed to find teen actors for the 1980s scenes who look so much like their adult versions in the 2019. I did mostly like the labyrinthine plot too, but at points it seemed they just wanted to keep things mysterious just for the sake of being mysterious, some secrets were teased way too long before they were finally revealed. For example, the identity of the strange bearded dude felt like such an obvious thing, yet they kept it a mystery until the season finale, so I thought they must have some other reveal in store instead of the most obvious one, but no. This kind of slow teasing got boring after a while.

I guess the biggest problem with the season was how everything was so relentlessly dour and foreboding with few lighter moments. This was amplified by the score which made everything seem Deep and Dramatic. This kind of monotonous atmosphere might work for one season but no longer; even Twin Peaks and X-Files had some humour and levity to balance the darkness. And it's hard to relate to characters who mostly just seem to wonder through the darkness with little agency (though of course the question of agency is one of the big themes in the series). So the next season should come with some balance, unless they want viewers to suffocate... I'm kinda hoping that the final scenes of the season finale point towards time travel shenanigans that aren't related to murder mysteries and dark secrets. It's kinda funny that a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic future felt less grim than most of the scenes set in the present day and past.

someone asked me recently if I watched this, and I thought the meant that awful Will Smith pos 'Bright' and I was insulted for a second

That was a Netflix production too too, right? I guess they cater to every taste.

This was about as good as can be expected - gripping, looked great, a compelling central mystery (kind of hard to keep track of the large cast over three different eras/sets of actors though). The trouble with supernatural mysteries like this is that the resolution is usually disappointing - this includes when it's mostly deferred till a second series, as in this case, although I suppose there's hope. See also The Returned/Les Revenants.

Yeah, I agree with you on supernatural mysteries, though the resolutions at the end of the first season here were handled pretty well, I thought. For most part we did learn *what* was going, but a new layer of conspiracies was hinted to explain *why* all of it was happening. So the finale was satisfying enough not to make you go, "that's all?!", but not conclusive enough to make you feel like there's no need to come back for the next season.

I dunno, maybe something like this shouldn't last for more than one season, but like I said, if they manage to tone down the dourness and make the characters a bit more relatable, and also find some interesting angles to the whole time-traveller conspiracy thing, a second season should be enjoyable. Those are big ifs, of course.

the Cristina Martinez episode of Chef's table was sweet af!

can something be bittersweet af?

oh sorry, wrong thread.

Haha.

(kind of hard to keep track of the large cast over three different eras/sets of actors though).

Yeah. Had just about got to grips with it and then they added the 1953 timeline.

Really enjoyed it though even if, as mentioned, the Jonas reveal was blindingly obvious early on. Some great musical choices too.

As an aside, the second Netflix all German production Dogs of Berlin is out today.

Four episodes in to season 2 and I'm loving it, nervous about how it's going to wrap up though. It's a lot easier to follow than the first one, I think because the focus is less on the multi-generational dysfunctional family soap opera and more on the time travel nonsense. I do read an episode recap right after watching though.

SPOILERS and SPECULATION

Adam's big reveal at the end of episode 4... maybe it's a bluff, a ruse, a lie, a yarn? He says constant travelling takes its toll but neither Claudia or Noah seem to be affected like that.

It's been renewed for a third and final season so won't be wrapping up just yet.

hooray! boo! (to cliffhangers and two year long waits)

I thought Adam was the watch/timemachine maker man intially, the voice sounded similar. I found this one harder to follow tbh.

Bloody good stuff though.

Casting on this show is insane, they are uncannily spot-on with actors who look like each other. I could not believe that

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

the actor who played the oldest Ulrich was not just the middle-aged Ulrich in makeup. S2 was not as intriguing as S1, and a lot of it was hitting moments we knew were coming, but the continuity of the timeline is impressive. they must have had it mapped out from the get-go. and the very final minutes seem like it'll set up a very cool S3

the actor who played the oldest Ulrich was not just the middle-aged Ulrich in makeup

https://i.imgflip.com/340fnl.jpg

I was going to post that if I were a time traveller trying to prevent the apocalypse I wouldn't spend most of my time going back to the past just to make cryptic pronouncements to old friends and family. Then I saw s2e6 and decided that snark is redundant, this show is incredible!

