The German Sci-Fi mystery ‘Dark’ is one of my wife’s all-time favorite shows (and I enjoyed it very much as well), so when she learned of ‘1899’ she said we have to watch this!
So we watched episode 1 last night. First impressions? Hmm…it definitely has the same foreboding tone and ‘dark’ murky cinematography of Dark. It hasn’t quite grabbed me yet plot-wise, but then Dark took a few episodes to really get into. Episode 1 felt kind of like a ‘moving chess pieces’ episode where characters and plot elements are introduced but nothing much really happens yet. I think it will be a big task for the makers to match the intricate puzzle-box plotting of Dark, if that’s even what they plan to do with this mystery.
Capsule summary: a Titanic-like ship is crossing the Atlantic to America in the titular year. It has a mysterious captain (played by the actor who was middle-aged Jonas from Dark) and an international collection pf passengers who seem to have their own secrets and issues. the main protagonist is a female doctor who studies the brain (women doctors in 1899 can only study, not practice). The ship (can’t remember its name) gets a wireless telegraph of coordinates and nothing else. The crew assumes it must be coming from the Prometheus, a sister ship that disappeared 4 months before. They divert to the location and do find the Prometheus, now a dark, seemingly devoid of life ‘ghost ship’. A small party (including the doctor who invites herself along) board to search for survivors and…I’ll stop there.
A minor historical nitpick that kind of bothered me… the ship they were on had 4 working smokestacks belching black smoke. The Titanic, which, 13 years later was supposed to be the largest, grandest ship ever (it wasn’t called the Titanic for nuthin’) only had 3 working smokestacks – the 4th was just for show. Is it possible that earlier ships needed 4 coal-fired boilers and by the time of the Titanic boiler technology had improved to the point that the Titanic only needed 3? Or is 4 working smokestacks in 1899 a historical glitch?
Just saw the promo yesterday for the first time. Not sure whether I’ll watch it, but I gotta say - from the promo, I doubt the 4th smokestack is the ONLY nit you will be able to pick!
Well, being a sci-fi mystery show, I can give historical inaccuracies some latitude, at least at first. Maybe it’s an alternate universe? Maybe a time traveler messed with the timeline? But if there are just lazy anachronisms with no plot explanation it will annoy me.
I’m just joking. Reminded me of the frequent occurrence where my wife and I will be watching SciFi or something, and people will be teleporting, reading minds, flying, fighting monsters, and all manner of unrealistic stuff - and then something relatively minor will happen and one of us will say, “Now THAT I don’t buy!”
For us, often it will be when an otherwise ostensibly reasonable character will act in some way that we feel entirely out of character…
Right, exactly. If it works within the story universe, fine with me. My suspension of disbelief is strong. It’s plot holes and lazy writing that take me out of the story. Being from the makers of Dark, I will give 1899 the benefit of the doubt until shown otherwise.
I know, right? When S.3 of Dark came out I practically had to make a giant wall collage of photos and notes connected with push pins and red strands of yarn just to try to recollect everything that had happend in S1-2
That is especially killer these days when seasons are so far apart. More than once, I’ve eagerly awaited a new season, only to keep saying, “Who is THAT?” “Are those 2 together?”
I hear of many people rewatching old seasons before a new season drops. I rarely do so and, instead, have just stopped watching shows that used to be among my faves.
Yeah, right after 1899 we watched the first episode of S3 of 'Dead to Me". The first 2 seasons had a fairly convoluted plot, though nothing like Dark’s. There was a pretty extensive recap of the previous season, and afterward I said to Mrs. solost ‘OK, I remember very little of any of that- do you?’. She didn’t either.
Watched the first ep, I fear is too “slow burn” for me (I stopped watching “Dark” about 3 episodes into the first season), but I’ll give it a second chance today.
Do you mean plot-wise / universe-wise? I don’t know, but interesting question. I had assumed that though it’s from the makers of ‘Dark’, it was a completely different story line, but who knows?
We just started watching this. I can’t read the thread because it looks a little spoilery for those who haven’t watched any of it yet, but so far it looks good.
I found a website from a guy that made detailed family trees for both timelines and it made all the difference in the world. He asked for a $5 donation for all of his effort. It was well worth it.
Damn right! And (confession time) I’ve gotten so used to binge-watching a whole series that sometimes when episodes are one week apart I can’t remember who’s who. Discrete episodes are a thing of the past. Even if there are events that start and wrap-up within each episode, there’s almost always a story “arc” that churns away in the background until the big finish.
FYI I haven’t watched this show, but I didn’t find this thread to be spoilery. Except (I guess) for the spoilered part in the OP-- I didn’t click into that.
The preview started playing on our TV, while I was in the kitchen, so I just heard all of the actors talking. They seemed to be throwing around a bunch of concerned-yet-military technobabble. I went over and saw a captain standing in front of a multi-ethnic field of people in colorful outfits.
