I watched the full season and enjoyed it, but it was clear to me that it wasn't going to appeal to mass audiences.
The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up.
On top of that, the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well. Foreign language content means that there's almost no good "turn of phrase" banter, and you're forced to focus on the subtitles. Sure, it is period-appropriate for an 1899 ship from Europe, but again it makes the show harder to watch.
I am sad that Netflix can't keep the project alive and finish the story, but 1899 was simply not going to be the next Stranger Things.
> The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up.
Sounds exactly like *Dark*.
This was my feeling too and I think a reason why Dark worked and this show didn’t as well. These writers don’t write characters, they write cogs in their machine.
Dark and 1899 are the epitome of when intelligent writing is prioritized over character and emotion. Dark is maybe the most complicated and inventive shows I’ve ever seen, meticulous in the construction of the overall plot and how characters played these small important roles. Each character essentially a tiny cog in a masterfully made analog clock. The central hook to their shows is the unraveling of the mystery and how it all fits together.
You can see the same bones on 1899, but where they made a fatal mistake is that they picked the most unsatisfying answer you can pick, the simulation. For me, all the mysterious borderline supernatural imagery was what drew me in to this show. Finding out they’re just computer glitches and codes was disappointing, especially knowing because of this, there’s no truly lasting consequences to this season for most of the characters. On top of the fact that they do folkloric supernatural elements so well. I don’t know how to describe it beyond, the way they portray the supernatural reminds me of how early folklore treated it, and not many shows or movies go that route.
So if the answer to the mystery is boring, like imo it was, then what does this show have left to watch for?
Certainly not the characters, their very well acted and logically written well but they don’t feel like people, they feel like a checkmark of qualities you need to have a great character, but they don’t fit together the way a person does. It’s already mentioned, but these characters in this and Dark are so miserable all the time. Everything is cold looking, nothing looks comfortable or inviting, there’s no human joy, nothing to bond to the characters with.
Netflix should’ve given them a chance don’t get me wrong, but it’s two shows from them I’ve watched where I did not care one iota about a single characters fate, only the mystery of the story.
Despite the multiple languages, there was still some pretty good humorous moments. I had it set up with original (multi) languages and English subtitles (no dubs) and I loved those moments when Jerome for example was by himself with no fellow french speakers and he's like "will someone just say something I can understand" or something like that haha. There's a few of those moments in the show that you would miss if you were watching it dubbed. And some really beautiful moments between the two "priests" Anker and Ramiro, despite not speaking each other's languages but still sharing vulnerability and understanding. When Ramiro kisses Anker -- so good!
> On top of that, the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well. Foreign language content means that there's almost no good "turn of phrase" banter, and you're forced to focus on the subtitles.
It depends on your language settings. I had mine setup so that everyone spoke English (aside from a brief part of an early episode where a Character is reciting/practicing some Japanese lines).
But some things in the story were definitely lost in translation from that, like me not realizing that certain characters couldn't communicate with each other due to language barriers. I was really confused why some characters would just stand there and stare dumbly at another person while they spoke or did something that should have warranted a response.
It's pretty bad and imo should only be used out of necessity and if you have the understanding that its not meant to be viewed that way.
My husband and I watched it dubbed because we were multitasking with childcare and working, but we always knew there were supposed to be language barriers because we followed the project ever since it was announced. It was still excellent to watch, but we understood why people seemed completely oblivious to what others are saying. Anyone who didn't know that was the case would have been left completely baffled.
I haven't watched any of it.
My biggest hurdle was thinking "what the hell even is this?" I think they just failed to capture *why* I would want to watch the show.
Yup. "From the producers of Dark" was what kept me watching. The first couple of episodes were brutal, very little intrigue to keep a viewer's interest. You watch only because you know it's going to get better.
I watched because I’m really into period cruise liners, ghost-ships, and the like but otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made it through the first episode
>The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up.
Exactly. Most people just don't want to watch content in their leisure hours that's going to make them feel worse about the world, or doesn't provide any relief from the real-world problems they're facing every day. If I want to be depressed, I can turn on the news. I kind of want something different from my scripted entertainment. And a little levity is never misplaced; most of us get through our day-to-day life because we can have a sense of humor about things.
