Dark - General Discussion

[Aliferously]

Episodes 3.03 and 3.04.

- Way too many Marthas. Or versions thereof.

-Am I bummed that I couldn't find the Ariadne song they used at the end of 3.04, yes I am (it's called the Labyrinth Song, and it's not available anywhere that I could find.

[Paloma]

5 hours ago, Aliferously said:

-Am I bummed that I couldn't find the Ariadne song they used at the end of 3.04, yes I am (it's called the Labyrinth Song, and it's not available anywhere that I could find.

Is it this one? (also called In a Box II) 

 

[marinw]

Another great song from Season 3 is "In the woods somewhere"

I do wonder why the final song was a cover of "It's a wonderful world" instead of something original.

Edited July 11, 2020 by marinw

[marinw]

Dumb question: Did the Nuclear Meltdown effect the who planet. or just the Windem part of Germany? In one of the rainy late 2020 scenes some soilder guy told Elizabeth that they were quarantining the area and all the survivors within. Correct me if Iheard that wrong.

Edited July 12, 2020 by marinw

[Paloma]

52 minutes ago, marinw said:

Dumb question: Did the Nuclear Meltdown effect the who planet. or just the Windem part of Germany? In one of the rainy late 2020 scenes some soilder guy told Elizabeth that they were quarantining the area and all the survivors within. Correct me if Iheard that wrong.

Not a dumb question at all. I think I heard a soldier say something similar about quarantining, but I also thought there were some news reports on TV indicating that there were worldwide disturbances. However, the worldwide disturbances might have been related to the suspension of time at the time of the apocalypse--the same suspension of time that allowed Jonas and alt-Martha to go to the Origin World. But I am really just guessing here.

[overtherainbow]

I never quite get half of what is going on and follow all the characters completely but I must say the soundtrack in all three seasons has been fantastic!

Edited July 13, 2020 by overtherainbow

[Tardislass]

No spoilers, but what a satisfying and well-plotted ending. Haven't loved an ending this much since the British Office. The casting, music and actors fit together perfectly. Only thing is I'm going to miss looking forward to a new season. Plus if I'm ever in Germany during the apocalypse, I know a lot of vocabulary!

 

[tennisgurl]

So I am through season one, and without looking at the rest of the thread to get spoilers, my quick thoughts...

This show gives me a Stranger Things kind of vibe, with the partial 80s setting, the missing kids, the angsty teens, the overwhelmed small town cops, the small seemingly normal town with weird things happening, the dark scary places...except everyone needs all kinds of Prozac. 

Also, maybe its the German setting, but it also kind of reminds of of Grims fairy tales, with the dark scary woods filled with dangers for kids who wander off the path. 

I am clearly going to need some kind of chart to keep up with who is who in which time period and how everyone is connected and who is sleeping with who or is the past or present or future versions of characters or related to who or who hates who and where everyone is during which time period. Can I borrow their murder/time travel board? 

Way to go Ulrich, you probably went and started the chain of events that will lead to the murders in the future in the first place in your half assed attempt at the "would you kill baby Hitler" question. Havent you ever seen a time travel movie, you probably just fulfilled a stable time loop!

Poor poor Jonas. Also, in a cast full of people that are frequently pretty awful, Hannah is The Worst. Its kind of hard for me to hate most of the characters even when they do really crappy things, but I just cant with Hannah, kid Hannah or adult Hannah. 

I am really liking the show, its creepy and twisty and the characters are deeply flawed but fascinating, and its super confusing but it seems like they actually do have some kind of plan where things will be explained and while time travel can be overused or used badly, this is a pretty unique take on the idea, with the magic time cave and the repeating of similar events every few years and some kind of mysteries people doing experiments, but all done in a way thats both stylistic and minimalist. Thematically, its interesting that they seem to be looking at both peoples destinies in the universe and how things repeat over and over in some kind of time loop mixed with time travel and people from different times going back and fourth, as well as people repeating their own mistakes and the mistakes of their parents over and over again and being unable to let go of the past. 

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

So I am through season one, and without looking at the rest of the thread to get spoilers, my quick thoughts...

This show gives me a Stranger Things kind of vibe, with the partial 80s setting, the missing kids, the angsty teens, the overwhelmed small town cops, the small seemingly normal town with weird things happening, the dark scary places...except everyone needs all kinds of Prozac. 

Also, maybe its the German setting, but it also kind of reminds of of Grims fairy tales, with the dark scary woods filled with dangers for kids who wander off the path. 

I am clearly going to need some kind of chart to keep up with who is who in which time period and how everyone is connected and who is sleeping with who or is the past or present or future versions of characters or related to who or who hates who and where everyone is during which time period. Can I borrow their murder/time travel board? 

