Perhaps the most comprehensive definition of the series’ story is encapsulated in the key phrase that appears at the very beginning: “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” This statement serves as an apt description of Dark, the German Netflix series created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese. The show is a complex science-fiction narrative that captivates viewers with its multiple timelines, interwoven genealogies, and an overwhelming cascade of questions—questions so numerous that any hope of finding definitive answers seems futile. Just as Dark exhilarates, it also provokes frustration; one gradually realizes that in the face of pain, death, and destruction, choosing love, clinging to relationships, or erasing certain elements does not grant the power to alter fate. One can spend hours debating theories, yet by the end of the final season, nothing remains but sheer helplessness.

The Story of the Series
The story begins with the suicide of Jonas’s father—a death that, by the end of the first season, is revealed to be the key to everything. Four families residing in the small German town of Winden find their fates intertwined through the mysterious disappearances of their children across different time periods. In 2019, the disappearance of Mikkel, the child of the fourth family, marks the beginning of the search to unravel the enigma.

As the story unfolds, we become entangled in its intricate and enigmatic layers, yet we gradually realize that this is a tale of time travel—a journey where travelers attempt to change their destinies by altering the past. However, before the first season concludes, it becomes evident that such an endeavor is impossible. Just as Mikkel accepts his fate and chooses to live an ordinary life rather than trying to alter it, the audience, too, resigns themselves to merely witnessing the unfolding events across different time periods.

With the beginning of the second season, we are drawn closer to the origins of these events and introduced to the excavation of the time tunnel. Yet, we remain in constant motion through the fabric of time. Over the course of these two seasons, viewers might be led to believe that time itself is God and that God is, in fact, time. However, this theory is shattered in the final scene of the second season—when Jonas, grieving over Martha’s lifeless body after she has been killed by Adam, suddenly encounters another version of Martha. When this Martha places her small golden sphere on the ground, preparing to take Jonas away mere moments before the apocalypse, Jonas, already familiar with time travel, asks: “To what time are we going?” Martha replies: “That is not the right question. You should ask—to what place?”

Season Three: The Second World
Season three begins on the same date—November 4, 2019—and in the same red forest house where Michael lived in the first season, shrouded in a misty, gray atmosphere. But everything is different. This time, the Nielsen family resides there. Jonas goes to school. He recognizes everyone, but no one recognizes him. It is as if he never existed. Thus, we gradually become aware of the existence of a second world.

In this parallel world, Jonas was never born. He spends the first hour of the season observing the clues of the apocalypse, which bear striking resemblance to those of the first season. Slowly, he realizes that he is standing in a world where he was never born, yet it is still doomed to destruction—just like the other world. The very place where he believed himself to be the cause and catalyst of the apocalypse now reveals that, even in a world where he was never born, the apocalypse still occurs.

This relentless traversal of different times and places makes the story exceedingly complex. To prevent the audience from getting lost amidst this flood of similar information, precise and effective markers are essential—something the creators of Dark have masterfully executed. Color schemes, lighting, and typography play crucial roles in distinguishing the two worlds. For instance, the on-screen titles for Eva’s world (the parallel world introduced in season three) are always written with inverted letters. The framing and set arrangement are also reversed compared to Adam’s world. These visual cues ensure that viewers do not lose their way within the intricate narrative.

Film Review
Time travel has been a central theme in many films and series, yet the unique perspective and underlying philosophy within Dark set it apart from other works. Most similar productions tend to adopt a superficial approach, often using humor as a narrative device, ultimately leading audiences to fantasize about how wonderful it would be if we could alter the present and future by making changes to the past.

The choice of names such as Noah, Jonas, Adam, Eva, Martha, Bartosz, and Claudia, as well as the prominent placement of The Fall of Man, a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, in Adam’s office, demonstrates a clever attempt by the creators to steer the audience’s thoughts toward religious interpretations. However, much like both religious and non-religious observers of cosmic images, each viewer interprets these references through their own lens.

At first glance, Eva appears to represent righteousness, while Adam embodies darkness. However, the narrative makes it clear that the story is not one of black and white. Each character is merely striving to impose their own perspective upon both worlds.

Adam: The Libertarian, Eva: The Fatalist
Determinism posits that every event is causally determined by a continuous chain of preceding events. Adam subscribes to this view—yet paradoxically, he does not. He believes he can alter the past, which contradicts determinism itself. Throughout the series, Adam is in pursuit of the origin of these changes, convinced that if he can identify the source, he can rewrite everything that follows.

The problem escalates when Adam, while striving to find the origin, simultaneously ensures its erasure. In his attempt to build the time machine, he sends information from the future to the past—thus becoming complicit in eliminating the very source he is so desperately trying to uncover.

In contrast, Eva believes in fate, where free will plays no role. For her, history follows a single, predetermined path. Season three begins with a quote from Arthur Schopenhauer:

“A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”

This directly challenges Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, which argues:

“We are condemned to be free—meaning we have no choice but to choose, and we must bear the weight of our choices.”

These conflicting worldviews define Adam and Eva’s struggle throughout the series.

Breaking the Cycle: The Discovery of the Third World
Claudia, driven by love for her daughter, Regina, searches for the true origin of their existence. Through an exhaustive investigation, she stumbles upon a far greater truth—the existence of a third world. She realizes that both Adam and Eva’s worlds are anomalies, the result of a fundamental error in what she calls the origin world. A physicist named H.G. Tannhaus, devastated by loss, attempts to reverse time, inadvertently creating both parallel worlds.

Schrödinger’s Cat: The Two Worlds as a Quantum Paradox
The two parallel realities of Adam and Eva could be interpreted as a manifestation of Schrödinger’s Cat experiment. Just like the unopened box in Schrödinger’s paradox—where the cat inside is simultaneously alive and dead—Adam and Eva’s worlds exist in a quantum state of duality, neither one being the definitive reality.

“The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning.”