Watched, Watched, Watching: It's not the plane, it's the pilot

[DaveSumm]

I don’t have much to add objectively, but that’s not my experience with Dark at all. I don’t recall seeing anyone claim it was one of the great finales or anything like that. The subreddit was generally positive but with a lot of naysayers, and same on the thread here.

Season 1 and 2 set the bar so high for complicated time travel plots that I had immense faith that the series would hang together when it was finished, but it really doesn’t. I could maybe understand how emotionally it made for a good ending, but there’s huge holes in how it wrapped up. But I guess you’d need to resurrect the thread to delve into that.

[Annara Snow]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

hmm, maybe, all I know is here there a pretty even split of people who thought the finale was good and those who really didn't like it. I certainly rarely see anyone talk about it any more, whereas when season one came out I have a bunch of people recommend it, I don't see that any more, I think because it never lived up to the promise of the first season.

My issue with almost every season ending for the show was that they would introduce a new concept right at the end, which could potentially wreck the show or make it more interesting. For instance at the end of season one they had the future time period apocalypse, then season 2 it was the alternate versions of characters (if I remember right tbh). I think every time those concepts chipped away at what was so good and made it worse. 

What was most intriguing in the show was that it set up this trap for the writers that I was really interested to see how they would break out of it. A time travel story where everything is basically preordained and you can't break the loop was just mind blowing, I absolutely loved it. Very powerful. A story about the cyclical infinite nature of time that was unbending and unchangable. Brilliant. 

Except of course the writers could never stick to that concept, and I knew they couldn't, it would be too hard to tell that story. But I had some hope they would. Instead they came up with convoluted silliness of all of reality and time being manipulated by a couple of people, with lots of jumping around and moving pieces about. It was far less interesting, or clever. The clever narrative trap they created for themselves was instead smashed with a hammer and the best bits of the show fell apart. 

I'm sure some people liked it, as I said, I've seen mixed opinions, but I do think it was a let down, not just for myself.

Characters were manipulating the reality and jumping back and forth in season 1 already  - and just fulfilling their fate, paradoxically, as events were unchangeable in a time travel reality.

I don't doubt that there is a number of people who were into the show in season 1 - when it was promoted as "German Stranger Things" and seemed to be a relatively simple (except for the numner of characters) story of a missing child that turned out to be a slightly more complicated time travel story - and drifted apart when the show turned out to be more like a Greek tragedy with an incredibly complicated plot than yet another "kid missing in small town" fun Netflix SciFi mystery. The show is simply not for everyone and was always going to lose a number of casual viewers, in particular.

[Annara Snow]

7 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I don’t have much to add objectively, but that’s not my experience with Dark at all. I don’t recall seeing anyone claim it was one of the great finales or anything like that. The subreddit was generally positive but with a lot of naysayers, and same on the thread here.

Season 1 and 2 set the bar so high for complicated time travel plots that I had immense faith that the series would hang together when it was finished, but it really doesn’t. I could maybe understand how emotionally it made for a good ending, but there’s huge holes in how it wrapped up. But I guess you’d need to resurrect the thread to delve into that.

I can't think of any plot holes. Would you name what you consider a plot hole in spoiler tags?

I'm mot on Reddit.  But every question about it has been elaborated on a bunch of times in other discussions and various YouTube videos.

There is just one question left unanswered and that was deliberately so, because it was a running joke and not an actual mystery (Woller's eye).

[Heartofice]

19 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Characters were manipulating the reality and jumping back and forth in season 1 already  - and just fulfilling their fate, paradoxically, as events were unchangeable in a time travel reality.

I don't doubt that there is a number of people who were into the show in season 1 - when it was promoted as "German Stranger Things" and seemed to be a relatively simple (except for the numner of characters) story of a missing child that turned out to be a slightly more complicated time travel story - and drifted apart when the show turned out to be more like a Greek tragedy with an incredibly complicated plot than yet another "kid missing in small town" fun Netflix SciFi mystery. The show is simply not for everyone and was always going to lose a number of casual viewers, in particular.