The last line of the last episode had me spontaneously doing jazz hands to an audience of none. Don't know if it was the best decision (the plot idea, not the jazz hands), just have to wait and see ;_;

Some of the revelations I saw coming, but that's good, because it makes me feel like the show is not just being clever-clever for the sake of it. We do spend a lot of time saying, "these German sitcoms are terrible" while watching it.
The relentless rain and the dourness just become really funny after a while.
I massively appreciate the little montage sequences where the show reminds you who's related to whom, and how the characters have changed over the course of their lives.
I'm still not 100% clear on the reason behind the dead children, and I honestly think the show would be better if it had found some other way to grab our attention initially. But I love it and am totally hooked and will 100% be doing a full rewatch before season three starts.

well, just finished season 2.
was rather good i thought.
the sheer scale of interconnections re the various time periods and various families must have taken a lot of very detailed planning.
my head is still spinning from trying to keep up with the excess of who/where/when (and, of course, why!) puzzlers.

It was good, but still a bit too portentous and dour for my taste. Apparently the third season will be the last one, which seems good, you can't really stretch a story like this too much. Though maybe the final twist in the season 2 finale means that the next season will have some proper sci-fi shenanigans. I was expecting them to already happen this season, but for the most part the tone was the same as in the first season.

I'm recently watching the French Netflix series Black Spot, which has kind of a similar setup, a smallish European town surrounded by creepy woods, a missing teenager, and the town elders harbouring some old secrets. The genre is a bit different than with Dark, as it's more police procedural with some horror mixed in, but what I like about it that it adds some black comedy to its grim tone, so the grimness doesn't feel as overbearring as with Dark. Haven't finished watching the first season yet, so I dunno how the plot pays out, but I wish Dark had some lighter moments too, like this one has.

I'm enjoying Black Spot, just seen episode 3 which was incredible. I don't think Dark missed out by not having a wisecracking police chief or whatever, though. And it was pretty funny when the daughter of the dad who'd been having an affair with the trans woman said "All your fucking secrets! You couldn't even talk to use when Dad screwed Benni! What incompetent assholes you are!"

use us

Yeah, I didn't mean Dark necessarily needed the same kind of humour as Black Spot, but at least some levity amidst all the gloom would've been appreciated.

the gretchen gag was p good

in s1 i mean

the other gag is everyone in the show charging backwards and forwards through the tunnels to bring an effect about that probably wouldn't happen even if only one person was crisscrossing back and forth

"magnus is right, we have to tell someone"

GOOD PLAN DUDES

(my guess is they don't go through with it tho)

lol we just reached the "everyone is now everyone else's aunt" moment, this is the best gloomy bleak germanic show abt dumb teens

the adults are dumb too, in fact dumber

unclear why tuomas thinks this show isn't funny enough, the increasing hilarious (and insane) plot is excellent balance for the extremely dour (and dumb) characters

as ledge quoted: "what incompetent assholes you are!"

The very seriousness of it makes it hilarious, too. The tenth time a scene opens with the rain pounding everything into submission, you have to just laugh.

I assume it's meant to be funny, right? I love this show, and do not want to think that I'm laughing at it rather than with it.

I've waded through two seasons of this and, despite all the frantic travelling, I feel like I've moved about six inches. I can't face a third series.

the ever-more frenzied stasis is exactly what i like about it, it's the only non-stupid time-travel drama ever attempted

shd have been called DESIRE PATH tho

Final season drops the end this month

\o/

Yay!

I'm sure it'll clear everything up and leave us with a satisfying and resolved finale.

lmao thats how I walked into the last season's finale and got punched in the face instead

I'd been wondering why this is dropping next Saturday instead of Netflix's usual Friday slot but up to S2 of my rewatch now and it's become crystal clear

Why is it, then? I don't remember S2 that well.

27 June 2020 is the date of the apocalypse

Apparently the third season will be the last one

Ah, very glad to hear this. With the season 2 finale drop I had visions of it just expanding forever into utter nonsense. I always think shows like this need a clear ending point.

Even on a rewatch I'm still having to consult that who's who chart every 5 minutes

i read episode recaps, s1 seemed pretty straightforward. s2... shit. pondering a rewatch of key episodes.

One of my favourite things was yelling at the TV about how people failed to recognise each other. I mean, yeah, you would never jump to the conclusion that a stranger was you from the future, but you might think there's a weird familial resemblance, right? Or how strange it is that your friends' son looks exactly like your husband did in school?

I'm secretly hoping that season three is entirely dedicated to The Mystery of Wöller's Eye.

it's weird how they do such a good job of getting actors who look like each other across the generations, except for adam. weird, or a clue...

wow i totally do not remember elizabeth being her own mum's mum.

it's her mum i think, an echo of s1e1 where jonas sees his dad in the same way. i only discovered this reading online.

