Dark (Netflix)

[mindgames]

It’s been a few days since I watched the finale. Overall a brilliant show and perfectly paced. I’m so glad they didn’t stretch it out too long.

 

I’ve mixed feelings on the ending though. 

 

Spoiler

Old (dead) Claudia showing up to explain things to Adam felt like a huge deus ex machina. How could she have known in so much detail what needed to be done? That said it was a touching end with the main characters realising that what they were trying to fix/preserve wasn’t worth saving as it had become so fucked up. Jonas and Martha’s final moments (in both periods) and the notion of them being guardian angels was really touching. 

 

I’ve never known a show where I forgot so much between seasons. All through season 3 I felt like I was remembering stuff from the previous seasons. I’m looking forward to binging all 3 seasons at some point and seeing stuff I’ve missed. The official website linked above is also brilliant, I’ve spent ages looking through it.

[Ste Pickford]

I've skipped past the last couple of pages of this thread, as I've not seen season 3 yet, but I have a question about season 2 that I wonder if anyone can answer (or if it's maybe answered later on)?

 

I watched up to the end of season 2 when it came out, but even though I enjoyed it I remembered I was getting slightly lost with who was who by the end, so didn't want to jump straight into season 3, and instead I've been rewatching season 1 and 2 again first, this time with a chart to refresh my memory, and re-reading an episode synopsis after each one to keep it fresh.

 

I got to the middle of season 2 and remembered that I was really confused by the same sequence first time around.  In S02 E04 the kids all go into the cave together, and there they bump into Bartosz who has a time machine that they steal from him, punch him to the ground, then leave him tied up in the cave.  Both times I've watched it I've been puzzled my this scene - why are they so angry with Bartosz, angry enough to punch him and leave him tied up overnight on his own in a dark cave?  The first time around I presumed I wasn't paying attention and had missed something.  The second time I was watching more carefully, and was equally puzzled.

I went back through the previous episodes to find all the scenes with Bartosz or other kids, and there aren't that many in Season 2 up to this point.  The key scene is where he meets up with Martha 2 or 3 episodes earlier, and she breaks up with him. He complains she hasn't answered his calls, she complains that he's changed lately.  They both have a lot of shit to deal with and have a little argument, they split up and she walks away.  OK, so they're not friends any more, but they're not arch enemies either.  There's nothing going on with Bartosz and any of the other kids, and we even see in E06 that months earlier they were all best of friends.  

Nothing seems to justify their reaction to him in the cave, especially as tying someone up and leaving them overnight is pretty extreme.

 

It feels as if there's a scene missing that justifies their attitude to Bartosz.  Have I simply missed this scene, or not picked up on some other clue?  Or is this something filled in later?

[imp]

Bartosz just has one of those faces.

[Ste Pickford]

14 hours ago, imp said:

Bartosz just has one of those faces.

 

Fair.

[Professor Puzzles]

This was great, and I am left surprisingly satisfied by how it all tied up. Only a couple of things bugged me :

 

 

I got very confused with all the muddy-faced dark haired women in the various timelines, so I'm not sure who it was with 2050s Elisabeth when they were stealing baby Charlotte from 2040s Elisabeth. 

 

A few of the characters/relationships seemed to be glossed over slightly in all the timey wimey shenanigans; I would have liked to know more about Tronte and Jana in the 1980s, and what happened to Agnes between being born and showing up with young Tronte in the 1950s. I freely admit I may have missed some stuff as I've binged the whole thing in a week, sometimes very late at night...

 

EDIT : A quick visit to the Dark wiki soon sorted that out. Marvellous! 

[Chadruharazzeb]

I finished it this week, too. Absolutely brilliant stuff, one of the best things on Netflix. Still wasn't a big fan of any of the characters but I did feel some moments in the finale were quite moving, which came as a surprise.  Obviously there were a few things I didn't understand but I'll have a look at that wiki to see if that clears things up.

 

Can't wait to see what these guys do next. 

[Vulgar Monkey]

I've heard nothing but good things abut this, however from what I understand of the nature of the show, I have to ask.....how smart do you have to be to get enjoyment from it?

I do ok with time-fuckery in films etc, but having it as a near constant main mechanic over 3 seasons sounds like it might give me a nosebleed.

[mindgames]

1 hour ago, Vulgar Monkey said:

I've heard nothing but good things abut this, however from what I understand of the nature of the show, I have to ask.....how smart do you have to be to get enjoyment from it?

I do ok with time-fuckery in films etc, but having it as a near constant main mechanic over 3 seasons sounds like it might give me a nosebleed.

 

I don't think it'll be too bad if you can binge 3 seasons in a row. I only struggled because I forgot stuff between seasons.

