Dark was something I really wanted love but in the end I struggled to even like. It's everything you could want from a German language sci-fi spin on Twin Peaks. For the first 5 hours at least. Murder, affairs, a shadowy group of child kidnappers, teenage ennui, and oh SO much rain. I love me a good time travel mystery and this had me on the hook for 2 solid days.
I find rising action to be an underappreciated art and Dark really nails the first leg of the race. Start off mundane, yet interesting, then slowly get super frikkin' weird. The biggest triumph of the show is how it begins with one doomed quest to save murdered children that slowly builds to a duet, then a trio. It's hilariously nihilistic and I love it's commitment to time travel paradoxes. I mean if any of the protagonists managed to change the past... why are they still doing it?
Also if you pay attention you can catch plot twists several episodes ahead of time. I had one or two moments where I yelled "CALLED IT!" at my TV that sold exactly how much wine I'd drunk to my neighbors. I had some serious fun with Dark but I can't ignore how marvelously it flies off the rails in the home stretch.
The small town drama that was believable and restrained at first spills over into full tilt, RAIN FIGHT, melodrama. The lead cop character started off pretty dumb, pawing at corpses with his bare hands, and becomes a blithering mad prophet once it's his turn to go to the past. He literally grabs teenage girls and yells at them not unlike that Harrison Ford sketch. It's ridiculous.
I could have forgiven all that if the time travel stuff had either wrapped itself up neatly or had become interesting enough to sustain another season. Neither of those things happened and because I'd previously had my heart broken by Lost so many years ago, I saw all the signs. The primary antagonist had no major development for 80% of the season, new characters and settings were being introduced in the last 3 episodes, and there were way too many monologues about good/evil/god/the devil. That's what I like to call wheel spinning and I f%$king hate it. Either they don't know where they're going or they have to save the answers for the series finale. I'm going with the latter.
It could have been great and it pains me to say it, but I actually flicked off the last scene and unless it gets rave reviews I won't be down with season 2. I cannot stress how great this show is at reeling you in and then absolutely blowing it. Breaks my heart.
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| Breaks it. |
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