How Dark Does Time Travel Right

To conclude my thoughts, Dark's expansive narrative is enough to leave you perplexed for weeks. Viewers will find themselves threading strings to images in their basements just like the person in the mysterious bunker. Understanding the show's brutal reality is part of the fun. 

Dark is a tale of a small, fictional town of Winden, Germany. The show starts with the death of a character. This major plot point in the middle, oh wait the start, of the show's three seasons has big implications on what is to come. Overall, the start, I mean the end, leaves the viewer satisfied and proud to have completely finished this masterful piece of art.

Does this article seem to be written backwards? Really, it's not: Time is not linear, at least not in the world of Dark. Not only do the events of the past have an effect on the present, but the effects of the future have an effect on the past and present as well. This is what Dark explores as a time-travel narrative that is so intricately woven that you would think Einstein wrote the show. This is why Dark has the most compelling concepts of time travel — better than any show or movie has done before.

When I was about 10 years old, I first saw Back to the Future. That movie is great for what it is, a light-hearted and fun movie about a son who goes back in time and has to fix up his parents so that he doesn't disappear from existence. The movie is full of references and jokes that could only be made in a time-travel movie. Although this is a fun concept, it doesn't make any scientific sense. 

If you're like me, you might have thought about how Marty McFly's appearance in the past would affect his life in the future, but also how events of the future have now affected the past. If Marty's parents never had a third son, he would not have helped Doc create a time machine and gone to the past to "invent rock and roll."  Logically, if Marty actually time traveled to the past, Marty's parents would have experienced the events of the movie in the first place instead of him going back and changing the past. Dark takes this concept and executes it to its fullest. 

The story has a much darker tone than any other time-travel narrative. It revolves around multiple families of Winden who are all intertwined, attempting to solve the case of a series of missing children in the town. It immediately starts in a haunting manner with one of the main characters, Jonas, a teenage boy trying to cope with the death of his father and returning to school only to find things keep getting stranger as more kids continue to go missing and strange events start to re-occur from 33 years prior. Little does everyone know that everything that has happened in their lives has been for a reason and has an effect on all other events in the show. 

Dark achieves one seemingly impossible feat, when it comes to shows and movies about time travel. There are no plot holes. Although time travel is a science-fiction element to the show, they do it in the most realistic way possible. There's no people disappearing from photos live in the moment (Back to the Future) or different timelines co-existing (Avengers Endgame). Everything in Dark makes logistical sense and this adds to its gloomy spookiness and immersion.

The show was expertly thought out and is presented brilliantly to the audience. With Dark, everything is written with a purpose and nothing is left up to chance or interpretation. The writers wrote all three seasons coherently, as it would be the only way to make sure that the story stayed comprehendable. Sometimes shows will have a great idea for a mystery plot, but this often comes with the risk of leaving viewers disappointed with the ending as everyone will have differing expectations of how the show will end. I'm looking at you, Lost. Dark is able to keep the audience engaged not by hiding the mystery but by constantly adding to the layers of the plot. The viewer can't have any expectation of what the finale will be like, as they have had no idea what to expect the entire show.

The plot unwinds over the three seasons, slowly revealing more information to the viewers while still keeping the mystery alive and keeping us on the edge of our seats. There is never a dull episode, as every new thing that we learn can be plotted into this evergrowing story. The setting of a small town works perfectly for this kind of story, giving all the characters and their families huge roles in this looping story. The setting, consisting of dense forest, small winding roads and older houses, adds to the spooky ambiance. There's something about teenagers riding their bikes around town that is haunting. Maybe it's the fact that they are so vulnerable, cycling down roads next to the forest, and at any moment they could be the ones to go missing.

The characters are what really drive this show forward. They are written like real people who we can see throughout different stages in their lives. We get to see their intimate struggles first hand as they are put through tough times searching for missing loved ones with no leads. The casting in this show is done to perfection by finding different actors that look like the exact younger or older versions of their present-day counterparts. This small but crucial element helps viewers comprehend the show. A small detail like this keeps the audience immersed in this cold world. 

Music and sound only adds to the creepy atmosphere. The show will add high-pitched, screetchy sound effects during its spine-chilling moments, creating a sense of even more uneasiness for the viewer. I never touch my clicker when the main theme plays to start each episode. The song, Goodbye by Apparat, is the perfect, emotionally heavy song along with the parallel visuals hinting at the show's themes.

Although time travel and the mystery that comes with it are the main focuses of the show, the romance between the two main characters, Jonas and Martha. From the start, it is clear that they have feelings for each other, but you would never guess how hard it is to get with the person you've been pining for while you are both investigating unsolved missing-person cases in the past, present and future, simultaneously. Seeing where Martha and Jonas's romance will end up is one of the driving forces behind the show, besides the overarching plot. 

I feel as though this show often gets overlooked due to the fact that it is in German or the fact that, on the surface, it can appear similar to the more popular Netflix show, Stranger Things. This show sticks out to anyone who takes the time to watch it, leaving most people thinking about it long after. With all seasons released on Netflix, Dark is the perfect sci-fi thriller to cozy up to this winter. 

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