[noizu]

Yeah, and the first season doesn't go too heavy on it - it's enough just keeping track of the main characters early on. One of those Season 1 family tree images or the Dark site would help with that. It really ramps up in the later seasons

[merrychan]

Started watching this a few weeks ago on the recommendation of a friend and I've been staying clear of reading anything in this thread.

 

Really hooked me, watched it all.

 

I was completely blown away by this, absolutely incredible, unashamedly what it wants to be, not dumbed down to appeal to the lowest common denominator and some of the best TV series I've ever seen.

 

Think it will be a great one to rewatch too.

 

Spoiler

No pun intended

 

[John0]

The loophole popped into my head again the other day and I just wanted to get down a bit of an extension of my previous thoughts...

 

Spoiler

To recap, the loophole is explained by Claudia like so:

 

Quote

I know where the loophole is that you’ve searched for all this time. Time. During the apocalypse it stood still for a fraction of a second.

 

The "33 things you may have missed" video posted earlier in the thread points out that it's also referenced by a radio message in Season 1:

 

Quote

A French team of scientists believe it’s possible that the world stood still for a fraction of a nanosecond on June 27th [2020]

 

I still find it difficult to make any sense of this explanation/plot device. If the "world" is still, how do you measure time? With Dark I'm assuming we're working with time being something that you can move about in, rather than something that doesn't really exist. So how would you measure time during this phenomenon? Surely everything we use to measure time would also not be active if the world was "still"?

 

Again, recapping a little, the loophole is very essential to the conclusion of the story:

 

Quote

 

That threw everything out of balance, but when time stands still the chain of cause and effect is momentarily broken.

 

One can, change things?

 

[Yes] Eva knows that. She uses the loophole in your world to send her younger self off to one direction of another in order to preserve the cycle.

 

 

How does Eva/Martha manage to time travel at that exact moment, if the moment doesn't exist? Even if she has a way to be incredibly accurate with her movements and hits the very small window of a “fraction of a nanosecond”, if the world has stood still how does she move to trigger it? Or if she triggers it before hand, how do the mechanisms in the time travel device continue to operate if the world is still?

 

This is perhaps wading into the murky waters of inordinate pedantry  but it seems like quite a significant part of the explanation that doesn’t make any sense. My best counter explanation is that perhaps the laws that made the world stand still don’t apply to absolutely everything, and perhaps it’s not so much of a leap to say that the mechanisms that enable time-travel in the first place would be included in that exemption.

 

In summary, I think in order to accept this loophole you have to accept that both a) Martha can trigger time travel accurately to within a “fraction of a nanosecond” and b) whatever stops “time” doesn’t apply to Martha and/or the time-travel device.

 

[Miner Willy]

Just finished tonight. I agree they finished it really well. Every season I felt sure they couldn't properly control the narrative any further, and every time they did it brilliantly. Incredibly impressive storytelling - despite the complexity they clearly had a strong vision from the outset. Sad to reach the end, but really glad it ended powerfully and so coherently. 

[Ry]

Just started watching this (6 episodes in) I'm invested in it but some things are just so fucking stupid that I was ready to just give up after 4 episodes. 

[Ry]

Just finished the first season. It's great but  one thing really annoys me and is just stupid. (Well there are a bunch of really silly things really)

 

Spoiler

A.whole bunch of kids are missing and one found dead, maybe use some police/detective work? See that cave that is the biggest part of the crime scene, maybe get some experts to explore it? 

 

 

 

 

[therearerules]

I’m at episode 5 in the final season, and I’ve mixed feelings about it. As above, there’s an incredible amount of people not doing the sensible thing and having no agency, which really grates after a while. Also annoyed that 

season 2 spoiler

they brought in an apparently sensible cop, who was an intriguing character to unpick the knot, who ended up doing fuck all outside of yet another no agency prophecy fulfillment 

Hopefully it ends well 

[therearerules]

Well, I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I don't think this is very good. At all. The motivation for everything is just that someone told them to do it, so people did unquestioningly. Kill a bunch of kids for no reason? Sure why not. Kill myself? Well I wasn't going to but you said I should so I guess I will. Go over here, do this, travel back in time and do this, travel to 1986 then do this and this? Sure, nothing better to do. There were some nice character moments in it, really liked the sad travels of Ulrich and Egon, and the new cop in season 2 (at first, when I thought he'd actually raise how shit the police there are, he kind of sucked by the end), but that was all drowned out by watching people follow instructions. And as soon as they broke the 33 year rule, and just had people zipping whenever and whereever they wanted it just felt weightless.

 

Honestly, and I'm sure I'll get hate for this but it's like Lost without the character beats and arcs, or any fun. Which would be not a good show.

[Benny]

It's certainly pretty low on the "fun" stakes, being relentlessly dour.

