Dark (revisited)

I tend to be really positive with these reviews of mine, because I like to try and find qualities to enjoy about every piece of media I consume, even when it comes to stuff I don't like. However, in the case of Dark, I feel like I was positive to the point of sugercoating my own complaints. Probably because of how popular and well-received the show was, I felt like I had to put a disclaimer every time I criticized the show. Since then, it seemed like my Dark review just didn't reflect my true opinions on the show, so I want to revisit it one last time, to finally give my true, uncensored opinions: I don't like Dark at all. As a matter of fact, out of all the shows I have reviewed on this site, it's probably my least favorite.

First, I just want to get the positives out of the way really quickly. The production and cinematography is really good. The whole series has this eerie, chilling atmosphere that really makes it stand out. I also have to praise its approach to time travel. I've written multiple times about how easy it is to use time travel the wrong way and make a convoluted, plot-hole-ridden, mess of a story. And while Dark is definitely complex, its insane Gordian knot of timelines actually holds together shockingly well. This is an airtight show, one that definitely lives up to its claim that "everything is connected". While I don't like the show, I will always use it as an example of time travel done right. And probably my biggest compliment, I actually enjoyed Season 1. At that point, there was an actual novelty to the mystery and not knowing what was going on, and the show wasn't too overly complicated to the point where it became nearly impossible to follow. There are definitely aspects to Dark that I did really like, and I still agree with not giving the show a full-on 1 or 0 stars. However, don't get me wrong, I have a lot of gripes about this show.

Getting the most important complaint out of the way, I think Dark is too complicated. As mentioned above, the first season was fine, but as the show began adding timelines and alternate universes, it just became too overwhelming to keep track of. All the characters, storylines, subplots, and the insanity that is the show's family tree is too much for one person to handle. It all made watching the show a slog, since I pretty much had to spend around half an hour after every episode doing research to make sure I picked up on everything. I'm sure some people enjoy doing this, but I sure as hell don't. I shouldn't need to do homework to understand what's even going on in a TV show. The exposition definitely doesn't help with this. Dark is stuffed to the brim with dull exposition dumps that don't explain things in a clear manner, with many of the expositors delivering their information through vague metaphors. Even worse, these exposition dumps tend to end really abruptly, with the expositor withholding information that they obviously know from the other characters for no real reason other than to be enigmatic and mysterious. And I didn't even talk about how the exposition is delivered. For some reason, the showrunners thought it made sense for each line of dialogue to have 15-or-so seconds of silence spaced between them. Maybe it's to maintain a serious tone, but it just comes off as awkward. 

Speaking of a serious tone, Dark is so unbelievably lacking in any self-awareness or levity whatsoever that it just made the show even harder to watch. Look, I love me some angst and dramatic arguments, but every single facet of the show took itself incredibly seriously, to the point where the only times I laughed were completely on accident. The awkward silence and clunky exposition mentioned above definitely elicited a few laughs, but I think the sheer repetition of Dark also contributed to a lot of that unintentional humor. The fact that nearly every episode starts with a sex scene and ends with a musical number, the absolutely ridiculous incest storyline, the bizarre twists that only get more and more insane, all of it was played entirely seriously. However, the repetitive aspects of Dark also probably contributed to why none of the later seasons stacked up to the first. Those vague expository conversations were intriguing at first, but eventually, they just became frustrating. The initially chilling and unconventional soundtrack was reused so frequently that it lost its luster. And the more crazy mind screw twists the show would throw at me, the less I could bring myself to care.

And that leads to my biggest problem with the show, which is the characters. Dark boasts a massive cast of characters, made even larger due to their variants from the other timelines and realities. However, I can't remember a single one other than Jonas, who's arguably the main protagonist. There's the obvious problem that such a massive cast can be spread pretty thin, but I think even worse is the fact that none of them really get any development. Eventually, most of these characters end up serving one of two roles: delivering exposition or receiving exposition. They're all assholes who keep secrets from each other and screw over their family members, with nothing differentiating them in terms of personality. If you've seen my reviews, you know how much I put stock in a strong cast of characters that I can empathize with. They don't even need to be good people as long as I can understand their motivations. None of Dark's characters have clear motivations, so I don't care about any of them. I've heard this argument that you're not supposed to care about the characters, that your role as a viewer of Dark is just to observe this town and the events that happen there. That leads a big problem, though. How am I supposed to care what happens in this town if I don't care about any of the people who live in it? And even more, why would I want to watch this town if I don't care about anything that happens in it?

I felt like I had to force myself to finish this show, just because I wanted to write a review about it. I was as positive as I could possibly be, just knowing that maybe I was missing something and that it really was the near masterpiece the internet said it was, and I was wrong. I shouldn't have forced myself to finish a show I didn't like, and I shouldn't have watered down my own opinions just because I was in the minority. I didn't like Dark, and that's perfectly fine. It has its good points, like all media does, but the forgettable characters, clunky and frequent exposition, overly complicated plotting, hilarious lack of self-awareness, and repetitive story elements all added up for an incredibly unenjoyable experience for me. I don't mean to take away from anyone who did like the show, I just wanted to fully explain why it didn't work for me. And with this, I hope I can close the book on Dark once and for all.

2/5 Stars