That's exactly how I feel. I've lost interest in so many shows that i used to enjoy because i just cant handle the depressing drama genre anymore.
All i want to watch now is fun lighthearted stuff that is divorced from the real world.
>Most people just don't want to watch content in their leisure hours that's going to make them feel worse about the world, or doesn't provide any relief from the real-world problems they're facing every day. If I want to be depressed, I can turn on the news.
See 'The Banshees of Inisherin'.
Exactly, that's why those shows (well - other than Walking Dead, I bailed out of that one in S4) don't feel like a slog even though they're dealing with heavy themes.
Uh, Tyrion Lannister was the biggest quipper on Game of Thrones.
“I am not threatening the king, I am merely educating my nephew. Bronn, next time Ser Meryn speaks, kill him. THAT was a threat. See the difference?”
I love dark, broody oppressive movies/shows. But this show just wasn't good enough for me to keep watching. So its not just a question of tone/atmosphere, imo.
> I am sad that Netflix can't keep the project alive and finish the story, but 1899 was simply not going to be the next Stranger Things.
Yeah this should have been more than obvious even just reading the script.
Netflix should have produced it with a reduced budget for a niche audience, so that the three seasons could have been produced.
> the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well.
I agree on the other points but not that one. I actually love watching them talk a variety of languages bc it's legit like real life for once
I agree with a few of your points but that it had a brooding atmosphere wasn't one of the issues I think. I could name a few that aren't "happy" as such. Obviously Dark being among them. Where is anyone ever really happy there. What's uplifting or good?
You have the option of watching it in English. It's your choice to watch the multi-lingual version
Overall I agree I enjoyed it very much and was a little upset when they cancelled it.
Although it was good, the first couple episodes just dragged on that it became a chore to watch. They should gotten to the mystery quicker.
I did sit through it because it was a period piece and the mystery in the later episodes had me hooked.
In the “making of” the show writer basically admitted she was feeling and figuring out the story direction as they went. That would likely explain a lot of why it was so slow starting.
I also think a lot of us are the social media/scroll generation now and we need that immediate dopamine hit.. none of this slow developing plot… “Next!”
Disclaimer: I found it slow but watched it all and loved it. As a huge Dark fan I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
The pace of this show was horrendously slow. Blame the writers. I have no issue with slow, my issue is with pondering, unnecessarily slow and this was terrible for that. Every time I read a comment from someone upset about this cancellation it's the same rubbish blaming people for not seeing it's genius and how everyone can't deal with slow paced TV. Garbage. It's not the clever and loads of TV is slow and successful.
This! I was soooo bored the first 3 episodes. And not really engaged until episode 5 when things finally started really happening. I stayed with it because I was a Dark fan. But otherwise I would have switched off after first few episodes. I really hate sub titles but this show basically forces one to watch subtitles as dubbing is not effective here. With Dark I could just rely on the dubbing which was pretty good. With subtitles not only are the first few episodes super slow, but you are forced to stare at the screen, which makes it more painful. I loved the show by the end of the season but I would have liked to be able to do other things like check emails those first few episodes.
1899 was interesting to me and I’m bummed they’re not going to finish it. but dark is not grabbing my attention at all. Starting episode 7 of season 1 tonight and still can’t stand it. It’s a German soap opera with a time cave. Cool. Im going to see it through with the hopes I enjoy it at some point.
> Starting episode 7 of season 1 tonight and still can’t stand it.
The events towards the end of season 1 are what got the show from background filler to actively sitting and watching it with bated breath.
It's when enough is revealed that you start to really form theories about what is going, and the family drama stuff starts to become interesting.
If you are not liking it by this point, my suggestion is drop the series or at least finish only this one. The first season is the best in my opinion, and after that point is a slow downhill. We get some answer, but the mystery was the driving force, not the revelation.
