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Everything Is Connected

"Gott ist Zeit" - Adam

/Dark/ is a TV show that I started watching a couple of years ago but

only recently finished. One of my main motivations for watching /Dark/,

at the outset, was the fact that it is a modern, German-language drama.

I have been trying to learn German, on and off, for several years now,

so the idea of watching a programme produced in that language, that

might also have an entertaining story obviously appealed.

The first series begins with an introduction to the inhabitants of the

small German town of Winden. Jonas, a sixth-former who attends the local

high school, has been suffering from recurring nightmares ever since his

father, Michael, committed suicide only two months prior. You

immediately understand why the series might be called /Dark/.

That, however, is just the beginning. Ulrich Nielsen, a police officer,

is carrying on an affair with Jonas' bereaved mother, Hannah, putting at

risk what appears to be an otherwise happy home life with his wife

Katerina, and their three children: Martha, Magnus and Mikkel.

The first episode ends with the high school-aged characters gathered at

the caves just outside of town. Mysterious noises and electrical

disturbances spook them, and to cut a long story short, Mikkel, the

youngest of the Nielsen siblings loses track of the others appears to

awake in 1986. At this point, it is not yet clear whether he has in fact

been transported back in time or not; the fantasy elements early on are

delivered with a light touch.

Is /Dark/ going to be a Lynch-like exploration of the seedy underbelly

that lurks beneath the glossy carapace of small town life? A police

procedural, concerning a recent spate of disappearances? Or a

German-language cousin of /Stranger Things/, repleat with 80s nostalgia

and science fiction themes?

The answer is that, to varying degrees, /Dark/ is all three and more.

For the first series at least, the balance between those disparate

elements of character and plot, with only a small number of characters

congniscent of the science fiction elements of the story, while others

remain wholly motivated by more down to Earth concerns, unaware of the

fantastic events that are also taking place, is remarkably well judged.

The first series of /Dark/ does not have the surreal or absurd

imagination of a /Twin Peaks/ but it is very high class science fiction.

The second series expands the /Dark/ universe in almost every imaginable

dimension, with respect to both time and space. Bootstrap paradoxes*

multiply, winding one on top of the other, forming what the most

knowlegable characters in the show come to refer to as /The Knot/. That

obviously means sacrificing the purity and simplicity of the first

season, which actually calls to mind one of my favourite lines: "A human

lives three lives. The first ends with the loss of naivety, the second

with the loss of innocence and the third with the loss of life itself".

I'm not sure if that is from a poem or some other source. If it is not

then that is, of course, a testament to the skill of the writers.

Another stand out line, for me was: "Gott ist zeit". The actor delivers

it with a rich resonance and being spoken in German gives it a little

something extra---and that brings me to my final point: It is hard for

me to know how much the language barrier helps me to overlook things

that I may not forgive so easily in an English-languge drama, but I am

sure that it plays a role. While the performances are universally

excellent, there are moments in series two and three where I lost the

thread of what was really motivating some of the characters.

Contrariwise, that may have been born of watching the later seasons too

fast.

For what it is worth, I would recommend /Dark/. I think that I may even

try to watch it again, once the dust has settled. Measured alongside the

extremely well-produced but ultimately rather flimsy Marvel and Star

Wars TV shows that festoon the science fiction landscape, /Dark/ fair

towers over the competition.

If you don't already know, and you're interested I would recommend not

looking it up until after you've watched the show.