I guess it could be her mom, yeah, but that still doesn't explain why she saw her? Jonas had a creepy vision of his dad because he had just killed himself, but nothing like that happens to the alternate world Katharina.

idk, because martha and jonas are connected, man ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the more i think back on this show the more impressive i think it is. multiple characters across three generations and timelines all brilliantly cast, with a labyrinthine plot & family tree that stands up to scrutiny and is resolved with no significant loose ends.

what i liked most about the third season were some of the more minor emotional developments, e.g. bartosz's family and the fact that he and magnus and franziska never (iirc) make it back (... to the future!); and also the small differences/echoes between the worlds/timelines, e.g. when we see peter as a priest talking to an untransitioned benni in eva's timeline.

also the incidental music was fantastic - i was a ben frost fan anyway but I've been listening to & loving his three soundtrack albums. the episode ending songs were sometimes a bit ott but they worked.

Oh and I also liked how it hid away some plot explanations like easter eggs - e.g. who was Regina's father? In Adam and Eva's timeline it was Tronte Nielsen but when Tronte is a kid we see the origin/unnamed/weirdo trio say he gave Tronte his name, implying he's Tronte's father (and Tronte is his own great-great-great grandfather) But then Regina wouldn't exist in the original world, being a product of the time fracture - so in the final scene in the original world we a picture of Claudia, Regina, and Bernd Doppler. (Which makes the fairly creepy scene with an adult Bernd telling a young Claudia that if she wants something she should take it even more creepy.)

In Adam and Eva's timeline it was Tronte Nielsen but when Tronte is a kid we see the origin/unnamed/weirdo trio say he gave Tronte his name, implying he's Tronte's father (and Tronte is his own great-great-great grandfather) But then Regina wouldn't exist in the original world, being a product of the time fracture - so in the final scene in the original world we a picture of Claudia, Regina, and Bernd Doppler. (Which makes the fairly creepy scene with an adult Bernd telling a young Claudia that if she wants something she should take it even more creepy.)

That’s what the previous post was saying. Regina was not a product of time travel.

Regina would be a time travel anomaly if Tronte were her Dad, and the family tree on the floor in Eva's room says he is - but yes it has to be Bernd in all three universes. The theory is that Claudia covered up her parentage and pretended it was Tronte, I'm not sure how much of that is spelled out in the show and how much is fanfic.

One thing I think the writers didn't really properly explain is, how exactly Tannhaus's invention of the time travel in the original universe create the two splinter universes? The way I understood it is that him turning his time machine on in the bunker created the "time tunnel" in the Winden caves, which in turn lead to all the time loops seen in Jonas's/Adams's universe. And in that universe he gets Charlotte as an adopted daughter, which quenches his obsession of trying to save his son's family, so he doesn't invent a time machine there. But I don't understand how Eva's world was ever created? It's said that it happens in the splinter moment when alternate universe Martha travels to save Jonas from the apocalypse, but if Eva's world didn't already exist before, there would be no alternate Martha to create that splinter moment. So even if the time loop is closed now, in the original iteration something else must've happened to create Eva's world, before the loop of cause and effect became closed.

Similarly, I don't Jonas's and Martha's unnamed kid ("the Origin") can be father of Tronte, even though it was implied he might be. Because again, the first iteration of the time loop in Jonas's universe couldn't happen without the existence of Ulrich and Mikkel, and if Tronte was fathered by the Origin, they wouldn't exist in the first iteration. The only way the loop makes sense to me is if the first iteration goes something like this:
Agnes and Tronte come to Winden, but because Sic Mundus doesn't yet exist, their reason for coming there is something else, and Tronte's mysterious father is someone else than the Origin.
->
Tronte marries Jana and they have Ulrich and Mads, just like in the later loops.
->
Mads doesn't go missing, so Ulrich's motivation for becoming a cop is something else in this first loop.
->
Ulrich marries Katharina, and they have Magnus, Martha, and Mikkel.
->
Tannhauser turns on his machine and creates the time tunnel in 1986.
->
Mikkel gets lost in the time tunnel in 2019. The reason for this is something different than in the later loops, but it's not hard to imagine a 11 year old kid wandering into a mysterious cave just because he's interested in it.
->
Mikkel travels back in 1986, grows up, marries Hannah, fathers Jonas.
->
The locked loop settles in.