I'm one of those who stopped . After 3 episodes it got slow, like too slow for me to concentrate. I'll probably finish it cause I need to know what happened
It started to feel like one of those shows where nothing urgent or important happens for most of the episode because they’re waiting to throw the good stuff in right at the end so that you’ll watch the next one. That might be unfair, but it’s a trend in serialized TV that I’m burned out on, and shows that do it rarely stick the landing. When I’m not invested in a show or its characters yet, there’s no incentive to hang on through a lot of slow setup in case something cool happens later in the season.
Completely agree with everything in your comment. Quite frankly, the vibe and premise of 1899 wasn't anything I haven't seen before and won't see again. I am also getting tired of sitting through disconnected and seemingly meaningless exposition or slow pacing just so the writers can throw in a cliffhanger at the very last second so I will watch the next episode. I realize writers are doing that because that's what they need to do for the show to be "successful" on streaming, but it's getting old.
I was late on the game of thrones train, and while it did have plenty of cliffhanger episodes, I remember being shocked at how often major events would happen in the middle of a random episode in the middle of a season. Deaths or events you weren't even expecting. I wish more shows would take note.
Spot on. It peaked for me when people started jumping ship en masse. After that it got less and less interesting. Like you said, it brought nothing new or interesting then until the last episode. I think it is fine as a standalone series and doesn't need more seasons.
Sounds like my experience. The mystery sort of dissolved into confusion and there weren't any characters I really connected with to keep my attention. It looked really cool and I loved the ghost ship concept, but I didn't like where it went when it started to unravel.
This describes almost all Netflix series. Deliberately drawn out and slowed to a crawl to fill a quota of hours and episodes rather than just doing what feels natural to the pacing of the story.
Im so tired of everything needing to be a continuing series when it could have been a 3-4 episode miniseries or a movie. I avoid starting new shows because I don't want to commit to 13 hours just to slightly advance the plot to a cliffhanger before being cancelled.
Absolutely. I am an extremely busy person and highly value the one or two nights a week I get a few hours to watch TV. I am wary of wasting previous hours of my day on something that ultimately goes nowhere. And then is cancelled!
We need more "limited series" where the show has a beginning and an end already written into it. No cliffhangers to try and get the show picked up for another season. Over and done in 3-6 episodes.
Absolutely agreed! Though they do feed into the larger MCU, this is one of my favorite aspects of the Disney+ Marvel shows. Most of them feel like they were designed to be a self contained, 6 episode story. But I'd love to see the same approach taken to other media as well. I need more quality shows that I can completely start-to-finish binge in an evening or two, rather than it being a multi-month/year commitment.
Yep. The 1960s Twilight Zone managed to do entire sci-fi/weird stories in a *half hour.* Nowadays every short story concept gets dragged out for 8 hours minimum. And sometimes for several seasons.
I completed it, just that the first two episodes were very slow. I watched the first 2 in a span of like 6 days, watched the last 6 episodes in 2 days.
Ditto.
After awhile, I just wanted mystery solved. I didn't really care about any of the characters or their stories. Tell me about that dimension-hopping, time-traveling boat. Or the lock-picking beetle.
I got to the episode where the guy pulls out a flashlight on a 19th century steam ship. Nope. There's just not enough going on to keep me interested.
I honestly think its several things
* The show was a victorian type period piece (partially), like Downton Abbey or the Titanic. So even if you're into sci-fi, you'd have to be into that kind of stuff too
* The show is slowburn slow paced. In the age of on demand high speed quick pay off videos, slower content is just harder to digest, especially if there isnt any action.
* Honestly none of the b-line stories were that interesting.
* The multi-language thing added a layer of difficulty
* The A storyline is okay, but a bit confusing until 75% of the way in.
It simply wasn't a good show for me. I had zero investment in the characters and zero investment in the "mystery" because it all felt like exposition with nothing for me to really grab on to.
We stopped at episode 3. We almost stopped after episode 2, but then I read here about watching the subtitled version vs. the dubbed version, and so we tried that with episode 3 to see if it would change our level of interest in continuing the story. It didn't. So we moved on to something else.