Lol, that is quite a take. The idea that audiences liked the low brow first season but were put off by how clever it became seems like the exact opposite of how I view the show. Far from becoming more complex, it just became stupider, with a number of convenient plot devices to allow the writers to finish the show. That is the reason I was put off the last season.

[DaveSumm]

Here’s where Season 3 drops, roughly, and the discussion starts. Best I can do is direct you there @Annara Snow 

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Lol, that is quite a take. The idea that audiences liked the low brow first season but were put off by how clever it became seems like the exact opposite of how I view the show. Far from becoming more complex, it just became stupider, with a number of convenient plot devices to allow the writers to finish the show. That is the reason I was put off the last season.

To use the quote:

Lol, that is quite a take. 

ETA: OK, to be a little less flippant: mot only is this quite a bizarre take, and a pretty funny one that a show becoming even more complex and  requiring more and more attention from and thought from the from the viewer makes it "stupider" (okaaay)..  it's also not an argument I could respond to, just a bunch of words that sound pejorative. What even is a "convenient plot device" and how and why it's supposed to be bad? Every plot consists of a bunch of plot devices that allow the writers to start, progress and finish the story. That is, by definition, what storytelling is. And they're convenient, if the writers know what the hell they're doing (which they definitely did, as in this case). You'd be a hack if you wanted  to use an inconvenient plot device, one that doesn't suit your story.

Similarly, I don't think there's any way to respond to the argument that it's bad that the resolution relied on romance, among other human relationships, and that love - romantic or familial - was a crucial motivation of most of the characters. If you think that's a bad thing, then OK? I don't think it is.

[Heartofice]

36 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Here’s where Season 3 drops, roughly, and the discussion starts. Best I can do is direct you there @Annara Snow 

Thanks for posting that, it’s amazing how much I had forgotten about the whole discussion. Yeah that brought back my issues with what I felt the show became. 

[Annara Snow]

47 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Here’s where Season 3 drops, roughly, and the discussion starts. Best I can do is direct you there @Annara Snow 

I remember posting in that thread. I don't remember if I read all of it. But it confirms my overall impressions that most of the reactions were very positive.

[polishgenius]

35 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

What even is a "convenient plot device" and how and why it's supposed to be bad?

 

When people say that they mean one that's artificially convenient, ie obviously just there to solve a problem or move a situation on and not disguised within the storytelling. I haven't seen Dark so I can't comment if HoI is right or not but that's what he's referring to.

[Annara Snow]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

 

When people say that they mean one that's artificially convenient, ie obviously just there to solve a problem or move a situation on and not disguised within the storytelling. I haven't seen Dark so I can't comment if HoI is right or not but that's what he's referring to.

Plot devices are bad only when they don't make sense - requiring the characters to start acting against their established characterizations, violating the worldbuilding rules and/or being illogical. If I saw concrete arguments about how that is supposedly the case here, I could respond, but just saying there were convenient plot devices - I don't know how even to respond to that.

[Heartofice]

44 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Plot devices are bad only when they don't make sense - requiring the characters to start acting against their established characterizations, violating the worldbuilding rules and/or being illogical. If I saw concrete arguments about how that is supposedly the case here, I could respond, but just saying there were convenient plot devices - I don't know how even to respond to that.

It’s not necessarily about the plot devices not making sense. It can be that devices need to be added to fix the problems the plot sets up without feeling satisfactory within the original premise.

In terms of Dark my issue is that the show initially sets itself a difficult problem narratively, which made the show stand out and kept me gripped. That being that time is unchangeable and almost predetermined, everything in a cycle of events. It has this setup of 3 time periods which worked to loop into each other. It was a great concept.

The problem is it made telling a story very difficult and there was little way to resolve the conundrums in the show without introducing new elements and rules which will have to break the previous rules.

And that is what the show did. 
 

Because it looked like events could not be changed, the show had to create other time loops, another time period, different versions of characters. It had to solve problems by making it all about something that can’t be defined, like love.

It had to basically rely on a number of much less interesting or clever plot devices to get the job done, and that to me is the main reason why the show failed. 

