Dark

Rating: 9/10

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Summary (created using Gemini AI)

Podcast Review: Dark (TV Series)

• Review of the German-Danish TV series ‘Dark’, which aired from 2017 to 2020.
• The reviewer highly recommends the show and describes it as one of their all-time favorites.
• The reviewer praises the show’s unique and complex storytelling.

Review of the TV Series ‘Dark’

• Dark is a mind-blowing TV series created by Baran bo Odar.
• It starts with a child murder and suicide, but the connections are not as expected.
• The series is dense and complex, making it challenging to grasp all its concepts.

Review of the TV series ‘It’

• Initially watched with dubbed English and found it awful.
• Rewatched with German subtitles and original voices, and became hooked.
• Binged through the three series, appreciating the writing and direction.

Dark: Complex and Character-Driven Narrative

• Dark is a show that doesn’t require recaps, as it’s easy to follow despite its large cast of characters.
• The show features around 20-30 significant characters, with 10 being pivotal to the plot.
• Certain characters become more prominent as the series progresses, and some meet their demise.

TV Show’s Character Development and Plot Structure

• The show focuses on 3-4 significant characters in the third season, leading to a satisfying climax.
• The plot gradually unfolds through subtle hints, images, sounds, and links, creating an intriguing narrative.
• The show takes itself seriously and draws parallels to another favorite show, BBC’s His Dark Materials.

Dark and Disturbing TV Series

• A comparison between two TV series, highlighting the adult themes and disturbing nature of one.
• The series raises existential questions and lacks humor or relief, making it emotionally heavy.
• Despite its intensity, the show features well-chosen music and silent sequences with amazing soundtracks.

A Dark and Brooding Atmosphere

• A dark and atmospheric show that pulls viewers into its world.
• Each episode ends with a five-minute summary of key events and character development.
• The music adds to the suspense and tension, leaving viewers eager to see how the characters will resolve their conflicts.

TV Series with Satisfying Storylines

• The TV series has a captivating storyline that keeps viewers engaged and intrigued.
• Each season ends with a brilliant summation, leading into the next season.
• The third season is particularly mind-blowing as various storylines and timelines converge into a cohesive and captivating narrative.

European TV Show with a Satisfying Ending

• The show features a mostly German, Danish, and Scandinavian cast, lesser-known in English-speaking countries.
• The ending is satisfying, with deserving characters receiving appropriate outcomes.
• Lewis Hoffman appears in a significant portion of the show’s episodes.

Introducing the Characters of 1899

• Jonas, a character with a striking face, plays a pivotal role in a European war movie and the series 1899.
• Lisa Vicari, Caroline, Maya, Shona, Andrea, and Andreas are other notable actors in the series.
• The actors chosen for the series possess the ability to convey seriousness and uncertainty effectively.

Exploring Complex Characters in a Post-Apocalyptic Setting

• The show presents a post-apocalyptic world where survival is the norm and living is a rarity.
• Characters range from clearly evil to morally ambiguous, creating a complex web of relationships.
• Viewers develop a connection with all characters, eagerly anticipating their journeys and potential consequences for their actions.

TV Show Review

• Beautiful dialogues and visual poetry in the production design.
• Special effects are good and well used.
• Focuses on human struggles, chemistry, and relationship dynamics.

Revisiting the TV series Dark

• Planning to rewatch the TV series Dark from the beginning.
• Dark is one of the most successful foreign shows on Netflix, with a high rating on IMDb.
• It has attracted a large English-speaking audience despite being a subtitled show.

Review of TV Show: ‘Foret on the Wastelands’

• Highly rated TV show with an IMDb rating of 9 out of 10.
• Praised for its near-perfect execution, but criticized for its occasional melodrama and unrelenting heaviness.
• Despite these minor flaws, the reviewer recommends the show without any desired changes.

Review of a German Movie

• The movie has a beautiful mantra in German, which is the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.
• The reviewer enjoyed the movie and it saved them time by speaking instead of typing the review.
• The reviewer will try to use voice to text to translate the review.