But if this how it went, then Ulrich and Mikkel must exist in the original universe. It's not hard to come up with an explanation why Ulrich isn't the final scene though: he's an adulterer in both splinter universes, so probably he's that in the original universe too, and Katharina has already divorced him. But unlike in the splinter universes, Hannah and Katharina are friends (this could be a butterfly effect of Mikkel not traveling in time), so Hannah has invited her and not him to their little gathering.

Regina would be a time travel anomaly if Tronte were her Dad, and the family tree on the floor in Eva's room says he is - but yes it has to be Bernd in all three universes. The theory is that Claudia covered up her parentage and pretended it was Tronte, I'm not sure how much of that is spelled out in the show and how much is fanfic.

Btw, I found all those revelations of "X is Y's time travelling parent" in season 3 to be kinda gratuitous and pointlessly confusing. The plot twists in season 1 and 2 about who Jonas's father and Charlotte's mother really are were cool and unexpected, and they did serve the purpose of explaining the motivations of various characters. But the same doesn't really apply to season 3; for example, was there any reason why Noah's and Agnes's mother had be Hannah's time traveling kid who's also the young woman Jonas met in 2053? Would the plot have been any different if Bartosz had simply married some regular early 20th century woman and had Noah and Agnes with her? Feels like they just wanted repeat the previous season's twists even though there was no need to do so.

One small thing that really bugged me, in the first episode of this season, when Martha and the other kids are in the woods at night, she hears a creepy voice calling her name, and for a second sees a scary woman all covered in some black goo, who then disappears. I kept expecting for the show to explain what the fuck that was about, but it never did. I even rewatched the scene with freeze frame, but because of the black goo it's impossible to tell if the woman is supposed to be a version of Martha or one of the other time-travellers. Seems like a weird detail to leave unexplained in a story that otherwise tied all its threads?

https://i.insider.com/5efcd61af0f41938f67c8d55?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp

So I guess this means the other Martha is having a vision of her alternate self? But what it all means and why she's covered in black liquid (the God Particle?), I have no idea...

what it means is that they wanted a scary and mysterious image to pull people in in s1e1 and they chose to mirror it, along with lots of other things, in s3e1 because it would be cool. i am fine with this.

i thought that adam and eva's world were created fully formed, time loops and all, by tannhaus in 1986, in an inexplicable act of creation ex nihilo. i'm also fine with this.

If it was Doctor Who I'd be perfectly fine with that explanation, but this was a show that spent 3 seasons meticulously showing and explaining how each event was the result of a preceding event, so I found it odd that this crucial bit of the backstory was only explained in the broadest of strokes.

it's true doctor who fans will lap up any old shot

Another small detail that was never explained: in one scene in season 3 we see the middle-aged Jonas read the letter that the alternate universe Martha gave to him, which he then burns with a candle. But then immediately after that, there's a scene where Adam is reading the same letter. At first I thought that scene was hinting at there being more than two alternate universes: one where Jonas burned the letter and one where he didn't. But later on we find out that's not possible, time can only split at the moment of the apocalypse, and there's only one universe with the middle-aged Jonas and Adam in it. So what was the point of that scene then?

I mean, I guess it's possible Adam went back in time, stole the letter from Jonas, then returned it later to him so he could burn it. But what would be the point that, since Adam already knows what's in the letter?

This happens to a variety of objects in the show - the book, the device, the letter/suicide note from Michael - it's the paradox that once you start moving about in time you duplicate the item. I can't remember what happens specifically with Martha's letter, but at some point Michael's letter also gets destroyed but still exists.

Yeah, I got that, that's why I was wondering whether Adam acquired the letter via time travel... But with all the other objects that were "duplicated" via time travel, it was shown how that duplication came to be, and I don't think anything like that was shown with Martha's letter? And the scene of Jonas burning it was directly juxtaposed with Adam reading it, so clearly the show makers wanted to draw our attention to its paradoxical existence.

this show though... only partway through s2 but it's already top 5 best shows ever

Season 3 was a step too far for me in terms of complexity. I devoted so much attention to fruitlessly trying figure out what was going on that I began to lose sense of the character's motivations and the stakes. I definitely appreciate its ambition, but it was drifting into abstraction.

Conversely, the actual resolution seemed a little straightforward compared to what had gone before.

Friese and Odar's 1899 hits Netflix today

Dark was pretty disastrous by the end but I’m excited for this. The vibe was always good even when the story went off the rails.

I was impressed how sufficiently they were able to wrap it up, in spite of how confusing the final season was.

