I’ve finally found the time to start watching Dark. Now that there are already three seasons are out something clicked in me and I wanted to give it a try. At first, I was a bit afraid that it might be a bit too similar to Stranger Things but, luckily, the similarities ended after the first two episodes! After that, it becomes clear what this show will be all about: Time-travel! While the show starts of with the disappearance of children being the main focus, this becomes more and more of a simple thread than the main-event. While everything seems to somehow involve the local nuclear power plant, it’s not seen as the one big, bad institution compared to the research facility in Stranger Things.
Also, where Stranger Things tried to add funny scenes or just goofy behaviour to lighten the otherwise rather depressing story, Dark does no such thing. Fitting with the title life in the fictional town of Winden (most likely not related to the actually existing Winden) is dismal and depressing. Even the number of scenes with sun-light can probably be counted on one hand. Living in this town is seen by a number of the main characters as a bad thing.
Thanks to the focus on time-travel the show is far more complex than I had anticipated. In the end I had to draw a family tree to find out who was related to whom. Since the show takes place in multiple eras the same characters are also shown at different ages I started to notice relationships where I didn’t expect them. This alone kept me glued to the tablet with my notebook not far away. For some reason I kept mistaking Helge (security guard) and Egon (policeman) and having the family tree at hand helped a great deal there!
When episode 10 of the first season ended it took actually quite a bit of will-power not the just continue with season two right away! It simply was that good! That being said, it’s one of those shows where you really have to focus and cannot do all that much next to it. OK, you can but then it won’t be that interesting! It’s also quite slow with lots of scenes that take a while simply to get the point across that Winden is probably not the best place to live with a family 🤪 If you don’t mind those two and like a good mystery, definitely watch Dark!
Over the years I've written quite a few reviews 🙂 You can find them at /reviews/.
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