Sharing a Podcast and Show Information

• Posting a podcast about voice recording struggles.
• Will include pictures, links to the trailer, and music from the show.
• Agnes Obel’s song ‘Familiar’ became popular due to the show.

Review of a Show’s Music

• The show’s music is enjoyable, with some familiar tunes.
• The main theme and opening/ending credits are highly regarded.
• The reviewer recommends checking out the song ‘Familiar’ and the main theme.

Review of Dark on the Wasteland

• Encourages listeners to explore more reviews or read written reviews on the site.
• Approximately 200 written reviews are available on the site.

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Full Transcript (created using Gemini AI)

Hello, wherever you are, and welcome to my first attempt at a podcast review, which I’m attempting to do in order to save myself some time and energy. I have some music playing in the background for you today, and that is from the TV show Dark. I hope you can hear my voice over the music as it gently plays in the background. So I’m going to talk about one of my favourite TV shows series of all time.

The 3 series of the German produced German/ Danish produced Dark, which started in 2017 and had its third and final season in 2020. Now people ask me when I recommend dark and I do all the time… It’s 4 years since I watched the final series, and I watched it twice. It was that good, and they say to me, why should I watch It? What makes it different? Is it dark? and the easy answer to that is: Yes, it is dark. It begins with a child murder and a suicide which is connected, but probably not the way that you think, which is true for everything about Dark. Produced written directed by the amazing Baran Bo Odar, and I’m probably pronouncing that wrong.

He’s Danish. He also did the Netflix series 1899, which was wonderful and bizarre in a lot of the same ways as Dark, but didn’t quite hit the same mark. Maybe it was too ambitious. There is a review of that one already on The Wasteland if you want to put it in the search engine and see that in the TV section also.

The reason that I liked dark so much is that it caught me completely by surprise. It was during lockdown, and I was listening to a lot of people commenting, talking about it on-line and saying, what a mind-blowing thing. It was and how difficult it was to get your head around every concept of it because it was so dense and when I went in for the first time I made the cardinal error of  watching it with dubbed English. So, maybe I was tired, I didn’t want to read subtitles. So I tried it and I thought. Oh God, this is awful.

I hate it. Don’t get it I, it’s just, it feels cheap and I left it for a couple of months and then people were still talking about it, so I went back. And I watched it again, as it should be, as God intended with the German subtitles and the real actor’s voices and was immediately hooked.

I can’t remember now if I watched the 1st series in a day or 2 days, but it was fast, I just blitzed through it, binged it, and couldn’t get enough. I was staying up. Late into the early hours of the morning to get more. The way that it’s designed really is that it’s 3 series of 10 episodes, which essentially are 3 x 10 hour movies. If you link it altogether, it links and makes sense and segues perfectly. The writing and the direction are so good that you never feel a jarring, you never really need to watch a recap or previously on Dark, you just get it and if you were to kind of leave a break between episodes, maybe you would get a bit lost. There are a heck of a lot of characters, which is very audacious writing and directing to even attempt that I think they’re probably 20 to 30 characters of significance and of those maybe 10 that are absolutely pivotal and you could call any one of them the lead character of the show, as it goes on, certain characters do become more prevalent, especially in the third series when certain characters… I’m going to try and avoid spoilers by saying too much about… you know, because people die in it.

Characters die, and characters come and go for different reasons. And yeah, by the third series, it kind of focuses on 3 or 4 characters of real significance, which is great. You know, you get this tunnel focusing down to a climax that’s completely satisfying, makes sense, makes you want to go back to the beginning and watch it again and put all the pieces together because when you first started and you’re half way through the first season… you do not have a clue what is happening and you are drip-fed tiny hints and images and sounds and links that make it slowly come together in the most beautiful way, as if a painting has been painted in front of your eyes. And it’s being revealed piece by piece what it’s about.

And I love that about it and I loved that it took itself really, really seriously, you know. There are some parallels between the show and another one of my favourite shows, which was BBC’s, His Dark Materials.

They both have dark in the title. They both have some crossover themes, and where that project felt based towards mid age teens and young adults, this is very adult, and it pulls no punches. It’s, it’s violent, it’s disturbing.