Way to go Ulrich, you probably went and started the chain of events that will lead to the murders in the future in the first place in your half assed attempt at the "would you kill baby Hitler" question. Havent you ever seen a time travel movie, you probably just fulfilled a stable time loop!

Poor poor Jonas. Also, in a cast full of people that are frequently pretty awful, Hannah is The Worst. Its kind of hard for me to hate most of the characters even when they do really crappy things, but I just cant with Hannah, kid Hannah or adult Hannah. 

I am really liking the show, its creepy and twisty and the characters are deeply flawed but fascinating, and its super confusing but it seems like they actually do have some kind of plan where things will be explained and while time travel can be overused or used badly, this is a pretty unique take on the idea, with the magic time cave and the repeating of similar events every few years and some kind of mysteries people doing experiments, but all done in a way thats both stylistic and minimalist. Thematically, its interesting that they seem to be looking at both peoples destinies in the universe and how things repeat over and over in some kind of time loop mixed with time travel and people from different times going back and fourth, as well as people repeating their own mistakes and the mistakes of their parents over and over again and being unable to let go of the past. 

I'll avoid any spoilers but just say that there are definitely places online where you can get some things spelled out in terms of keeping track of everything--it's helpful! Because it does get confusing, I agree. For me, I agreed with a blog post I read where the person said it didn't really remind them of Stranger Things because the tone was so different--it felt more like Twin Peaks.

Also, I will say that I thought the ending seemed logical and thematically consistent and interesting. I've been rewatching it (it really is confusing so it's helping to go back) and it really does feel like they knew exactly where they were going from the start.

[gail56]

I just binged watched this, the whole 3 seasons in a row, over the past few days. I think is easier to keep up with things this way. Things stay fresher in your mind, like who is who and where and when they are. I really liked it except for many of my favorites going *poof* in the end. Still, I liked the resolution and the reveal of the true origin.

[bannana]

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

So I am through season one, and without looking at the rest of the thread to get spoilers, my quick thoughts...

 

Check out Pete Pepper's You Tube. Wish I had discovered it earlier, it helps explain a lot as you go through the series.

[overtherainbow]

23 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

This show gives me a Stranger Things kind of vibe, with the partial 80s setting, the missing kids, the angsty teens, the overwhelmed small town cops, the small seemingly normal town with weird things happening, the dark scary places...except everyone needs all kinds of Prozac. 

I see it, though IMHO Dark is miles more thought-provoking and underrated than ST and this is coming from someone who has never cared much for anything to do with time travel. Seeing it all come full circle in the end is very satisfying – well worth the wait time between seasons.

I feel like I maybe would have gotten more from it if I had taken notes and watched videos better explaining things early on but I think I preferred just watching it play out and not analysing too closely.

[wanderingstar]

I just finished season 3, and I have SO many things to say (I took notes while I watched!) I'm still processing the finale, but for now, I will just say, I loved the elegant way they wrapped up the story. Beautifully done by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar. Want to see what they do next!

[jcin617]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:00 PM, Paloma said:

Not a dumb question at all. I think I heard a soldier say something similar about quarantining, but I also thought there were some news reports on TV indicating that there were worldwide disturbances. However, the worldwide disturbances might have been related to the suspension of time at the time of the apocalypse--the same suspension of time that allowed Jonas and alt-Martha to go to the Origin World. But I am really just guessing here.

That is exactly what happened.  It was mentioned (on the news report) that the incident in Winden was believed to have caused a momentary pause in time, which threw everything on the planet out-of-whack, in particular the weather.   So the whole planet was suffering as a result. 

[Ottis]

How are there not episode threads for Dark? How hard is it to create that?

Anyway, through S3, E4. I have to admit I’ve lost track of who is where and the various relationships. I can follow the general gist. IMO the show is unnecessarily convoluted.

So many people commented on the music. You can tell when music is poorly chosen... it takes you out of the show (like I experience on Hannah). This show feels a lot like Man in the High Castle to me, and the music does as well. 

[sistermagpie]

34 minutes ago, Ottis said:

How are there not episode threads for Dark? How hard is it to create that?

I think there needs to be a forum for that. For many shows, this one included, there's just a thread, not a whole forum. Some shows had a forum that was later locked and replaced with a thread. The site decides what needs what.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of the end wrt the complicated feeling.

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by sistermagpie

[scrb]

Slogging through season 3, on ep. 7.

Liked the first two seasons but season 3 became really unwieldy, with all these permutations of different time points, two universes and characters of different ages at different times, in the two worlds.

I stopped trying to keep track of them all.  There seemed to be climaxes but turned out to be many fakeouts, like the nuclear plant disasters, death of Martha, death of 2019 Jonas, but then it turns out there’s another 2019 Jonas.  Then several Marthas in both worlds at different times.

