Dark on Netflix

Cafe Society
1

Just finished watching the first of three seasons. I like it a lot even though it’s dubbed, and I usually hate anything dubbed.

I found it difficult to keep track of all the characters. Part of the conceit of the show is keeping you guessing on who some of the characters are, but I had trouble keeping track of the characters we were supposed to know. I found myself spending a minute at the beginning of many scenes thinking “Okay, who is that, and do I know what other characters they are related to?”

One stumbling block I’m having trouble getting past is the family planning aspect of this show. It makes zero sense to me and I can’t stop obsessing about it. We see multiple families in the show, and then we see when the parents first met or started dating.

All of these people apparently first got together in high school, which is fine. Normally, you would assume that they were stuck together for the long haul by a baby. But no. None of these people had children young. Despite being couples since they were like 17, none of them had their first kid until they were in their 30s. And they had multiple kids. If you marry your high school sweetheart and you have three kids together, how does it make sense that you don’t have your first kid until you’ve been together for like 15 years?! That makes absolutely no sense to me. And it’s not just one couple that does this. It’s all of them.

Compounding that issue is that these are not perfect couples. They’re unhappy, they cheat. So why did they stay together for those 15 years before they had any kids in the first place? It legitimately makes no sense. I guess I just have to chalk it up to “Germans be crazy.”

Other than that, I’m finding the show to be pretty compelling. So compelling that I started watching the show Friday evening and just finished the first season today, Sunday.

One minor thing is that at the end of each episode in the first season – except the season finale – the credit song that starts as Netflix is about to switch to the next episode is pretty much exactly the start of fuck the pain away. Which of course drove me to rewatch the greatest Andy Griffith episode there ever was or could be. And so every time an episode would end, and those beats would start up, I find myself singing loudly:

Sucking on my titties like you wanted me
Calling me all the time like Blondie
Check out my Chrissy behind
It’s fine all of the time.
Like sex on the beaches.
What else is in the teachers of peaches?
What. Huh.

Fuck the pain away.
Fuck the pain away.
Fuck the pain away.
Fuck the pain away.

This, of course, adds an extra level of awesomeness to the show.

2

We watched all 3 seasons. The things you disliked about season 1 get worse, and the things you liked about season 1 don’t last. After a great premise and interesting start, Dark was much more of a slog for us to get through to see if there was a payoff worth it.

Hint: there isn’t.

3

Dissenting - I really enjoyed it :slight_smile:. However it does get more and more science-fictiony, complicated and, well, out there the deeper you go. If that bugs you, you may not enjoy it much.

Me, I thought it was a pretty good show with a pretty strong ending.

4

I watched the first few episodes, but I found it pretty humorless. I can find other shows that are dark but with dark humor (which I prefer).

5

We stuck with it for a long time, but we honestly just need a version that puts the names of each character on their body so we know who lines up with who in the past and present.

We found it confusing since the people did not look enough like their younger selves.

6

Glad you enjoyed it. I did too, for awhile.

I’d say it got more ridiculous rather than “complicated”. To me, it wasn’t horribly difficult to follow plot-wise. It just got … silly. The deus ex machinas all over the place, the multiple time machines/characters/outcomes. Once interesting drama that turned into over-wrought melodrama.

But mostly, I think it was that there were nothing interesting or likeable about the characters. Neither my wife nor I really gave a crap what happened to any character, which was compounded by the fact that they were wholly inconsistent and practically replaceable.

Again, YMMV, and I hope @EllisDee 's mileage is different than mine.

7

I love foreign shows and watch them frequently. However, this show was so confusing I only made it partway into Season 2. I even tried to make a power point of who was who but it didn’t work out very well lol.

8

Oh, I totally watch any show foreign or not. I just found that during season 3, the final season, I was lost beyond all hope. I did not want to do a full re-watch.

Their second show, 1899, was actually better. Alas, it only got one season.

9

Speaking of the foreign language aspect, I’m watching it with subtitles and find it fascinating how the dubbed words virtually never coincide with the subtitles, though they always convey the same ideas.

10

Interesting! I will have to check out 1899. Never heard of it.

11

I enjoyed Dark but it did get extremely convoluted and confusing the longer it went on. I think I enjoyed the retro 80s feel most.

Just an aside on subtitles, and how they’re often not a direct translation, I noticed for another show on Netflix, Griselda, they translated ‘Washington’ as ‘DC’. Maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to type the extra characters!

12

Mrs. solost and I very much enjoyed the entire series as well, though season 3 really did get way out there. It didn’t help matters that we were watching the seasons as they were released on Netflix, and there was a long gap between S2 and S3 which left me completely lost trying to catch up. I had to heavily reference this ‘Dark’ Wiki to re-aquaiant myself with all the characters and plot lines.

My theory on this is that they change the words to more closely match what it looks like the characters’ lips are saying-- the art of dubbing has gotten much better since the old ‘Godzilla’ movie days. Pay attention to what the dubbing says vs. the subtitles when you can’t see their lips moving, say, when a character’s back is turned. It’s much more likely that the dubbed speech and subtitles will match exactly in those cases.

13

(Missed edit window to add to previous post) BTW, thank you for that video clip. I was familiar with the song, but had never seen that ‘unofficial music video’, and it’s freakin’ hilarious.

14

I made the mistake of taking a break early in the second season, and when I came back to it I was completely lost. But I liked the idea.

15

I’m surprised to hear you say that matching the children and adult character versions was tricky. I had many misgivings with the show, but I thought the casting of the actors was noticeably excellent. Though some of the ‘aging-up’ of actors was fairly crap.

16

I liked it throughout its run, although the first season was the best. I agree that the 3rd season got unnecessarily convoluted and would have been improved by removing one or two of the timelines entirely. But I think they tied it up well at the end, and the conclusion was satisfying.

I had the same challenge keeping track of everyone, especially with the big gaps between seasons. There are a few “family trees” out there that I highly recommend referring to as you watch.

Here’s an old thread about it:

17

I’ve already noticed this, actually, where when the faces are not on screen the dubbed speech matches the subtitles. I had not put it together that the reason might be because they’re trying to match the lip movement better. I like your theory a lot.

18

Thank you very much for this. I searched multiple times but never found that thread; I would have just bumped it if I had. The only one I could find was a thread with six posts about unresolved questions where the OP started by saying they had already watched all three seasons.

19

As I learned when I tried to find that thread, “dark” is a tough word in search. I had the advantage of knowing I’d posted in it, and it still took a little work.

20

I really liked Dark but may not have enjoyed it as much if not for a very helpful discussion thread (at the time of its initial release) at another board.

And, yes, 1899 certainly deserved another season or so imho.