[DaveSumm]

It’s impossible to respond when the show is so complicated. I had a look at some of my old Reddit posts and I literally can’t remember what the fuck I was talking about, and I don’t have the inclination to re-familiarise myself enough to re-explain. Something about a duplicate Martha that made no sense, and an awful lot of hand-waiving (someone “exploited the time freeze”, OK). I know there’s plenty of ‘Dark explained’ videos and posts out there, I read them all back in the day, and none of them adequately explain what quantum entanglement actually is (in Dark) and how it produced a second Martha.

I’m not sure which specific plot devises are being discussed but it’s certainly conceivable to have a bad one that meets all your criteria. As @polishgenius said; super-convenient ones. 

[dbunting]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Agree with this.. except Dark which has a really dramatic downward spiral and crashes into a black hole.

Did Dark not end well? I still haven't gotten around to watch the last season. It just seemed to become tedious to watch it.

[dbunting]

I watched Nope this weekend. I think it was pretty good and a fresh take on the subject at hand but I didn't think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread like some reviews I saw and don't think I'll watch it again.

Spoiler

I like that the "UFO" was actually the animal itself and not a ship. I also like that the stuff falling, keys and what not was basically the animal pooping. One thing though, in the initial shot when his dad died you can see the items falling way off in the distance and close by and we know from later in the film that it can't do that since the stuff falls out of the opening in the bottom so they kind of messed up there.

Overall I would recommend this to anyone who is curious or is fans of the actors.

[dog-days]

18 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s impossible to respond when the show is so complicated. I had a look at some of my old Reddit posts and I literally can’t remember what the fuck I was talking about, and I don’t have the inclination to re-familiarise myself enough to re-explain.

Glad it's not just me experiencing memory white-out. I went back to read an old reaction post (ETA - one by @Annara Snow) that mentioned all the characters, and it was a fight to remember who most of them were. 

Pretty sure I enjoyed S3, though I probably came to it with lower expectations than a lot of you. It was a stylish, atmospheric show, though not one I feel tempted to rewatch. Like a lot of thriller/mystery-type stories, once the cat is out of the bag I don't much care to revisit the lead-up. 

[Annara Snow]

23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It’s not necessarily about the plot devices not making sense. It can be that devices need to be added to fix the problems the plot sets up without feeling satisfactory within the original premise.

In terms of Dark my issue is that the show initially sets itself a difficult problem narratively, which made the show stand out and kept me gripped. That being that time is unchangeable and almost predetermined, everything in a cycle of events. It has this setup of 3 time periods which worked to loop into each other. It was a great concept.

The problem is it made telling a story very difficult and there was little way to resolve the conundrums in the show without introducing new elements and rules which will have to break the previous rules.

And that is what the show did. 
 

Because it looked like events could not be changed, the show had to create other time loops, another time period, different versions of characters. It had to solve problems by making it all about something that can’t be defined, like love.

It had to basically rely on a number of much less interesting or clever plot devices to get the job done, and that to me is the main reason why the show failed. 

And what is the original premise, in your opinion? Who decided that only 3 time periods can be a part of a timrle travel loop, and why? You seem to have decided that only things revealed by episode 1x08 are acceptable as ules of the world...in which case, even season 1 would be bad because it introduces the fourth timeline at the end..

The show opened with a narration by a certain character about the nature of time, who also gave that exposition in 1x08 about dualism being a mistake and the importance of a the number 3. That character ended up being the most important one for the plot, the closest to a god figure, in an unexpected way. And the ending was all about the third option, and a third character coming up with that solution after everything had been presented andplayed out apparently as a dualistic eternal war between two opposing philosophical and emotional stances (heavily inspired by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, both quoted at different points throughout the show.

Betraying the original premise? I don't think so. The premise just wasn't what you thought it was.

I've seen your post in that thread. I get your complaints  but they are just a matter of taste. You didn't like the show getting more SciFi, and more fantastical (which is true - the SciFi, mythological and symbolic elements become more and more pronounced) and you thought certain figures - versions of characters - didn't feel relatable. Which was the point - how much people can change and become almost like different people, the way you can be your own worst enemy: the show takes those metaphors and makes them real. But while other characters had more relatable down to Earth plans and motives, I found the motives and development of these two figures completely understandable and relatable in context. In fact, the one you said was particularly unrelatable was the one whose motives I related to more.