 

I like it, but I felt the first season was by far the best. After that it does get increasingly convoluted for the sake of it.

[Yiggy]

I thought by midway through season 3 it it started to lose it for me as there was a lot of long drawn out shenanigans and half finished conversations and navel gazing going on. 

 

However I do think the last 2 eps really finished it well and that overall 80% of it was excellent. I was quite touched by the ultimate message and it stayed just about the right side of sappy. 

[spork]

7 hours ago, Yiggy said:

I thought by midway through season 3 it it started to lose it for me

 

Midway through season 3 is when I finally remembered who everyone was and what was going on!

[fattakin]

Finished this at the weekend and overall we enjoyed it.  It did seem to drop off a bit in S3, middle episodes really felt they were dragging it out a bit - most of the mystique was gone and the editing transitions between scenes and even displaying the year onscreen in big white letters was starting to bug me.  Nearly quite but nipped into the thread and you all seemed positive that it ended well and I agree, they did actually manage to wrap it up in a satisfactory way, I really liked the final episode. 

 

Overall id recommend people just watch the 1st season and treat it as a standalone show, then stop there, only watch the rest if you've a real interest. 

[Pob]

I rinsed this over the last couple of weeks. While I loved season 1 and 2 (especially 2), I thought it totally dropped off a cliff in season 3. Spoilers and time travel mechanics discussion that @John0 will probably find interesting:

Spoiler

 

I'm a massive fan of watertight time travel stories, of which there are very few. Primer is the ultimate example of a multiple timelines approach, Timecrimes is the best example of a deterministic (closed loop) approach. I do really like deterministic stories as I think there's so much mileage in watching people struggle against the inevitability, and it brings up all kinds of interesting questions regarding free will and human nature.

 

So season 2 was catnip for me, as it showed exactly that. You had bereaved parents bumbling around trying in vain to get their child back, despite the fact that he had already grown old in the past. You had a scientist type (Claudia) travelling forward in time to look up future events on the Internet, and then causing her own father's death while trying in vain to prevent it. Lovely stuff. You got to see all these human reactions within a physically and logically consistent time travel framework.

 

You get to see how time travellers who 'master' the timeline are inevitably those who treat time with religious reverence, and put all their efforts into making sure things come about as they must, despite the fact that there's no other way that things can go. It made me think of the end of Bill & Ted, where our heroes 'win' the final fight by coming up with the idea of planting weapons after the fact. But, of course, being such slackers, is it really plausible that Bill and Ted would bother to go back and plant the weapons, having already won the fight? It's more likely they'd get stoned and forget, hence the weapons wouldn't be there. But in Dark, people like Adam and Noah put all their efforts into preserving the timeline, which is precisely why things happen the way they do.

 

But then the final of season 2 chucks in an alt Martha from a divergent timeline, and it all went to shit in my opinion. Suddenly the rules were broken and none of the nonsense about a 'knot' caused by time standing still for a second at the moment of the apocalypse made sense to me. Somehow old Claudia was able to do things differently as things looped around, for reasons I never quite grasped or believed in. You then had hokey shit like people turning to dust in the finale as they erased themselves from existence, and a resolution about how humans really do have free will, but only sometimes, because love or something. It went the way of Devs, which I thought had a great setup but ultimately flubbed it.

 

I also thought that Martha and Jonas were very boring protagonists. They were fine as part of an ensemble in s2 and s2, but I came to realise that the more grounded stories involving the older characters were much more interesting. Claudia, Ulrich, Katharina, Egon, Charlotte - the family dynamics and the way each of them handles the strange discoveries was much more fascinating than listening to various versions of Martha and Jonas drone on about the same thing over and over. By far the best bit of season 3 was seeing what ultimately became of prime Katharina. I couldn't bring myself to care about anyone in Eva's world.

 

There was also an interesting scene in season 3 which suddenly seemed to imply a higher power is keeping the timeline in check: Jonas tries to hang himself, but Noah stops him and tells him he can't die because he eventually becomes Adam, which they both already know all about. Noah gives him a gun to try to kill himself, which fails to fire, but then Noah demonstrates that the gun fires just fine if you don't point it at Jonas' head. Although this can be explained as improbable, but not impossible, it seemed like a strange way to show how a closed time loop works. It implied that there was a god-like figure intervening. It would've been more logical to show Jonas as someone who doesn't seriously try to commit suicide. After all, how is someone who is desperate to kill themselves ever going to grow old and do all the shit that he does? Even more interesting would've been Noah tricking Jonas into believing that he's invincible, which sets him on the path to religious fervour.

 

I'm glad I watched it, but god I found season 3 boring and frustrating after being gripped by seasons 1 and 2.