I got lost with the multiple parallel Marthas and felt like they never made a convincing case that Jonas could become EVIL (as opposed to just a little whiny). Also IMO it just got too sad! Too many likeable characters snuffed it in deeply depressing ways.

Still great though - having something so immersive and intricate to watch during Trump-era lockdowns was a godsend

It was a billion times better than most of the Things-Like clones that have been on Netflix in recetn years. High hopes for this

Odd how much of a comfort watch it was given its ongoing bleakness. Probably the hyper attractive euro cast didn’t hurt

just watched the trailer, i'm in.

wait ledge, maybe i’m in a Dark loop, but didn’t you watch Dark before?

yes, I was replying to the revive re: 1899 and ignoring all the intervening posts!

lol i missed (somehow) the 1899 context and got v confused.

Just like watching Dark lol

Thought Dark kept its plates spinning brilliantly until the end of the second series, third series lol

third series more like Dork lol

Strong opening episode. Great music and sound effects (except for white rabbit, find other tunes), lots of (not so) hidden symbols - triangles hexagons and tetrahedra, and beetles - the french wife had triangle earrings and a large emroidered beetle on her collar.

Oh and a superb bit where everyone in the dining room drank their tea at the same time.

finished '1899' earlier today.
better than Dark ?

i think so.

watched the first half of the 'making of .. ' thing after,
they clearly had a much larger budget.

Just seen episode 5. Not that I necessarily would have wanted it to ramp things up any quicker, but finally! The content I crave!

I work on a database system that has an option to archive things. At the moment it's just a checkbox and a database flag, maybe I'll redesign it to involve an enormous tempestuous gravity defying whirlpool.

really struggling with this. only persisting cos of ledge and mark e itt.

the environment is heavily synthetic and claustrophobic, not at all like being on a boat. i get that this is almost certainly deliberate - effectively this is some sort of mental state or synthetic construct. but the effect is unappealing and monotonous. some sort of sense of the outside world, some sort of sense of realism going gradually awry, and unravelling completely - something Dark did well - would imo have been far more effective. more than once i've been watching and thinking 'i shd just go and play obra dinn'. i recommend something more like the Artemis 81 approach.

i do love how incongruous the musical selections are. but for a different, bad, form of incongruity, the two 'comedy' stokers really are the pits.

also far far too much of this face being made by everyone in every episode:

https://minhaseriefavorita.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2-temp-1899.jpg

also: is it required that anton lesser is in *everything* these days? i don't mind particularly. he's always very good. but he's *everywhere*.

the environment is heavily synthetic and claustrophobic, not at all like being on a boat

i could argue that boats, especially ones designed for long voyages, are exactly those things - they are simulacra of normal living spaces, often dark or cramped, and you can't leave!

effectively this is some sort of mental state or synthetic construct. but the effect is unappealing and monotonous. some sort of sense of the outside world, some sort of sense of realism going gradually awry, and unravelling completely - something Dark did well - would imo have been far more effective.

i'm reserving judgment till i've finished - probably tonight or tomorrow - but i think they try for the gradual unravelling, and that's clearly how the characters are experiencing it, but once the show has tipped its hand even slightly you can just go oh it's a simulation, and though lot may remain mysterious you completely lose any empathy with the characters. (personally i wouldn't recommend the artemis 81 approach for anything!)

i think the music and sound design is fantastic - ben frost again. comedy stokers appalling, yes. i didn't recognised anton lesser from anything else when i saw him in andor, so was amused to find him playing an almost identical character here.

lol wikipedia tells me that those are the only two things he's been in recently, so maybe he's just haunting my dreams

Finished. Unlike Dark it's not going in to my list of best shows of all time. Not enough headfuckery. They tried to amp it at the end with all the oooh whose simulation is it really? but too little too late. Not a patch on classic ST:TNG headfuck episodes like Frame of Mind, or Adult Swim's Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough. And I just didn't care about any of the characters, half of them we scarcely had a clue who they were or what they were escaping from and the main character remained a total mystery right up to the end.

Obviously if there's a season 2 I'll watch it like the sucker I am.

I was enjoying but fairly indifferent to it as I was watching but the last two episodes made me more on board and excited to see a second season even if that twist ending wasn't particularly original

No second season, axed by Netflix :(

tough crowd

crap - only saw the start of the pilot and seemed intriguing

worth the effort knowing that's all there is?

i think the story is quite self contained and does not require a second season.

Perhaps Dark wouldve been better off ending at the start of the first season!

Yeah, it works as a one off season so still worth watching