Spoiler

Adam and Eva both feel they are saving the world, while also responding to this incredibly messed up loop emotionally in two completely different ways. In the face of an apparent impossibility of changing the loop, Adam is an old tired Jonas who has decided non-existence is better than constant suffering. Eva, OTOH, decided even back when she was young Martha that she would fight to preserve life/existence no matter what, and that's all worth it: even though it's a loop of tragedy, she prefers it to erasing all life out of existence, which Adam is trying to do. Or in other words, she is fighting to stop her ex lover from killing her and their son and erasing them all (including himself). 

Neither option is good, but as far as they know, there is no third one - and they have opposing views on what the "lesser evil" is.

I understand why the show was no more to your taste. But that sure doesn't make the final season "stupid".

[Annara Snow]

49 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Did Dark not end well? I still haven't gotten around to watch the last season. It just seemed to become tedious to watch it.

According to most people whose reactions I've seen, it had one of the best endings ever. But obviously there are also people who disagree, like @Heartofice.

[Heartofice]

6 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

And what is the original premise, in your opinion? Who decided that only 3 time periods can be a part of a timrle travel loop, and why? You seem to have decided that only things revealed by episode 1x08 are acceptable as ules of the world...in which case, even season 1 would be bad because it introduces the fourth timeline at the end..

Yes the part I liked most about the show was the point where it seemed that those were the rules, that’s when the story was at its strongest. I knew from the ending of season one and the reveal of the extra time period that there were going to be problems moving forward. Then the ending of season 2 did the same thing and introduced the concept of other loops.

You could say that was always the story as intended, and maybe it was. But actually it doesn’t matter, because to me those elements wrecked the potential of what the show could have been. 
 

Anyway I wrote extensively about my thoughts previously, I don’t have the energy to go through it again. I do disagree that it was seen as one of the best finales ever, I really don’t think that is true, on here, outside of here I’ve seen very mixed reaction, and very few people have said to me they loved that last season. 

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s impossible to respond when the show is so complicated. I had a look at some of my old Reddit posts and I literally can’t remember what the fuck I was talking about, and I don’t have the inclination to re-familiarise myself enough to re-explain. Something about a duplicate Martha that made no sense, and an awful lot of hand-waiving (someone “exploited the time freeze”, OK). I know there’s plenty of ‘Dark explained’ videos and posts out there, I read them all back in the day, and none of them adequately explain what quantum entanglement actually is (in Dark) and how it produced a second Martha.

I’m not sure which specific plot devises are being discussed but it’s certainly conceivable to have a bad one that meets all your criteria. As @polishgenius said; super-convenient ones. 

So time travel, explained through wormholes and radioactivity and *insert a bunch of other quantum physics SF babble* was deemed perfectly realistic and acceptable, but AUs and alternative timelines of character lives based on *insert more SF quantum physics babble explanations* are a step too far!

This is like if someone read AGOT and went "oh there are dragons, and zonbies resurrected and controlled by a mysterious omnicidal species of ice beings who thrive on the cold? A dead hand can move by itself? Makes perfect sense, not too fantastical" and them read ACOK and said "What, there are also shadow babies? Well, that crosses the line! What a super-convenient plot device to kill Renly! The series is stupid now"

[WarGalley]

I watched.... Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death with Shannon Tweed and Bill Maher. I was with a friend when this came on through his (Youtube?) recommendations. I was fully expecting an absolutely terrible, direct to DVD sexploitation experience and went into it with large reservations, expecting to shut it off within the first 10 or 15 minutes. But it was a lot funnier than it had the right to be and we ended sticking with it through the end (particularly once Maher's character shows up). The humor reminded me a little of Blazing Saddles, and I'm sure Maher had some input into the dialogue which carries the movie regardless of how absurd it gets. My friend and I both laughed out loud at several scenes and over-the-top lines throughout the movie (though granted we were smoking a joint along the way).