Jantje Friese as well as Baran bo Odar the last conqueror of the mind 1899 recently released on Netflix, and with it came a slew of comparisons to their previous efforts, Dark. Even aside from the duo’s involvement, the parallels between the shows are clear: both feature an ensemble cast that dive head first into a plot so complex you feel like you need a note page to keep track of everything, all told under a thick layer of moody synths. and dark visuals. As a basis for being the most talked about show on social media this week, it works pretty well, and for the most part 1899 succeeds in every way Dark did. Friese and Bo Odar definitely know how to create a compelling riddle, and one day 1899 begins to use his greatest tricks, it becomes very difficult to break away. Combine that with strong performances and more than a few “wtf” moments and you have the experience that drinking binges were invented for.
But for all its strength, 1899 never surpasses its predecessor. This may be an unfair statement given that Dark tells the full story in 26 episodes, while 1899 it’s only a third of the planned three-season run, but from what we’ve seen, Friese and Beau Odar are making mistakes they’ve previously avoided. The biggest one is temp. Dark was a highly structured show that managed to move from a simple missing-child crime drama to a sci-fi epic set across six time periods in two parallel universes in a way that you don’t even realize it happened. Friese’s intelligent writing was a perfect fit with Beau Odar’s understated direction, allowing the show’s intricate narrative to always remain comprehensible. From the outside it may seem overwhelming, but in practice everything is pretty smooth.
Pace is the problem
Ironically, the show, which takes place on a steamboat, takes the opposite approach, resulting in an impression that is both too fast and too slow, which in itself is too slow. Friese and Bo Odar’s obsession to transcend the mystery box’s madness Dark sees them weaving their way through standard pieces at bullet train speed, barely letting the dust settle from one turn before pulling the carpet out with another. At the same time, they enjoy spending most of their working time on scenes that either push plot points to the limit or simply repeat information we already know. Worst of all, they make the mistake of playing their best card too early, a move that effectively betrays the game before it has even finished placing its pieces on the board. The show is rarely this quirky, but thankfully, Friese and Beau Odar’s previous venture shows exactly how they can fix the one thing holding them back. 1899 returned from greatness.
returning to Dark five years later, it’s easy to forget how simple the first season was. Before it turned into a centuries-old story about the fate of the entire planet, Dark was nothing more than a little boy who went missing from his home in Winden. We soon learn that he was transported to 1986 through an ominous network of caves located under the city’s nuclear power plant – a network that also allows travel to 1953. As information about this becomes more common, the characters try to use this amazing discovery to their advantage. , but it quickly becomes obvious that such things are best not to mess with. What follows is a multi-generational plot that explores the devastating effects of time travel on this close-knit community, uncovering and then unraveling a tangled web of secrets that prevent you from looking at the city or its inhabitants the same way once all of their secrets have been revealed. .
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But despite the vast scope, things never get insurmountable thanks to Friese and Bo Odar’s clear understanding of tempo. Such things are always important, but for something like Dark This can easily feel like homework rather than entertainment, it’s important to structure things properly so that viewers don’t have to keep the show’s Wikipedia page handy forever. Fortunately, Friese and Bo Odar succeeded with flying colours. Even though it’s a time travel story, they wait until Episode 3 before moving on from the present, giving viewers time to ground themselves in this world before they start to ease their brakes. Similarly, it takes up to the fifth episode before we simultaneously move between two timelines, and up to the ninth before all three periods take place in the same episode. It’s a bold decision to keep the show’s unique selling point for most of the season, but it’s proven in hindsight that it was definitely for the best. This does not mean Dark free of any confusion, but for a show that balances so many characters and storylines across a 66-year timeline, Friese and Beau Odar do a wonderful job of making things accessible.
Plot twist after plot twist
It’s here where 1899 brings himself down. It’s clear that the duo have a bunch (no pun intended) of ideas on how to beat the shock reaction. Dark often provoked, but their blind pursuit of this goal quickly tires. Storylines race past the screen like there’s no tomorrow, each vying for attention in a move that often kills any impact Frizet and Beau Odar have been striving for. The third episode ends Kerberos (the ship on which the show takes place) is teleported to an unknown part of the ocean, but this development is barely mentioned in later episodes. It’s an episode that also sparks a mutiny between the third class passengers and the ship’s officers, a storyline that should fundamentally change the nature of the show but is instead resolved and forgotten over the course of two episodes. It’s hard to feel any investment when the show can’t go five minutes without throwing another clue into its increasingly intricate work, and without taking the time to build a solid foundation on which to hang these mysteries, it’s hard not to feel himself as adrift, as in Kerberos.