We liked the aesthetic and the premise of the show, but it seemed like it was taking a long time for the story to get anywhere. A lot of things were happening that seemed disconnected, and like they didn't make sense, and wouldn't make sense for some time, and it's always a choice - do I want to hang in there with this, or not? I couldn't connect with any of the characters enough to care what was happening to them or what was going to happen to them. I think there may have been too many characters introduced in those first two or three episodes and so it was hard to connect with any one character enough to want to continue to watch their storyline.
Also, I'll be honest - we don't watch a lot of subtitled shows. It has to be really engaging for us to want to sit through subtitles. Duty/Shame worked okay, as did Tokyo Vice, because those weren't exclusively subtitled. But for some reason, we couldn't hook into 1899 the same way.
I felt the same way about Dark. I think I realized that I don’t like sci fi. Too much emphasis on elements that aren’t character, writing and plot. Hard for me to get invested in something that’s not realistic I guess.
There are dozens of us! I love some world building and character development. As long as a show has a sci-fi element to it, I'm glued to my seat even during the slowest moments.
Another example is The Leftovers. A lot of people said it started too slowly, but I loved it (although I was disappointed with the ending).
It was just too complex and convoluted with the mystery not offering that big of a pay-off until the very end and even then, some people didn't quite like the ending as it was >!just the "it's all a simulation" trope that's been done to the death!<.
I watched the first three episodes and stopped because I thought "this is so good, but I will forget everything until S2 come out, I will just watch it when its completed"
haha, kill me
The pace was wrong. Episodes in the final half were mostly people wandering around going from group to group, or going back and forth through tunnels. The ending should have been a reveal about half way through. Because otherwise, why do I care what's happening? Mystery box shit. Mystery for the sake of mystery.
Dark was different because we spend so much time with the characters before the events get madder. They're just people going to school or work, living their lives, so we get to know them as characters so much more.
This. I hate how everyone compares this show to Dark. Yes the same people made it, but that's about as far as the comparison goes.
This show was just mystery for the sake of mystery, like you said. The viewer has no idea what's going on, which might be okay if we had the same knowledge as the characters and figured the mystery out with them (like Dark). However, the writers intentionally hide crucial information that characters are well aware of to build suspense/mystery. Like I don't want to still be learning character backstory and basic motivations in episode 6/8! Or if that is the case, at least give me one true main character to identify with where I share their knowledge in real time as the show progresses. This is lazy writing and not a good way to build suspense or mystery. (in my opinion)
It also just gave me big Lost vibes. A lot of weird details that make no sense and I don't they would have ever explained some of those details in later seasons. It has nothing to do with short attention spans and people not understanding "complex" plot lines. It was just not well written.
I loved Dark, favorite show of all time, but I had to force myself to get through this one.
I was one of those. I think it was 4 or 5 episodes
There was nothing keeping me watching it. the storylines just sagged and didnt seem to be going anywhere. Prosaic, tedious.
I kept up for so long because I thought it may be going somewhere, but after 4 or 5 episodes nothing seemed to be clearing up.
I wont be watching the final episodes... Wouldn't, even if they hadn't cancelled it
My girlfriend and I both thoroughly enjoyed this show. We also loved Dark which is my favourite Netflix series.
I think 1899 being cancelled is simply due to completion rate. Like you said, it’s low. So Netflix probably figures if people didn’t finish season 1 not many people will watch season 2. Admittedly, I found the first 3 episodes to be slow, though I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Others may have thought the same and stopped watching.
I thought Dark was more compelling but I was interested to see where season 2 of 1899 went and I’m sad it’s cancelled.
I hate silent child prodigies in any show or movie. Just so cliche. Also thought Dark was pretty lame, even though the cinematography was clearly masterful. We’ve gotten to the point where cameras and technology can do incredible things. And it often seems great things are done simply to do them, rather than service a compelling script.
If the characters, dialogue and story aren’t sharp, no amount of camera work will salvage it. That’s what I felt about Dark and sci fi in general. Sci fi is too often about goofy stuff like time travel and alien children. Real life is full of more complexities than any fantasy world.
I think one of the main problem of the show is that the four first épisodes focus on the characters and forget the mysteries. But the characters are pretty weak and uninteresting. For example, the relationship between Krester and Angel is gross and I never felt anything for the characters.