I will see it through but where it ends may not be quite as stunning or satisfactory.

Some things I question, it’s doubtful that the God Particle could be contained by steel drum.  The first apocalypse, they broke through a half foot of concrete.  OK we know from Chernobyl sarcophagus that that won’t even keep normal radiation contained let alone this thing that explodes like a nuclear bomb, as well as allowing time travel.  Another time, the drums are not buried in concrete so Claudia opens it herself.

They also showed all these different ways to time travel and apparently go between 2 worlds.  Of course it’s poetic license, but they keep coming up with different devices.   Maybe they realized after like a dozen eps. that they wanted all these different time period scenes and all these different characters flitting through time that they couldn’t all crawl through the caves or steal Tannahaus’ device from each other back and forth.  So they came up with these globes too.

[sistermagpie]

10 minutes ago, scrb said:

They also showed all these different ways to time travel and apparently go between 2 worlds.  Of course it’s poetic license, but they keep coming up with different devices.   Maybe they realized after like a dozen eps. that they wanted all these different time period scenes and all these different characters flitting through time that they couldn’t all crawl through the caves or steal Tannahaus’ device from each other back and forth.  So they came up with these globes too.

I'm sure they must have known all that in advance. From the start they have the cave (version 1) and the chair (version 2), and by mid S2 they have a picture of the ball type explaining how they have to follow the evolution of the machines even though probably none of them have true origins, just like with the box machine.

[Ottis]

19 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I think there needs to be a forum for that. For many shows, this one included, there's just a thread, not a whole forum. Some shows had a forum that was later locked and replaced with a thread. The site decides what needs what.

Correct. So why isn't there a forum for Dark? In which could be placed threads?

[sistermagpie]

1 minute ago, Ottis said:

Correct. So why isn't there a forum for Dark? In which could be placed threads?

I assume they decide which shows get forums based on how much interest the think they'll get, since shows that are no longer current often get converted to a thread.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I read where the person said it didn't really remind them of Stranger Things because the tone was so different--it felt more like Twin Peaks.

I think it's an insult to compare Dark to Twin Peaks. I enjoyed the first season of Twin Peaks but it eventually gave way to style over substance. I couldn't make head nor tail of the recent reboot and gave up after a couple episodes. Dark never feels like it's trying to be overly clever or deliberately confusing (except for when people can't seem to answer a straightforward question). It's certainly not trying to be overly stylish either. It's just much better storytelling all around IMO. 

Quote

Correct. So why isn't there a forum for Dark? In which could be placed threads?

Streaming shows aren't really conducive to episode threads because people tend to binge them and want to discuss the overall season rather than the individual episodes. There are some streaming shows with individual episode threads but they are sparsely active, and most of the comments wind up in the final episode thread.

[sistermagpie]

56 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I think it's an insult to compare Dark to Twin Peaks. I enjoyed the first season of Twin Peaks but it eventually gave way to style over substance. I couldn't make head nor tail of the recent reboot and gave up after a couple episodes. Dark never feels like it's trying to be overly clever or deliberately confusing (except for when people can't seem to answer a straightforward question). It's certainly not trying to be overly stylish either. It's just much better storytelling all around IMO. 

I took it more to mean that the type of town was more like in Twin Peaks, where people have histories or secrets, as compared to Stranger Things which is so nostalgic, even when it's scary. But I agree, that's not really enough to make one like the other in any significant way. If somebody liked Twin Peaks I wouldn't so they would therefore like Dark or vice versa. Except for, like you said, people never answering straightforward questions. LOL. But tbf, eventually on Dark they do!

58 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Streaming shows aren't really conducive to episode threads because people tend to binge them and want to discuss the overall season rather than the individual episodes. There are some streaming shows with individual episode threads but they are sparsely active, and most of the comments wind up in the final episode thread.

That's what I assumed too. Weekly shows really suit the forum experience but with streaming shows there's no natural symmetry there, even if it's sometimes frustrating not to be able to just talk about it episode by episode. I just waited until I'd finished the whole season of Dark before reading the thread at all.

[scrb]

I think that forest is Twin Peaks like.

Seems odd for kids to walk through the forest by themselves.  Small town, little crime usually?

But kids went missing so why would they be walking through the forest in the dark, alone?  If not people who may do you harm, are there animals to worry about?

You definitely get some kind of mystic vibe about the forest or the unknown.

 

[marinw]

37 minutes ago, scrb said:

 Seems odd for kids to walk through the forest by themselves Small town, little crime usually?

Eureopean children on average tend to be more "Free Range" than American or Canadain kids. They also ride bikes without helmets!

