Dark (Netflix) (2017, 2019, 2020)

Think Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, and the series Counterpart; all swallowed, chewed, grinded, spat out, and presented as good spaghetti, for lack of a better analogy. Dark is the most convoluted time travel story I have ever seen.

Recommended to me as a German Stranger Things, Dark is far from it. Only a small town vibe would be shared by both series and no more. 

Dark has nudity. And if that didn’t impress you with the seriousness of the story, there is an end of the world danger so facing problems with youthful enthusiasm - a hallmark of the heroes of Stranger Things - was out of the question.

My understanding of time travel is simple, there is either a straight line version or there is a universe born out of different choices in life version. Dark doesn’t care! I don’t think it cares about anything although to be fair there are references and scenes about theoretical physics as if giving legitimacy to this fictional world.

Past and present crisscross so much you wouldn’t know what is top or bottom, past or present. Since I failed getting even one strand, a timeline of any character, I am unable to determine cause and effect for myself which is the true meat of understanding any story. Going back spaghetti, I ended up with all pasta and no meatballs, or hotdog in a typical Philippine recipe.

Still I was hooked for 3 seasons so there’s at least good sauce. Dark had great cinematography, the mood is always appropriate capable of drawing me in, and Winden felt real and lived in that Stephen King would be proud.  Seeing generations of its residents is just an added glitter. 

Dark's amazing opening theme with its music and the kaleidoscope like design symbolic of a mesh of time and space is hypnotic. Acting wise, the story is a challenge. Time travel requires of each character different personalities, and the entire cast has been exemplary.

Many things worked for the series even though I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking out for, where I’ve been, or where I am going. Dark has these revelations which, to continue the pasta analogy, would be seasonings so I go on nibbling. I was constantly moving from 'he did what to who? how!' to 'c'mon that can't be logical'.

I hung on, finished the series hoping I would get understanding. There are visual connections albeit ill defined in some, insufficient in others, with the rest diversions. Without past or future, defined end or beginning, how do you go forward and connect the dots? That's my problem but an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

There is fate and yet it requires time travelers influencing the timeline for that fate to be true. There’s a loop in time but it requires influence also by the persons traveling probably on the same thread just to exist. Future is influenced by the past but future also influenced the past. 

Maybe Dark is a convoluted way of exploring fate and choice? I can appreciate stories going into philosophical themes but the timeline has to be right.

If you remember Professor Hulk’s explanation of time travel, that theory fits Dark. It doesn’t mean I understand it or agree to its theoretical soundness which is why I’ve always hated the time travel aspect of Avengers Endgame.

Trophy for brainfuck goes to the two person time loop - no distance at all, just two people. How can they exist if there is no external line, not that other loops in Dark can be ask the same question. Sometimes I feel like I was fooled into a 26 episodes or 3 years worth of Groundhog Day.

Maybe I was not far off. By season 3 the solution was explained as if the writers were at a loss how to get out so they explained a solution into existence. Could they have written themselves in circles? 

To be clear the solution stated was thematically correct, out in the open, almost always picked up by hand. The final episode had emotional weight. 

Are there enough clues though, to connect beginning to end of the series? Did you get enough noodles, strands of the the timeline, understand its many loops and entanglements to get a full meaty understanding - spaghetti with meatballs.

Fans of time travel may find the discovery of those clues and this series a treasure. May your luck be better than mine.

…I am craving for some spaghetti.