It makes you really question existence and your own place in the world, and in the universe… and there’s no humour. There’s no lead up whatsoever, no relief that you’re going to get to kind of offset the heaviness of it. It is heavy all the time and sometimes the point of you know… you’ve watched 3 or 4 episodes in a row. You need a break.

But it’s all punctuated with some really well chosen music and a device where towards the end of each hour long episode, you’re getting a sequence of about 5 minutes. That is silence over a song, and the soundtrack is amazing.

There is one in the background playing right now. It’s dark and broody and thematic and pulls you into this atmosphere and world and every episode towards the end of the episode, you get 5 minutes, where it kind of sums up, everything that’s been happening and shows you where everyone of the key characters is physically, mentally. Etc. Don’t want to give too much away again, and this is a beautiful device.

And the music just gives you chills down the spine, and as you watch  all these characters that you’ve spent time with brooding over, you don’t know what they’re going to do. How are they going to fix this impossible situation? Everyone has a motive, that’s really deep, a mission and they clash between each other and sometimes characters meet and become on the same plane, but sometimes they, they don’t meet.

It’s just really fascinating how that is always satisfying and makes sense. You never feel so lost that you want to give up. But you feel lost enough and intrigued enough that the mystery is continuing as time goes on. You get a brilliant summation at the end of season, one that’s going to lead into season 2 and at the end of season, 2, you get an amazing cliff-hanger into season 3 and season 3 picks that up. Although I believe it was like a year and a 1/2 between season 2 and season 3 in real-time. I didn’t watch the first 2 seasons in real-time, and I got to the third season as It was first been shown on Netflix and the third season just becomes completely mind-blowing as all these strands of storylines and timelines come together and merge into a beautiful whole that… you know… the fear of watching something that dense is that it isn’t going to be satisfying in the end, and you’re going to be let down and cheated; disappointed, and with dark, you’re not. You get the exact ending that it deserves, and the characters that deserve a good ending get a good ending, and the characters that don’t still get a good ending. Um, the cast is mostly German, Danish, and Scandinavian actors that you probably have never heard of. You can find them if you, if you troll a lot of European cinema and TV shows from Germany and Denmark.

They’re there and they’re famous in that part of the world in the English-speaking countries. In America, in the UK, they’re probably not so well-known. But you have the young Louis Hoffman, who is in 25 out of 30 episodes.

So you could kind of say that he’s one of the main characters… he’s amazing. He’s in a European war movie that I forget the name of but I saw him in that and he was great as well, just a great face, a character that you can really get on side with. Jonas Kahnvald is his name in the show.

You also have Lisa Vicari, Karoline Eichorn, Maja Schone, and Andreas Pietschmann. Andreas is Baran Bo Odar’s main actor: he also took the lead, the very obvious lead in 1899, his subsequent series, and is amazing. He just has a great face as well.

The great presence of all these actors he’s chosen need to look great when they’re serious because they don’t get to smile very often, and they don’t get many moments of relief. They’re always in a state of flux and not panic, but the intention, they’re living in an uncertainty where the consequences of things going wrong is vast,  infinite, and the consequences of things going right seems very remote. So it has that kind of post-apocalyptic feel where everyone is surviving and no one is living, which is also fascinating to watch human beings go through.

You have some really nasty characters in this show that you could quite easily say they’re evil, and that’s their purpose of being, but you also have a lot of characters that are in a very ambiguous state where you like them, but you don’t trust them or they’ve got a character trait that isn’t attractive, but you’re still so curious about where they’re going and who they’re integrating with and the dynamic of how everyone is emerging is so well weaved that you kind of have a relationship to all the characters, whether you like them or not and you just can’t wait to see where their path is going to lead them and if they have demonstrated some evil whether they’re going to get their comeuppance.

In a… in a just way, most of them do. I don’t think that’s a spoiler to say that, but you’ll be very pleased with the way that side of it goes and what else can I say about it? You just have some beautiful dialogue, some very sparse scenes where there’s not much dialogue at all, and the imagery, just in its visual poetry, the… the production design is second to none for a TV show.