This frantic pace also works against his characters. The best example of this is the captain of the ship, Eik (Andreas Pitchmann), a man who clearly lived a miserable life that left him with as many psychological scars as physical ones. Exploring his past was supposed to be one of the main storylines of the season, but instead, we’re told almost immediately that his depressive state is due to the fact that his family died in a house fire not long before. This revelation comes in the opening moments of Episode 2, a time when most viewers will be too busy wrestling with the show’s initial batch of questions to be interested in the backstory of someone who only had a few minutes of screen time. There is another example of this in the same episode with the Spanish priest Ramiro (Jose Pimentau), who is revealed to be actually a Portuguese servant who boarded the ship under false pretenses so that he could escape with his lover Ángel (Miguel Bernardo). Both of these twists are interesting twists that have been greatly reduced in impact due to the hasty narrative, and these are far from the only examples.
Dragging out storylines, rushing through others
Despite this problem, 1899 also does not hesitate to drag out other storylines to the point of madness. When the ship’s crew Kerberos sit on an abandoned wreck Prometheus (a ship that disappeared four months ago while traveling the same route), the only survivor they find is a boy named Elliot (Fflin Edwards). However, we only learn his name after he stubbornly remained mute for several episodes, turning an intriguing development into a plot device that soon tires. Combined with this, the frustration surrounding Daniel (Aneurin Barnard), a passenger closely related to Elliot who clearly knows more than he lets on. It’s not like he’s letting that stop him from acting deliberately shy for most of the season, apparently infected with a condition that prevents him from saying anything unless it’s shrouded in mystery. Most scenes with either character are painfully repetitive, and the feeling gets worse when Daniel’s true identity is finally revealed in hindsight. Dark fell prey to dialogues entirely of riddles at times, but was never as over the top as this one.
Friese and Bo Odar’s toughest decision is to give up 1899s the biggest turn before we left the starting gate. In the closing moments of Episode 2, the camera pulls back to show a wall of monitors in a decidedly more futuristic setting than 1899. The details remain unanswered, but the meaning is clear – everything that happens on Kerberos really just a simulation. Why they chose to do this deserves academic study, as it immediately kills any tension they were trying to achieve, and the fact that it takes several episodes because we’re revisiting it seems like a tacit admission that they pulled back the curtain too quickly. . . Once this is revealed, it becomes difficult to take anything that follows seriously, since at any moment everyone can be just a collection of 1s and 0s, and there is nothing to indicate that the pieces of backstory we receive are even authentic.
Revelation that comes too soon
Imagine if this revelation came in the season finale, just like Dark waited for the last moments of the first season to show the fourth, post-apocalyptic timeline. It was a twist that everyone screamed into their TVs because they had to wait another 18 months for the next episode and the reason it was so powerful was because of the 10 hours of preparation that preceded it. But 1899 does not accept this philosophy. A last-minute revelation that we’ve actually been in 2099 all this time would set the internet on fire if it appeared anywhere else, but it’s hard to feel anything in a show that drops such bombs in the blink of an eye. besides being relieved that it was finally over for a while.
Be that as it may, there is much more to enjoy 1899. It has more than enough smart ideas to make any writer jealous, and it has an undeniably addictive quality that will make you smash the next episode as soon as it arrives, but it’s also a very exhausting hour. It’s hard for a show to change course once it’s sailed, but assuming 1899 does return for a second season, a slower pace that understands how to properly time his greatest twists and turns will allow him to avoid the rough seas he is now plowing his way through.
In its current form, 1899 more like an experiment to test the audience’s ability for the mystery box subgenre, built on the polarized work left behind Lost as well as Western world. Interesting experiment, but Dark managed to use the same format while telling one of the best stories in sci-fi television, it’s hard to shake the feeling that 1899 this is nothing but a step backwards. We hope this will be considered next time Kerberos comes to port.
Source: Collider