39 minutes ago, scrb said:

You definitely get some kind of mystic vibe about the forest or the unknown

Agian, I compare this show to 12 Monkeys, which also featured a lot of forest and convoluted time travel.

[sistermagpie]

19 minutes ago, marinw said:

Eureopean children on average tend to be more "Free Range" than American or Canadain kids. They also ride bikes without helmets!

Plenty of the show takes place in 1986 and earlier, when American kid would be just as free range. It's really only the small window of the 2020 era on the show where anybody in the US would question it either, since I'm assuming it was hard to be a helicopter parent post- apocalypse.

[wanderingstar]

On 7/5/2020 at 9:28 AM, marinw said:

Another show I compare Dark to is 12 Monkeys.

Same. The more I watched this show, the more it made me recall 12 Monkeys. I'm a sucker for time travel stories (SyFy's Continuum is another favorite of mine). 

[wanderingstar]

Love this recap of the finale

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, Gillian Rosh said:

Love this recap of the finale

Thanks for sharing--I read a lot of recaps and explanations but missed this one, and it is satisfying and elegant.

[wanderingstar]

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Thanks for sharing--I read a lot of recaps and explanations but missed this one, and it is satisfying and elegant.

I've loved reading Sean T. Collins' recaps of the show since season 1. I think he's got a fun - and clear - writing style.

[dbklmt]

On 7/20/2020 at 3:12 PM, Gillian Rosh said:

Love this recap of the finale

As Paloma said Thanks for sharing!  Like you I've love the recaps done by Sean T. Collins.  I've kept them all to read again and again in my Dark (TV Series) scrapbook/journal.  I hadn't seen the final episode recap until you posted the link 😃.  Danke schon 

 

[enchantingmonkey]

On 7/16/2020 at 2:42 PM, tennisgurl said:

Way to go Ulrich, you probably went and started the chain of events that will lead to the murders in the future in the first place in your half assed attempt at the "would you kill baby Hitler" question. Havent you ever seen a time travel movie, you probably just fulfilled a stable time loop!

I think you may be on to something!  *giggle*

 

Am I the only one who likes Hannah???

[Paloma]

2 hours ago, enchantingmonkey said:

Am I the only one who likes Hannah???

Probably (sorry). Even in the final scene, when origin world Hannah wasn't acting like a terrible person, she still somehow seemed worse than the others at the table. But I guess at that point my opinion of her was so solidly "she's the worst" that she couldn't be redeemed.

[iMonrey]

Since there was no Ulrich in the origin world, that means Hannah never accused him of raping Katherina. That said, by that age she was already capable of doing something like that. And that's when the origin world split, so it's not as if the time paradox is what caused her to go bad. She was already messed up, for whatever reason, by that point in her life. We don't know what she's been up to in the origin world since then, but we know she has that inside of her.

[sistermagpie]

15 hours ago, enchantingmonkey said:

Am I the only one who likes Hannah???

It's possible...

[wanderingstar]

21 hours ago, Paloma said:

Am I the only one who likes Hannah???

No, you're not alone - I like Hannah too. Always have. Loved the ending she got.

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, Gillian Rosh said:

23 hours ago, Paloma said:

Am I the only one who likes Hannah???

No, you're not alone - I like Hannah too. Always have. Loved the ending she got.

Oh, no, you quoted the wrong person--that wasn't me (Paloma) who asked if I was the only one who likes Hannah! It was @enchantingmonkey who said that. I am firmly in the anti-Hannah camp!

[wanderingstar]

49 minutes ago, Paloma said:

Oh, no, you quoted the wrong person--that wasn't me (Paloma) who asked if I was the only one who likes Hannah! It was @enchantingmonkey who said that. I am firmly in the anti-Hannah camp!

Ha! This is what I get for not reading properly!

Anyway - @enchantingmonkey - I have always loved Hannah. She is treacherous beyond belief, but I love watching her. Katharina was also a favorite of mine.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Gillian Rosh

[wanderingstar]

Need to take a moment to shout out the music supervisor for Dark. The songs chosen for each episode - from seasons 1 through 3 - were phenomenal. From Agnes Obel to Bloc Party to Ry X, this show made me discover a bunch of awesome artists. And the way they used music on this show was phenomenal. It never felt like overkill. They always managed to pair the music with the images to haunting, eerie effect.

That's just another reason that I will miss this show.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Gillian Rosh

[Lakebum]

I made it thru episode 4 of Season 3, but just didn't care enough to keep going. It's not just that the plot was confusing and it was hard the keep the various iterations of characters straight (as well as know which year/universe they were in); I just stopped caring about any of the characters. BUT, the music in the show was consistently awesome.