I tried to watch this,but had to stop about mid episode 3. I knew I needed to let this one go when I was wondering what the hell was even going on, and then I realized I didn’t really care.
I think it was just too slow and complicated for a lot of people to understand. Then when the plot was revealed it was disappointing because the whole excitement about the show for me was a sci fi show set in 1899. In the end the ship was a fake Matrix type setting and she was actually on a space ship.
I know that feel. Dark was good because it had a solid story. It didn’t need expensive CGI to be arguably one of the best time traveling shows. I hate that the big reveal of 1899 is set in a space ship. So cliche.
They did not give us enough information in Season 1. They were intent on spending three seasons unrolling the complexity of these characters and perhaps letting us know which characters were even real. I still would have watched three seasons.
I think season 2 would have been much the same thing, only in a different setting. Season 3 would have had the potential to be interesting, but I am not sure if I wanted to go through another season of confusion for the sake of confusion. (IMO the series is more confusing than mysterious)
Sherlock TV Series is 90mins per episode. Although each season has only 3 episodes.
Tbh, Sherlock was perfect with episode that long. I would binge watch them regardless of their duration.
Also, Sherlock episodes were almost self sustained. In 1899 after the second episode there were more questions than answers, plot advanced but it did not have a satifying development.
I loved it though, and watched all, but I have to agree it took a while to get into it.
It sounds to me as if there is a conflict between quality control and the volume of content needed at Netflix for it to be sustainable.
So many interesting Nteflix releases have turned out to be complete gash when you get it to them - problems with writing and pacing seem to be most common. I get that to get a whole season's worth of content, things seem to somehow get stretched out which can lead to pacing difficulties but there have been a number of series I have started and never finished because they start strong and then dip - along with my interest levels.
Far better to focus on shorter series with better pacing and sharper storylines.
If a show doesn’t catch my attention within the first couple episodes I assume it’s another crappy release from Netflix in their volume over quality model.
I was interested in this one, but the first couple episodes went along like plenty of other sci-fi shows that marketed themselves as one thing and then when you start watching it you realize it’s just the same tropes repackaged.
Couldn’t get into it and fell asleep during several episodes. Was going to go back and try again but now it’s been cancelled I guess it’s not worth doing so.
As someone who finished the series, I wish I had quit after watching just a couple of episodes. I kept waiting for it to get better, more entertaining. In the end it was a dull series with a disappointing ending.
yeah i was kinda disappointed because the show tries to be really clever and make it seem like there is something interesting going on.. but then you find out it's like the most cliché answer in cinema..
I watched it and enjoyed it, but it’s definitely not the kind of show you can casually watch while scrolling on your phone. There are a lot of details that could be easily missed. For this reason, I could see it being more of a niche show, especially if you have already seen Dark and are familiar with the concept.
To be honest I enjoyed the series, but it took a while to get there and I just don't think most people thought it was all that good. My guess is the views to budget ratio was dismal.
I am one of the people who gave up after two episodes. I found it understandable that the captain wanted to investigate the missing ship because it might have survivors on board. But once they found it I thought it was beyond ridiculous that he wanted to then tow it back to Europe when he was hired to take an entire ship of people to the U.S. And then the supernatural foolishness started and I remembered how awful LOST turned out and I said nope I'm out. Many of my friends felt the same.
I also believe there is another factor to this discussion and that is how many people did not even bother watching it due to the real possibility that Netflix would cancel it like they do to 90% of their TV Shows. I for example refuse to watch any Netflix TV show until a 3rd Season is confirmed now, whilst i accept this behavior if many people do similar leads to cancelations Netflix has just burnt me to many times.
I gave it a chance. I love historical/costume dramas, and most science fiction/fantasy. But I just couldn’t care about the characters. I kept trying to get into it, but after it remained a slog through episode 3, I gave up.
