DARK

GERMANY TV SHOW

“Everything is connected”

Season: 1-2 (season 3 planned on 2020)

Year: 2017-2020

Rating in IMDB: 8.7 (rank #82 on last 2019)

Genre: Mystery, Science-Fiction, Thriller

Creators: Baran Bo Odar and Jantje Friese

Main Casts: Louis Hofmann (Jonas), Lisa Vicari ( Martha), Maja Schöne (Hannah), Karoline Eichorn (Charlotte), Jördis Triebel (Katharina), Oliver Masucci (Ulrich), Daan Lennard Liebrenz (Mikkel), Mark Waschke (Noah), etc.

When Dark was released in 2017, I still remembered that everyone connected its story to the Stranger Things. On the surface, we know that the synopsis has a similarity story with Stranger Things, but Dark has teenager as main casts. There are two children gone and Winden city got fussed because of it. It likely has the same plot, but I didn’t predict that it directed into the other theme story; time traveling.

I love the science-fiction genre, especially time-traveling. So, it’s easy for Dark to become my favorite series all of the time. But, Dark made it different than the other time-travel series. Firstly, the number of people connected to the confusing time travel. Dark involved four families and we didn’t see the family from a certain time, but also their descendants from several times ago. There are four families: (1) Kahnwald, (2) Nielsen, (3) Tiedemann, (4) Doppler. Those four families' stories started when Mikkel Nielsen went into the cave and he surprisingly found the door to go back to 33 years ago. Several days after, Jonas Kahnwald found it and the time-traveling story began.

Second, Dark often showed some twists along with the story. On season one, the twists happened because of the time travel after effect. It made the relationship between those four families more complicated. The other problem appeared when Noah who is the one kidnapping the kids, did some weird experiment to them. If you are still thinking the story isn’t compelling enough, you’re wrong. After that, in the first season, many things happened at the same time. Starting with Dad’s Mikkel, Ulrich Nielsen tried to find Mikkel and eventually, he found the door, but he got a different door. Then, Charlotte Doppler, the detectives, tried to find the truth. On the other side, her husband; Peter Doppler knew a bit about the time travel machines. Everything is going on, and you couldn’t stop watching it even in seconds.

The season one is compelling and gripping enough to make viewers wondering what the hell actually happened in Winden. When I watched season one, I couldn’t shift my eyes from my laptop’s screen. I finished it literally on 10 hours watching! It was my crazy experience watching something like that. The atmosphere got me too, tense, dark, thrill, and the cinematography is amazing! In spite it took the setting only in the Winden, the production time could give the detail, especially when the scenes happened in the past. The plot becomes richer and richer as the story going on. There are twists in every episode and we couldn’t guess what will happen next.

I waited too long for the second season, but it still satisfied me. The second season made everything clear, clearer as a sunny day. You will know how many sides in this time-traveling war. [SPOILER!] There are two sides, the determinism team commanded by Adam and the free-will team commanded by Claudia. The viewers also know that The Winden actually was going in a loop, the events recurring again from the past to the future. Also, we know the cause and effect of this time-traveling thing. The plot story becomes broader and the time events become many (there are five-time events from 1921 until 2020). This is the unique thing; we could see the same person with different ages altogether in one place.

The mysteries in the second season are still gripping and complex, even though it isn’t too confusing like season one. Each episode gives the twists and it made me binge-watching, again. The atmosphere, setting, and background detail become better than season one. Besides all of that, don’t forget about the several heart-breaking moments. We know that the story focuses on four families. Their relationship becomes more complex and overlapping (that’s why several twists come from this). There are several moments between family members, such as Jonas and her mom, Hannah; Mikkel and her dad, Ulrich; or teen Claudia and her dad, Egon. Oh, also, there is the tragic romance story between Jonas and Martha.

I feel bad to spill many plot story of this series. At last, this series is worthy of watching especially for you who love mind-bending story. This series made you couldn’t stop thinking even after you finished all of the episodes. Moreover, we could know many new things like determinism-freewill principle, bootstrap paradox, etc. On the other side, I don’t feel annoyed with the German Language. It is heard astonishing for me.

My favorite scenes [SPOILER]: