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Dark On Netflix

Bigphoot2

Bigphoot2

Not sprouts! I hate sprouts.
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Jul 30, 2005
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Anyone been watching Dark which has just started on Netflix? I'm up to episode 3 and it's quite intriguing - especially when I found out how to turn off the dubbed voices and get subtitles.
It's about some very Fortean stuff going on in a small German town where "nothing ever happens" - apart from kids going missing every 33 years, bodies turning up with their eyes melted and eardrums burst, dead sheep, dead birds falling from the sky, a suspicious power plant and a kid who vanished from the present and turned up in 1986

Netflix's New Scifi Mystery Series Dark May Become Your New Obsession

Germain Lussier
Yesterday 3:30pm
Filed to: DARK

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All Images: Netflix
If shows you can pause, rewind, analyze, and speculate about until your brain explodes are your thing, stop what you’re doing and go watch the new Netflix series Dark.

The 10-episode show debuts today, and it’s kind of a gloomy version of Lostcrossed with It set in a small, quiet German town named Winden in 2019. A boy has gone missing, which turns everyone in the community on their heads. Then another boy goes missing. At the same time, there are some mysterious strangers walking around town, and a man who recently died left a note to only be opened at a very specific date and time in the future. It’s very Doc Brown.
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https://io9.gizmodo.com/netflixs-new-scifi-mystery-series-dark-may-become-your-1820853907
 
Just started myself, intriguing, funny how it's better in German with English subtitles, as opposed to dubbed into English.
 
Yeah, I changed it to subbed German about 3 minutes in... Bloody Netflix thinking we'd all prefer it in English!
 
It's good although I'm getting a bit bored of the "missing children" trope that is the staple of all nuanced crime/horror drama these days.

Can't we have the killer/monster go after OAP's, hypsters or better yet IT guys, just for a change?
 
I've seen first 2 episodes, pretty good but really dark so far. Does seem to be bit like The OA crossed with Stranger Things.

Can't we have the killer/monster go after teachers, taxi-drivers or better farmers, just for a change?
 
That's why I like Bubba Ho Tep as the creature was praying on OAP's in the rest home who are I think are as helpless children but not done to excess.
 
ramonmercado said:
I've seen first 2 episodes, pretty good but really dark so far. Does seem to be bit like The OA crossed with Stranger Things.

Can't we have the killer/monster go after teachers, taxi-drivers or better farmers, just for a change?
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I want a killer/monster that goes after middle-management but nobody decides to take action when they realise things run a lot better without them.
 
Bigphoot2 said:
Or in middle-management speak - A facilitator of customer service/client interface efficiency :)
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I need to track down the reference, but there was a study that showed that half of all managers have either no net benefit or a negative net benefit to the organisational they are employed by. Even Belbin noted that 45% of the managers he tested either didn't have a clear 'role' or refused the testing to determine their management role and of that 45%, all had a negative influence on their teams...

New Manager: "Hi I'm your manager."
Coal: "Heads or tails?" *flips coin*


(To be fair some managers do a fine job, it's just that the job isn't of any use, this often happens in large organisations).
 
Coal said:
I need to track down the reference, but there was a study that showed that half of all managers have either no net benefit or a negative net benefit to the organisational they are employed by. Even Belbin noted that 45% of the managers he tested either didn't have a clear 'role' or refused the testing to determine their management role and of that 45%, all had a negative influence on their teams...

New Manager: "Hi I'm your manager."
Coal: "Heads or tails?" *flips coin*


(To be fair some managers do a fine job, it's just that the job isn't of any use, this often happens in large organisations).
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That's the main reason I took early retirement. A few years back we had a team of four technicians, one team leader and a line manager - both of whom knew the job inside out. Never any problems and everything ran like a well-oiled machine and we had a very good reputation for getting the job done quickly.