[Ottis]

Finally finished season 3. Thought about it, and for what it was the ending was touching and well done, but I am not a fan of introducing a whole new explanation at the very end that we have never seen nor suspected throughout the series. You *might* have wondered at some point

Spoiler

if there was a third world, because of the drawing

, but there was no reason to suspect it. And what we learn in the last episode is critical to the whole show. Cheap trick.

[Natalie25]

On 7/30/2020 at 12:00 AM, Lakebum said:

I made it thru episode 4 of Season 3, but just didn't care enough to keep going. It's not just that the plot was confusing and it was hard the keep the various iterations of characters straight (as well as know which year/universe they were in); I just stopped caring about any of the characters. BUT, the music in the show was consistently awesome.

If you're up for it, I'd urge you to watch at least the next episode - I found the first part of season 3 slow as well, but I thought episode 5 was fantastic. Definitely the best episode of the season for me, if not the whole series. It's a heavy/emotional episode, but very well done.

On 8/2/2020 at 9:23 PM, Ottis said:

Finally finished season 3. Thought about it, and for what it was the ending was touching and well done, but I am not a fan of introducing a whole new explanation at the very end that we have never seen nor suspected throughout the series. You *might* have wondered at some point

  Hide contents

if there was a third world, because of the drawing

, but there was no reason to suspect it. And what we learn in the last episode is critical to the whole show. Cheap trick.

I agree! Overall the show wrapped up well, but season 3 had a very different atmosphere from the previous 2 seasons, and while some of the individual episodes are great, it's definitely the weakest season for me. I almost wish they had introduced the parallel world earlier on in season 2, or extended the final season by an episode or 2. And for so much to hinge on Eva - a character we don't really know - just didn't work as well for me. 

[tennisgurl]

I was surprised that the show didnt end with a time traveling Batman showing up to grab young Jonas by his shirt and ask him why he kept saying Martha...

Sorry, couldn't help it. Thank you everyone for adding in all those recaps and videos explaining all of the family relationships and timelines and what not, I was getting seriously confused and they were really helpful. As complicated as the show got, I think they wrapped things up really well, I found the ending very satisfactory. They tied things up really well, answering a lot of questions but also leaving things ambiguous, especially the ending. I like to think that this version of Jonas gets born and manages to finally have a nice life free of caves and evil future selves and that he and Martha finally broke the knot, but we dont know for sure. 

Once I started getting the hang of the plot, I started to really appreciate things like the cinematography, the way that they showed how each period was which period without going overboard (a lot of the earlier times are were almost shot like they were brown) the affects used to show the changing of time, the soundtrack, it just had a lot of great things going on. 

Hannah is still The Worst, even if I did actually feel bad for her when Adam/Future Jonas killed her. Everyone on this show is a mess to varying degrees, and she wasn't responsible for most of the most horrible things that happened, but her crappy behavior was always just so...petty. At least when, say, Claudia left her dad to die, or basically anything Adam did or had done at his word, those were things that they thought were necessary to save the world or to save people they loved. Not saying it was right, but it was at least a reason. Hannah does crappy stuff, like ditching Ulrich in the 50s mental institution, out of sheer pettiness and selfishness. 

I had heard some people comparing this show to Stranger Things, which I can kind of get with the 80s stuff, but I agree with posters above that it felt more like Twin Peaks, but more moody and existential and a bit less surreal. The show was confusing, but not in a deliberately surreal way that Twin Peaks was, so even when I was confused, I knew that things would be explained later, and that there was clearly some kind of a plan to the story. Really, with so many balls in the air and so many characters and so many connections (I swear like seven people became their own grandparents) and alternate worlds and increasing time periods, I am really impressed at how well they managed to keep everything straight and wrapped everything up so well. 

[lidarose9]

I tried to watch Season 3. I realized immediately I had forgotten *everything* and was completely lost, so went back and watched the first two seasons all over again and then tried again. Viewed all together, I got frustrated with the ever-increasing complexity of the storylines and timelines. I was actually taking notes! But after a while I gave up trying to keep it all straight and just soldiered on to the end.  

Random thoughts:

Superb acting throughout, fantastic direction, wonderful cinematography. I love stories that include woods and forests. If you like that too, you might want to check out Black Spot, a French show that features a very creepy forest. 

I thought we had it bad when we had to keep track of two versions of each character in two timelines. THEN we added more timelines, more versions, then Season 3 threw in the parallel universe thing. I can barely remember where I put my glasses, for Gott's sake. 

I agree with the poster above who said it's a cheap trick to introduce this flashy new twist in the last 2 episodes that neatly explains everything. It made sense and held together, I guess, but it is a sloppy storytelling technique, imho. 

Also very much loved the music throughout. 

