The new "Darkness" did not work. The series "1899" is more like the last seasons of "Lost"
Miscellaneous / / April 04, 2023
It seems to be the failure of the year.
On November 17, Netflix premiered the entire season of 1899. It was announced in 2018, but interest in it did not subside due to the name of the showrunner, because Baran Bo Odar is the author of "Darkness".
Starring Emily Beecham (Cruella), Andreas Peachman (Darkness), Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk).
1899 European migrants are sailing on a ship to the United States. But in the middle of the journey, the team receives signals from the Poseidon ship, which disappeared 4 months earlier. The captain decides to change course and find the ship. But after approaching him, strange things begin to happen. The captain and the female doctor try to figure out what's going on as the passengers slowly go insane.
Beautiful clothes, the most different characters, a mixture of languages and cultures - "1899" pleases with interesting ideas from the very first frames. The oppressive atmosphere of the starting minutes riveted to the screen, and the feeling of an approaching catastrophe makes you pay attention to every detail. But rather quickly, the artificial picture begins to crumble, and the shortcomings of the series make you forget all the positive aspects.
The abundance of characters takes a lot of time wasted
Already in the first minutes it is obvious that there will be many active heroes. It is possible to single out the captain of the ship and the doctor as the main characters, and about 9-10 important secondary characters in "1899".
All of them have their own secrets and fears, an unusual past and motives for a trip to the United States. But there is not enough time for heroes. Because of this, two problems arise: either the hero is not revealed (he was shown little), or he is revealed superficially. In both cases, it is impossible to empathize with the characters, they are empty.
Another disadvantage of a large number of heroes is timing. The series runs for about 8 hours, about half of which are slow and meaningless conversations, interrupted by flashbacks or dreams.
With each episode, flashbacks and character crossovers in the past begin to resemble the final seasons of Lost, where one memory conflicted with another and storylines were brought to a standstill.
Heroes make stupid decisions
1899 is infected with the problem of old horror - most of the unexpected moments happen because of not the smartest decisions.
"Let's go where you don't have to go!" is the slogan of the series.
Stupid decisions arise without reference to events. We swam to the mysterious ship, made a sortie on it, and then we sit and wait. What? Unclear. Characters react to absolutely every event with a huge delay. But there is time for the already mentioned flashbacks.
Social issues are not disclosed
An attempt to create a barrier between first-class passengers and the ship's employees fails in the first minutes - in the future there is no difference between them. The same goes for racial and gender stereotypes - at the beginning of the series, they seem to appear, but are immediately forgotten.
Ever since the trailer, it has been interesting how the characters will interact. The fact is that they all speak their native language, so the Germans and the French simply do not understand each other. It turned out that all the important heroes know English or German - the language barrier immediately ceases to be a problem. By the way, there was something similar in Lost, albeit in a more ridiculous form.
No closed space
The heroes are locked on the ship, they can't get off it. In theory, this is a stressful and difficult situation that can reveal any character. Someone will start thinking about self-rescue, someone will try to escape - there are a lot of options. However, the plot develops in such a way that no one really thinks about the situation in which he finds himself.
“Yes, I'm on a ship in the middle of the ocean, I don't know where I am. It's a pity they don't take me to America. I’m going to eat,” almost any character thinks.
The music is amazing, but it has nothing to do with the show
As a rule, the series sounds pretty standard ambient, reminiscent of "Darkness" in spirit. However, at the end of each episode, the disco begins: Jefferson Airplane, Echo and the Bunnymen, Jimi Hendrix play, and David Bowie can be heard in the last episode. All these tracks have nothing to do with what is happening on the screen. Perhaps Odark just showed what kind of music he listens to - and this is more interesting than the series.
The series is trying to be more epic than it is
All the minuses and shortcomings of the series are important, but there is something that unites them - unrealistic pretentiousness. A gigantic number of meaningless scenes, as it were, hint that the viewer is not watching some kind of garbage - no, no, this is a serious work. In references even Shakespeare you can find, so admire!
After the fifth passage of one of the characters down the corridor in an episode, there is a desire to turn off the series. Narrow space, beautiful face, amazing outfit, slow motion video, classical music in the background - for some reason, these scenes appear all the time. If they are cut, the series will not become worse, but it will be reduced by 40 minutes.
"1899" takes the worst of "Darkness"
Probably, "Dark"- one of the most interesting and original series of recent years. For this reason alone, 1899 attracted so much attention - a huge number of people agreed to give Baran Bo Odar their time, no matter what he came up with this time. What could have gone wrong?
The Darkness was also pretentious and with a hint of epic, but it went to that for two seasons. The gigantic number of heroes did not bother - they were interesting, there were no meaningless characters among them. The references to Heidegger were appropriate - in "Darkness" in general, everything was appropriate. "1899" does not bear comparison.
"1899" turned out to be too boring, slow and completely empty. There are no complex characters, the dialogues are as simple as possible, and unexpected plot twists are simply lost in meaningless scenes. If something happens in the first episode, then after each subsequent episode it is difficult to remember at least one important event. It is impossible to look for anything other than a plot in 1899.
1899 was probably one of the most highly anticipated TV series of 2022. If you approach it with high expectations, then the viewing will be quite painful - this is a complete disappointment. But he reminds how beautiful "Darkness" was - it's better to reconsider it.
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