Stuck in the future of 2 0 5 3, where Winden was destroyed from an unknown explosion, the teenage Jonas meets the deaf Elisabeth, now leader of a cult that forbids anyone entering the Dead Zone. Jonas goes there regardless and finds scattered mass floating around a bubble, which consolidates into a sphere, so he enters it and travels to the year 1 9 2 1. He meets the leader of the time travel society Sic Mundus, Adam, who reveals to Jonas that he is him from he future. Jonas is sent back to 2019, and he tries to prevent the chain of events from happening, but everything just happens, anyway. The old Claudia gives the young Claudia the location of the buried time machine, which Claudia starts using. Having lost everyone, Hannah also travels back in time, to 1 9 5 4, and stays there with Egon, the police officer who arrested Ulrich. The older Jonas wants to save Martha from the upcoming apocalypse, and locks her in a bunker, but she escapes and returns to the house. Adam shows up and shoots Martha in front of the teenage Jonas, claiming that he needs to trigger all the events to discover dark matter which he will then use later in the future to destroy the old world and build a new one. A Martha from another world shows up and takes the teenage Jonas with her thanks to a machine, just before a giant explosion, caused by Elisabeth from the future activating the time machine and the employees from the nuclear power plant opening a lid containing dark matter, destroys Winden.
"Dark" is a TV series that almost became the series we wanted it be, yet was hindered by its own stubborn decision to repeat the same plot elements again and again until it became tiresome. Unfortunately, this is the typical syndrome of many modern TV series: they take a two hour story and overstretch it into an eight hour season. The 1st season raised high hopes that this is going somewhere unique, and thus its long set-up was tolerated, yet the 2nd season squandered these hopes by turning, basically, into the self-referential ending of Nolan's "Interstellar", just repeated a dozen time, again and again, as if the viewers didn't get it the first time already. The only thing the 2nd season needs is the relationship between Jonas from 2019 and Adam from the future—while all the rest of 50 different characters are unnecessary. This is an ambitious and professional series, but it has a calculated story that just keeps inventing another time travel subplot that is used to justify the previous events, and another, and another, until this becomes boring and schematic. We understand, it is a cycle that keeps repeating and nobody is able to change it because every decision just leads to the same set of events, as one giant commenatry on fatalism and determinism, and the futility of people trying to break the destiny. But it becomes ridiculous at times. For instance, Noah wants to shoot Adam, aims, but his pistol is stuck, and Adam tells him it is destiny that decided so, whereas then when Agnes shows up, she takes the pistol, aims, and then all of a sudden it is able to fire and shoot Noah. In another, an older Jonas locks up Martha in a bunker, because he warns that a giant explosion will wipe out the town during the day—yet later Elisabeth and her dad run to the bunker, unlock the door, and as they open it, Martha escapes outside, anyway. Sometimes, these stretches seems too forced when trying to fit all these events into the cycle at the end. The 2nd season is well made, well acted, well filmed (the apocalyptic future in the year 2 0 5 4 is filmed in washed out, bleak colors), and a lot of details play a role later on. But it simply is just a variation of the same plot point for eight hours, which ultimately leads to the viewers losing their focus and enthusiasm for it.
Grade:++
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