This show could do with a drinking game where everybody takes a shot when you hear that descending violin glissando, which signals to the viewer something creepy just happened or is happening. Or every time someone gives a sonorous monologue about the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end..... Or every time someone tells someone else not to trust (x) and that (x) is lying to you. You'd be roaring drunk. 

Though I am generally thumbs up on this show, I am still brimming over with unanswered questions. Can someone please explain to me the Hairlip Trio? Who were they and why were they running around randomly killing people? Why did it take three of them? Why did the admin at the power plant have to die? Did anybody ever help the French delegation? It became evident by the end that a bunch of the storylines were just for fun and had nothing to do with the actual plot. Such as Claussen. Nothing about Alexander's past or Hannah's attempts to blackmail him had anything to do with the time travel plot, no? Other than emphasizing to us what a dick Hannah was. Why did young Noah have to kill the guy who was digging the tunnel with him? What was the deal with that guy's tattoo? And what was the point of the tunnel anyhow? 

Why did we need to see Agnes Nielsen and Tronte come to live with the Tiedemanns? And Tronte's affair with Claudia, and Agnes' affair with Egon's wife... and why was Helge's mother such a bitch, and who the hell had a child (Peter) with Helge? We learn at the end that Charlotte actually was the clock man's granddaughter, but earlier he told her he was not. He said two women appeared with a baby (Charlotte): who were they? I raised my eyebrows when we were told that Claudia's whole motivation was to "save Regina." How did she do that and was she not motivated to try to save the world from nuclear holocaust? (For that matter, we never got a coherent explanation of how exactly this nuclear "event" worked together with the clock man's device to cause Armageddon. Or if we did, it went right over my head.) What was going on with the dead children who were kidnapped and held in the bunker and why were their eyes burned? and why was the bunker fitted out to look like 1986? Why did Noah give Charlotte's watch to Elizabeth? I could go on and on. 

I do think this show tried to do too much and got too clever for itself. I think it would have been a tighter, better story with about 1/3 of the storylines cut. I don't think you should have to read a bunch of blog posts and recaps to follow the basic plot of a show. On the other hand, it's refreshing to see a show that doesn't spoon-feed explanations to you. 

Whatever its sins, I am willing to forgive them for one reason: the examination of "Paradise" in the final episodes. When we see Martha and Jonas realize they can't exist in the origin world, of course it's sad -- but then they evaporate and it's so beautiful and natural, along with the others who don't exist in the origin world. And then Hannah's explanation when she says nonexistence isn't so bad -- that it felt like a relief, to be at peace. That worked beautifully against expectations. Everybody was trying to save someone they love, trying to find someone who was lost, to hang onto someone, and it seemed to be asking us to consider that letting go, allowing someone or something to pass away -- it doesn't have to be a tragedy. I really love that.  

Oh, and count me along with the others who think in the closing dinner party, Peter's date was with Benni. 

 

[sistermagpie]

On 8/7/2020 at 6:34 PM, lidarose9 said:

I agree with the poster above who said it's a cheap trick to introduce this flashy new twist in the last 2 episodes that neatly explains everything. It made sense and held together, I guess, but it is a sloppy storytelling technique, imho. 

I've been considering this, and I feel like on the one hand there is always the fact that three is a really important number throughout, especially with the notebook symbol, is a clue. But really it's that I just don't see how it could have been hinted at sooner when the whole point was that our main characters are locked in a loop with each other because they don't suspect there's another world. Thematically, it always came back to holding onto things creating misery so you need to let go. They kept trying to save worlds that could never be saved because they were completely deterministic. They maybe even sprung to life fully-formed in terms of everything that happened at once, like a book appearing already written.

I'm going to try to answer questions I think I know a little, but I could be wrong since it's been a few weeks since I watched it.

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Though I am generally thumbs up on this show, I am still brimming over with unanswered questions. Can someone please explain to me the Hairlip Trio? Who were they and why were they running around randomly killing people? Why did it take three of them?

They were the son of Jonas and alt-Martha and they were killing people for the usual reason on this show, simply to make the past fit the future they knew was supposed to happen. It didn't always require three of them, but it wasn't unusual for different versions of each a character to work together. The Unknown (who they were) thought they were the reason these two universes existed. Adam was trying to change time so that they were never born, Eve (with the Unknown's help) was trying to make sure he did get born.

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Why did the admin at the power plant have to die?

They were making sure the power plant would be built--the admin was opposing it. There's no power plant in the origin world.

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Did anybody ever help the French delegation?

I assume the apocalypse took care of whatever they wanted to talk to Claudia about!

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It became evident by the end that a bunch of the storylines were just for fun and had nothing to do with the actual plot. Such as Claussen. Nothing about Alexander's past or Hannah's attempts to blackmail him had anything to do with the time travel plot, no? Other than emphasizing to us what a dick Hannah was.