There are some special effects that are 9 out of 10. You can see that they’re not high budget movie effects, but they are pretty good, and it’s never jarring. You never go. “I wish they didn’t put that effect in it.” Because that’s a bit rubbish, it’s fine, they’re well used.

And not incongruous in any way, but mostly you’re just watching these human beings struggle and their chemistry and relationships, change, emerge and bloom and yeah, it’s just a beautiful thing. I don’t wanna repeat myself too much. As you can tell by the way I’m enthusiing about it, I absolutely adored everything about it.

It’s been a couple of years since I went back and watched it again, so I’m due to go back to the start, and I’m really excited about that. There aren’t many TV show series that I watched again. I think I’m going to watch that again, completely from start to finish from episode one, and dark is definitely one of those. It’s an absolute keeper!

So, the world agrees with me. A lot of people watched this show that had never watched subtitled shows before. It was one of the most successful foreign shows ever on Netflix. I think it still is very high on that list. If not, the top 5 in the top 10 of foreign language shows that have done really well and been really well watched by an english audience.

Um. IMDb is currently rating an 8.7 out of 10 out of 450000 reviews, which is astonishing. That’s so high.

There’s a handful of TV shows ever that have got a higher rating than that from so many reviews and my IMDb rating for it was 9 out of 10 and my rating for it on The Wasteland is gonna be 9 out of 10. Now, why does it lose a point… When I’m saying that its d*** near perfect is just there is there is a style of it that is a little melodramatic at times and the fact that it is so heavy unrelentingly doesn’t make it as watchable as it could have been if they’d have put some lighter moments in there.

I don’t want them to change it. I don’t want anything to change about it. It’s perfect exactly the way it is. There are just times when you go, “Oh yeah, that was a little heavy-handed a little melodramatic.”

It could have been more subtle, I guess it’s the point but the style of the German Danish feel about it allows it to get away with that. If you had a full-on english translation are a remake that went for the same tone. It wouldn’t work.

It only works in the German language and you know there’s, there’s the beautiful Mantra that a couple of the characters develop, which is “the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end” in German, which I forget what that is at the minute I should have researched that a bit more and remembered it. My daughter can remember it perfectly.

I’m sure we often used to say to each other as we were watching and enjoying it. And uh, yeah, that’s that’s about it. This is going to become 20 minutes by the time I’ve stopped speaking and I think that again is an indication of how much I had to say about it and how much I loved it, and it saved me probably about 3 hours of my life in having to speak this and not type it up. I am going to attempt, actually, to see if my tech will translate my voice into text without me having to edit too much if it turns into a hassle then I won’t bother, but I will try and see if that can be a thing and then on The Wasteland Reviews I will post this voice recording as a podcast. I will also post the text if I can, and I’ll include a lot of pictures, I might include some links to the trailer, which is playing on repeat, as I speak on Netflix. Sorry on IMDb and maybe some links to some of the music as well.

My favourite song from the show was Agnes Obel singing familiar, which became very popular as a consequence of the show and I think it’s… it’s her number one song on Spotify and Amazon Music and wherever you go, if you look for Agnes Obel, who is a brilliant artist anyway, and someone that I knew from before, you can hear Familiar and you can get just… that one piece of music, the tone of the show if you’re in any doubt, whatsoever.

I’m not sure if it’s on this playlist. Actually I might try and find it before we finish, because it would be a good way to finish by playing that, I think this is it, there are a few Agnes Obel tunes in the show, Familiar is the absolute winner, is this her playing Right Now?

It might be okay. I’m not gonna do that, but you should really check out the song Familiar and the main theme to the show as well, which oh yeah, on a closing note the opening credits and the end credits of this show are one of the best of all time and that’s been voted on. People have agreed that every time you see the opening credits, you are intrigued and pulled in.

OK, that’s 20 minutes. Thank you for listening to this review of Dark on The Wasteland if you enjoyed it go and search out more, you can listen to more reviews shortly or you can go back and track all my written reviews that exist on the site already, as I say there’s about 200 on there. Thank you very much, and I’ll speak to you next time.

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