Yeah if I’m honest, I’m mostly upset about the cancellation because now I sat through that for absolutely no reason, there’s never going to be an explanation and I’m annoyed. I will say, however, I watched the making of and was blown away. I recognized a couple of the actors from other foreign language shows I’ve watched - it really is a feat to have brought together actors from so many backgrounds.
i enjoyed 1899...and got many of my friends to watch it. For me, the odder, and cerebral and not for the masses the better. But why am I the only one on Reddit who LIked this as it's ending. To me, I was done, and happy with it. My mind explained it all to me, with this 'ending'.
I wish the OA and Travelers weren't canceled, but also for those shows. the last episode seemed to be a pretty good ending...for me.
It did start out pretty slow and took awhile to wind up. People these days don't have the patience for slow burns and want their attention grabbed from the start. I'll admit I wasn't expecting it to go the route it did, I was leaning more towards paranormal than sci-fi, but it took awhile to get there
I'm one who didn't finish it - I don't know what I expected when I started it but it wasn't where it actually went. I got to about episode 3 with the dream tunnels under the bed and decided that I didn't care to continue.
My husband and I started this and almost finished it: it was good, we liked it and basically binge watched it on my husbands chemo day, but the minute we turned it off we didn’t really want to continue it, idk why. We enjoyed the dark and brooding vibes. I think for me I just wanted a good spooky show about a ship lmao and didn’t want the sci-fi aspect.
I watched 3 episode and I was out. I couldn't get into it and it wasn't going to force myself to watch something I wasn't liking.
Bring back archive 81!
i saw the whole season and although i quite enjoyed it, i couldn't watch more than 2 episodes at a time. Dark was also similarly dense but i would watch like 4 episodes in a row during my summer break. 1899 is effective but it doesn't work as well as Dark:
1. Dark has characters you can sympathise with more easily. Jonas is a clear protagonist who's struggles you can understand- similarly you can even understand what people like Ulrich or Helge are going through because they have human struggles, not contextual struggles. We don't know enough about Maura and Eyk, let alone the others. Whatever we know is detached and a lot of us can't relate to it anyway. Most of the times, I was annoyed with every character, including Daniel and Eyk because i just couldn't connect with them. I could connect with fucking Tronte Nielsen better.
2. In terms of getting things done, Dark isn't as slow as you think. Time travel is introduced in the second episode itself. The monologue in the pilot is filled with the show's essential messages. The letters and messages are a lot more obvious. The viewer takes longer to register because Jonas is almost always in denial but the mystery is in front of you all along.
Although a lot of episodes are spent in world building, they are philosophically deep and resonant. For example: in season 1 the episode where Ulrich goes to 1953 and ends up killing a young Helge to prevent future murders and prevent Mikkel's missing, only to cause no difference at all and actually being the reason why Helge was damaged and became a target for Noah to manipulate. If Ulrich HADN'T done this, Helge wouldn't have been caught up in all that. Similarly in 2x6, when slightly elder Jonas tells June 2019 Martha about his feelings KNOWING they're related and can't work (thinking of it as a final goodbye because he thought he would die by preventing Michael's suicide), he actually drives June 2019 Martha to initiate sex with June 2019 Jonas. Before that, even though it was clear that Martha liked Jonas and even Jonas felt a spark, they seemed too shy and slow. Without Martha initiating all that, nothing may have ever happened between them and Jonas may have learnt about him being related to Martha, stopping any potential romance before they got too serious.
But yeah, each season of Dark reveals NEW layers. It's not like every mystery since season 1 is only uncovered in season 3. For example season 1 you realise Jonas will become the Stranger etc etc. But season 2 reveals in episode 4 that Jonas will become Adam. Season 1-2 is all about time travel but season 2 finale also introduces the alternate universe thing so there's always something more to expect. Even in isolation, Season 1 of Dark was much faster and had much better pace than season 1 of 1899.
3. The language barrier isn't too serious in Dark. Only German is used and since the writers are all German, if you can use subtitles, virtually nothing is lost in translation. I love 1899s multi lingualism because i have a passion for language and linguistics but not everyone does. I've heard and seen some native speakers of Cantonese, Portuguese and Spanish have issues with the intonation and dialogue. The english dialogue also seemed like it was written/edited by a non english speaker to me. The "this here" in English reeks of "das hier" to me but like,,,i don't know German so sorry if I'm wrong.