Those storylines didn't have to do with time travel, but they were showing people not wanting to let go of something which was pretty central to the theme of the show, so I thought that was the idea there.

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Why did young Noah have to kill the guy who was digging the tunnel with him?

The young guy Noah killed was his father Bartosz. He killed him, presumably, to make the timeline work out. He killed him when he saw that Bartosz was getting ready to stop supporting Adam, just as Adam probably told him he would. (Later when Noah loses faith, his sister kills him.)

 

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What was the deal with that guy's tattoo?

Adam/Jonas eventually became a sort of cult figure and the tattoo just marked Bartosz as a believer. That tattoo has meaning to them, like the painting.

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And what was the point of the tunnel anyhow? 

The tunnel was the first version of a time machine. Despite the fact that the time machine had no logical origin story (it was one of the many things that existed because it already existed), all forms of it still had to exist as if one was building on the other. So first the cave, then the chair, then the box and then finally the ball.

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Why did we need to see Agnes Nielsen and Tronte come to live with the Tiedemanns?

We didn't have to see it, but it established that Ulrich's father was Tronte, who would later turn out to be the son of Jonas and alt-Martha.

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And Tronte's affair with Claudia, and Agnes' affair with Egon's wife... and why was Helge's mother such a bitch, and who the hell had a child (Peter) with Helge?

Tronte's affair with Claudia was important because he and everyone else thought he was Regina's father, and that would have made her part of the loop. We don't know exactly why Helge's mother was such a bitch or who Peter's father was, but there was, after all, a whole soap opera aspect to the history of the town usually involving longing for something you couldn't have. Plus Helge's weirdness made him vulnerable to Noah etc.

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We learn at the end that Charlotte actually was the clock man's granddaughter, but earlier he told her he was not. He said two women appeared with a baby (Charlotte): who were they?

The two women were Charlotte herself and Elisabeth, who stole Charlotte from Noah and slightly younger Elisabeth. Our Charlotte was *not* Doppler's ETA: Tannhaus's granddaughter. Our Charlotte's grandfathers were Helge  Peter and Bartosz.

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I raised my eyebrows when we were told that Claudia's whole motivation was to "save Regina." How did she do that and was she not motivated to try to save the world from nuclear holocaust?

She didn't want to save the world, she wanted to get rid of both worlds, like Adam did. Regina always died in the world they lived in. But in the origin world she was fine.

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(For that matter, we never got a coherent explanation of how exactly this nuclear "event" worked together with the clock man's device to cause Armageddon. Or if we did, it went right over my head.)

From what I understood, the apocalypse had to do with stuff at the nuclear plant. Doppeler's Tannhaus's device in the origin world didn't cause it, it created the two universes we were watching by splitting time.

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What was going on with the dead children who were kidnapped and held in the bunker and why were their eyes burned? and why was the bunker fitted out to look like 1986?

The dead children were part of an experiment to create a time machine. The room looked like 1986 because that's when it was built, iirc. When the experiment didn't work, right their eyes got burnt out.

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Why did Noah give Charlotte's watch to Elizabeth? I could go on and on. 

Sentimental reasons. He was giving a watch with his daughter's name on it to his future wife, telling her to give it to their daughter with whom she lived. The watch was another symbol of grief--the engraving was originally for a wife who died back in the 19th century.

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by sistermagpie

[lidarose9]

@sistermagpie Thank you so much for those answers! Now I need to watch Season 3 over again... 

[Paloma]

On 8/7/2020 at 8:25 PM, sistermagpie said:

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Why did young Noah have to kill the guy who was digging the tunnel with him?

The young guy Noah killed was his father Bartosz. He killed him, presumably, to make the timeline work out. He killed him when he saw that Bartosz was getting ready to stop supporting Adam, just as Adam probably told him he would.

Do we know for a fact that this was Bartosz? I know a lot of viewers think it was, but I didn't think he resembled Bartosz at all, and the show was usually good at having actors who were believable as different ages of themselves. 

On 8/7/2020 at 8:25 PM, sistermagpie said:

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We learn at the end that Charlotte actually was the clock man's granddaughter, but earlier he told her he was not. He said two women appeared with a baby (Charlotte): who were they?

The two women were Charlotte herself and Elisabeth, who stole Charlotte from Noah and slightly younger Elisabeth. Our Charlotte was *not* Doppler's granddaughter. Our Charlotte's grandfathers were Helge and Bartosz.

Your answers to the questions have been great, but you lost me here. First, which one does "Our Charlotte" refer to? Second, I thought the clockmaker / time machine maker was named Tannhaus, not Doppler. Helge's last name was Doppler. And can you remind me of how Charlotte's grandfathers were Helge and Bartosz? (I probably understood this while watching but have already forgotten.)

