Dark – web series

Time travel has always been a favorite topic of mine to ponder. Have often wondered how it would be to revisit situations in the past and interestingly very rarely have I thought of travelling to future. My mind and head are always deeply buried in the sands of time to look behind, the path that has been travelled and about the turns not taken, rather than imagining a route forming up front at that very instant. When reviews were proclaiming this web series as the best sci-fi series ever, I was bit skeptical as I wasn’t sure if it would be easier to follow. Many of the times, in the name of making it as close to being factually and scientifically correct as possible, the makers kill the story element and end up creating a documentary with weird music. Dark starts off on the right note with some one waking up from a nightmare. That guy happens to be the hero and through him the story moves backwards, forwards, side wards, across dimensions and worlds. The starting premise reminds of Aboorva Ragam a bit where in his father happens to be the younger brother of his girl-friend. Having fallen into a worm hole, literally represented as a cave with doors, the kids goes back 32 years and grows up to be the dad of the hero, only to commit suicide upon realizing the fact. What happens when others of that town realize that through the cave they can do time travel and each deciding to make a trip searching for other is explained over 3 seasons. Beyond a stage it gets so confusing that time travel takes a back seat and everyone gets to have multiple versions of themselves on screen. The entire town on Winden, where the story happens, seems to have made up their mind that time travel will solve all their problems and take it to it as frequent as share auto ride from nearest MRTS to bus stop. To add to the confusion, there is a travel across world scenario is also thrown in for a good mix and when they reveal the family chart after each season, it looks more like a circuit board than family tree. For all the hype from season one, it goes to a dull dud in season two only to be salvaged a bit by the conclusion on season three. I believe it is very heavy on metaphors and symbolism and may not be directly a story in many places. The way they have untangled all the knots may not be very convincing for every character from the series. But the underlying current that, life always finds a way to bring us back to the same situation, irrespective of how hard or how far back we go to the starting line and start afresh is an undeniable outcome of the series. As a concept it was very novel to start and by the time the series closes, it is abused and overkilled to the extent possible. Could’ve been trimmed down majorly to retain the essence of mystery and surprise.