When I left, there were six technicians in the area I'd been moved to - two "real ones", two from an agency who were part-time and didn't know their way about and the final two were a secretary and a receptionist who had been "promoted" and didn't have a clue and had been given minimal training (the experienced technicians weren't allowed to train them as we weren't on an appropriate pay grade to train staff! So they hired a half-wit from an agency who followed us around for a couple of days and then he trained the staff. The extent of his training was "If it doesn't work, switch it off and turn it on again. If that doesn't work they'll have to do without."

On top of that we now had 11 managers in 4 layers! Throw into that mix a couple of clown who loved to micro-manage everything - constantly demanding daily reports, weekly reports and then meetings to discuss the reports. Every job that came in had to work its way down from the top like one of those Japanese games with ball bearings cascading down - bouncing off one manager to the next until it was dumped on the technicians.

Very few of these managers had any technical knowledge (the few that did seemed very reluctant to share anything with the folks who actually had to do the work) they'd all been admin staff who were now telling experienced tech staff how long jobs should take - one told be it only took a couple of minutes to change a ceiling mounted data projector lamp because that's how long it takes to change a light bulb at home! More fun when I found that there weren't any lamps in stock because she had decided to throw them out ("we don't have a dedicated AV team anymore so we won't be needing all those light bulbs and cables and stuff". And to get a new one I had to start a series of meetings all the way up to present my case as to why we needed a projector lamp.

The result - lots of people leaving for new jobs or taking early retirement.
 
Bigphoot2 said:
I want a killer/monster that goes after middle-management but nobody decides to take action when they realise things run a lot better without them.
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As someone who was a middle-manager I am horrified by that suggestion.
 
Finally got around to finishing this, last night. I started it back in December, but then got vastly sidetracked by other shows and real life things.

Generally, I'd say that it is really good. The conclusion to the series is a tiny bit underwhelming, but only because you realise that there is no way in which they could wind all of this story up in the final two episodes. When you realise they aren't going to, and that a second series is going to shoot this year, that's fine.

Very much in favour of the subtitles, as others have been. Personally, I'm never a fan of English dubbing on movies. The results are always patchy at their very best. Even when the actor is a native of the original language reading their own lines for the dub the lips sync is distracting and audio doesn't match the scene in terms of acoustics. You can tell they were recorded in a studio. It's awkward.

I suppose it was natural for some to compare this to Stranger Things. Everybody compares all of Netflix' output to Stranger Things. But in this case I don't think that a derisory comparison on those grounds is entirely fair.

Yes, this is a series which begins very much with the disappearance of a child. Yes, some sections of this show take place in the 80s.

But that is basically where things part. This is far closer to a Scandi murder drama in tone and while arguably the missing child trope is a little overused at the moment in Dark there is a very specific reason as to why it's children. I won't spoil it, but facts that come to light at the midpoint of the season show why that is important.

The main crux of the story centres around the logic that the position of Earth's orbit only arrives in the exact same position in relation to the rest of the solar system every 33 years. And the story of a German town, where an underground anomaly has resulted in travel backwards and forwards in time between 3 specific time periods, at intervals of 33 years.

The town of Winden (real place by the way) is transformed in the 1950s by the construction of a nuclear power plant. The series focuses on the lives of multiple generations of the townsfolk, in three different time periods. Many characters appear in multiple time periods (played by different actors) and we see how their interpersonal relationships developed, along with what happens when the anomaly interferes with their lives.

It's really well performed and quite cleverly laid out. I'd certainly recommend a watch.
 
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Dark: Season 3 sort of ties everything together but the twists, turns, time loops, paradoxes will make your head spin. It's horror more so than science fiction at times. Heart breaking at times, I think I got smoke in eyes. Maybe it's best to watch it all over again to figure things out. 8/10. On Netflix.
 
Very much enjoyed Dark.
Also enjoyed 1899, and was a bit disappointed when it didn't get a second season.
 
Ascalon said:
Very much enjoyed Dark.
Also enjoyed 1899, and was a bit disappointed when it didn't get a second season.
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I can't believe the second season of 1899 isn't going to happen.....:(

I thought Dark had wrapped up the story at the end of season 3. What could they do with a 4th season? :D
 
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