On 8/7/2020 at 8:25 PM, sistermagpie said:

From what I understood, the apocalypse had to do with stuff at the nuclear plant. Doppler's device in the origin world didn't cause it, it created the two universes we were watching by splitting time.

Again, I think you are mixing up Doppler and Tannhaus. Wasn't it Tannhaus who created the device in the origin world that created the two universes?

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Do we know for a fact that this was Bartosz? I know a lot of viewers think it was, but I didn't think he resembled Bartosz at all, and the show was usually good at having actors who were believable as different ages of themselves. 

We do definitely know that was Bartosz. I thought he did look like him, myself. But iirc, we saw Bartosz at the birth of both his kids and the first time he's played by the actor we know, and the second he's that other actor. At least that's how I remember it.

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Your answers to the questions have been great, but you lost me here. First, which one does "Our Charlotte" refer to? Second, I thought the clockmaker / time machine maker was named Tannhaus, not Doppler. Helge's last name was Doppler. And can you remind me of how Charlotte's grandfathers were Helge and Bartosz? (I probably understood this while watching but have already forgotten.)

Sorry--I did totally make a mistake there. The clockmaker is Tannhaus, yes. Charlotte's last name is Doppler, but that's by marriage and I just confused the name. Her last name is Doppler because she's married to Helge's son.

When I said Our Charlotte, I was referring to the character we watched throughout the show. There is another Charlotte in the Origin world who is the actual biological granddaughter of Origin World Tannhaus. That baby died with her parents, Tannhaus's son and daughter-in-law, inspiring him to make the time machine. That baby did also have a counterpart in the universes we watched. Tannhaus showed Charlotte a picture of her with her parents and said they all died the same way as they did in the origin world. So there's Charlotte, Tannhaus's biological granddaughter, Charlotte, Tannhaus's adopted granddaughter (the character we knew best) and there was even another Charlotte back in the 19th century who was the woman the watch was, iirc, originally made for, but we never knew her either. That was maybe meant as a little bit of a reflection, that there was another Dead Charlotte.

Oh, and I forgot to add--I made another mistake. Helge is not Charlotte's grandfather, he is Charlotte's great grandfather. Charlotte's grandfather is actually her own husband, Peter Doppler, so Helge's her great grandfather. Because Peter's daughter is Elisabeth, who is Charlotte's mother.

 

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Again, I think you are mixing up Doppler and Tannhaus. Wasn't it Tannhaus who created the device in the origin world that created the two universes?

Yup, I totally mixed up the names and when you're talking about this show mixing up a name is like creating yet another universe! You're absolutely right that it's Tannhaus who created the time machine. Doppler is Helge and his father Berndt, who is also the secret father of Regina Teidemann.

Edited August 9, 2020 by sistermagpie

[edhopper]

I enjoyed the show very much. I thought it was both very smart and very riveting. It did take some time to keep track of everything, I needed at least the first season to remember who was who at different ages. But once I did it was easier to follow. And though the show did a good job of keeping us in the dark (pun intended) the revelations that dripped out worked to help form a bigger and bigger picture. I found the end very satisfying.

At first I thought Claudia telling us there was a third original world was out of left field. But as the last episode wound it's way, it made perfect sense. The two criticisms I do have is I think it went on al little long, sometime in the second half of the 2nd season and begining of the 3rd there was a redundancy of telling different loop stories. While some did figure into the overall plot, it did have a repetitious feel. Also got weary of people meeting their older selves or older versions of others and just doing what ever they say.

And then there is Jonas. Every time someone asks him something he just stands there, mouth agape for what feels like forever before he gives a half answer. I wanted Martha to just slap him! It drove me crazy

To answer the question about Regina and Alexander. We see that Claudia and Bernd Doppler had a May September romance. So Bernd was always Regina's father. But we see in the picture that Bernd stayed with Claudia and Regina and young Regina looks happy. There was no Ulrich to bully her so she wasn't the woods and probably never met Alexander. And if she saw him, she probably avoided him.

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by edhopper

[Paloma]

28 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Charlotte's grandfather is actually her own husband, Peter Doppler, so Helge's her great grandfather. Because Peter's daughter is Elisabeth, who is Charlotte's mother.

Wow, somehow I missed that mind-bending connection of Charlotte's husband being her grandfather!

[sistermagpie]

14 minutes ago, Paloma said:

Wow, somehow I missed that mind-bending connection of Charlotte's husband being her grandfather!

Me too until I realized wait, it's not actually Helge so it would have to be....whoa. Yes, he would actually be her granddaughter! So weird! So Dark!