What We Know Is A Drop.
Arguably one of the most well-written works of Sci-Fi, Dark combines time-travel with reality and creates one of the most fascinating pieces of modern fiction. The sheer amount of complexities, plots and sub-plots, stories interwoven and so horribly entangled into this massive mess better known as the ‘Knot’ — it is an incredible achievement that Dark is not straight up impossible to follow for all of that.
The show is based in the fictional town of Winden, Germany; which is seemingly a source of never-ending trouble for all of the characters. On multiple occasions, several characters are quoted as saying that Winden is basically the absolute worst. Given the unbelievable mess that everyone goes through, I’d say that’s reasonable!
The first season reveals a bit about the town and the main characters that are involved in a large portion of the story. Pretty early on into the show we witness a whole bunch of inexplicable events — the disappearance of several people, birds dropping from the sky, unstable electricity and a dead body of a child is unearthed who, eerily enough, had gone missing 33 years ago.
As the story unveils itself, we get more and more insight on just how intricate the whole plot is and just how intertwined people’s lives are. Time-travel, wormholes, paradoxes — more time travel, mysterious details surrounding a nuclear power plant all make up quite the complicated situation. And then of course, there’s the people! Every character seems determined to gather more information and they all embark on their own journeys to uncover the truth and meaning behind it all. Where is Mikkel? Or should I say, When is Mikkel?
Now, let’s talk time travel. One of the dialogues that really hit hard pretty early on in season 1 is something Mikkel (one of the main characters and as we see, one of the people tied up horribly in the knot) says when asked about how he performed a certain magic trick — “The question is not how, but when”. This incredibly simple yet profound dialogue acts as some foreshadowing to the vast multitude of time travellers that exist in the show, including Mikkel himself. There exist a few basic timelines, they start at 2019, 1986, 1953, 1920 and go back all the way to 1887. Likewise, we have a future timeline which is at 2054. All the other timelines basically go from here as we see the events that unfold a few years after. The existence or possibility of time travel seems to be contingent on the construction of a nuclear power plant which has occurred in the year 1953.
Just as you are grappling with the idea of all these timelines and trying to wrap your head around all the different characters and where (read when) they are, Dark hits you with another brick: alternate realities. The ending of season 2 left everyone astonished as they saw Martha appear out of nowhere just as Jonas witnessed her die and deliver yet another mind boggling line — “The question is not when but from which world.”
Thereon we see all the events unfold as belonging to two distinct parts of the main plot — Adam’s world and Eva’s. So we now have our main characters time travelling in both realities and also across realities, making everything even more intertwined. The show explores several concepts and theories related to space and time including Schrödinger’s Cat and the Bootstrap Paradox, which we are all at least somewhat familiar with. Ultimately, each character has their own findings and their own take on how to resolve the Knot, which puts all of them into different paths and courses of action. Adam is determined to destroy the knot and achieve what he calls “paradise” while Eva is convinced that the only way to go about things is by preserving the knot, as a result of which the same events would inevitably occur over and over again. Some characters work on either team Adam or Eva to help them achieve this ultimate goal or they set out on paths of self-discovery and understanding where they come from. Charlotte is a good example of this. Being your daughter’s daughter couldn’t have been the best thing to have discovered!
The writing in this show is simply unreal and it is very clear that they had a solid vision in mind before executing it. The way everything comes together and adds up so beautifully and so satisfyingly by the end leaves no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most thorough, well planned shows I’ve ever seen. It is commendable that they have left no parts unexplained, no loose ends or plot-holes. Well, except how the hell did Wӧller get his eye injury!? That one they dangled even at the very end. So while the writing is clearly picture perfect there are two other aspects related to the production of Dark which just blew me away: the casting and the music.
Let’s discuss the casting first. Mad props to Simone Bär, the casting director who in my opinion would be well within her rights to retire after this. It is unimaginable what a task it would’ve been to not only find people who look creepily like each other but can also act and execute their roles very well. Even actors like the younger Peter Doppler (who is played by the actor’s own son!) were very easy to identify before they were given any introduction. Absolute genius.
Lastly, the music. The haunting and eerie soundtracks were stuck in all our heads for a good while after watching the series. The music for this series was composed by Ben Frost, who describes “…the intersection of acoustic music and heavy processing and the kind of uncomfortable duality that creates” as at the heart of his music. And of course the hilarious captions (oppressive music) which in his words is like “sitting down and writing them with a thesaurus”.
All in all, Dark is an insanely good show and deserves all the hype it is getting and more. It is a beautiful meld between stereotypical Sci-Fi style time travel and real life—the dystopian portrayal of such a reality and the influence that human emotions have on so many decisions shows us the catastrophic implications that time travel would actually have, if humanity were ever able to do it. The sheer amounts of painstaking effort (and burn out) that the entire cast and crew has gone through cannot go unmentioned. So if you haven’t watched it yet, what are you waiting for? Go check it out! Get yourself immersed in present day’s most epic Glitch in the Matrix.