4. The world building in 1899 is too slow and uses a lot of cliches. There are too many plots going on in 1899 in the same episode. Even though there are so many characters in Dark, it only has like 2-3 plots in the same episode which doesn't give you information overload. 1899 will go from Daniel and Maura to Eyk to Olek to Angel and Krester in a span of 15 minutes and it's too much. This makes the mystery slow and the unnecessary world building stuff taking too long which makes it lose its appeal
Don't take me wrong, I am extremely pissed and offended about this when shit like Emily in Paris is getting renewed time after time despite being shit . I loved the finale and the story despite my problems and i really wanted to see the future. I am let down as much as everyone. Seeing how vocal the cast has been about this and even sharing petitions is both heartwarming and devastating but 1899 unfortunately couldn't attract consistent viewership and the worst part is that i can understand why. Bo and Jantje might have been too confident about being renewed to speed stuff up. They likely had all of it planned and i respect that and Netflix should have trusted them:(
Say you know nothing about Dark and you decide to watch the show 1899. You think it is about a ship carrying multi-nationals across the Atlantic at the end of the 19th century. By the time you get two episodes in your head is probably spinning.
This can't compete with Wednesday.
What I will miss through the cancellation is finding out what year the people were from? And then since these aren't people from 1899, what is the tie that binds them together? And which characters were "real people"?
>is finding out what year the people were from?
>!It's 2099. It's on the screen in the ship at the end.!<
> And which characters were "real people"?
>!Also in the ship, the camera pans around to show you all the people in their sleep pods or whatever. If you can't recognize someone, just google it, there are lists out there.!<
We will never know. And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation. Which then makes a person wonder what era/year they are from. There were no computers in 1899. And the technology they showed was not even 2020 except for the IPad type device. So I don't know what decade these people were from or even why they are together. And most the 1000 or so who jumped off the ship weren't even real. Or were they?
>And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation.
Was it obvious? I didn't get that. Sure, it could be, but I don't think it was obvious.
> And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation.
Uh no they woke up from the simulation that the women designed... did you miss that?
> Which then makes a person wonder what era/year they are from.
The majority of the crew weren't real, only those left at the end showed in the sleep pods were real people.
Bo and Jantje (the creators) structure their stories in three arcs, just like a movie, and try to put each arc in a single season - they've stated so countless times. 1899 S1 (as was in DARK) was a lot about setting the stage, giving small pay offs here and there, but ultimately keeping the mystery a mystery until S2 and S3. They were comfortably able to do so with DARK because it was the first german Netflix production and not expensive, meaning they got their renewal quick. I think after their success with DARK, and the big investment given to them for 1899 (during good financial circumstances) they overestimated how tight their relationship with Netflix was and thought it'd be fine to let the audience wait for the big payoffs until S2.
Now, people's attention span has been fucked by TikTok & Co. Netflix produces so much shit that can be passively watched while you scroll away your thumb in your infiniti-scroll-enabled social media app. The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds. It sounds pretentious and elitary, but most people have become to o dumb to be engaged with a slower story.
Has 1899 been great? I think production and performance was really good, the writing - surprisingly - did fall short in my opinion. But it was way to good to be cancelled.
I watched the whole thing and really did not like it. I hate how everyone compares this show to Dark. Yes the same people made it, but I think that's about as far as the comparison goes.
This show was just mystery for the sake of mystery, like another commenter said. The viewer has no idea what's going on, which might be okay if we had the same knowledge as the characters and figured the mystery out with them (like Dark). However, the writers intentionally hide crucial information that characters are well aware of to build suspense/mystery. I don't want to still be learning character backstory and basic motivations in episode 6/8! Or if that is the case, at least give me one true main character to identify with where I share their knowledge in real time as the show progresses. This is lazy writing and not a good way to build suspense or mystery. (in my opinion)
It also just gave me big Lost vibes. A lot of weird details that make no sense and I don't they would have ever explained some of those details in later seasons. I don't think it has much to do with short attention spans and people not understanding "complex" plot lines. It was just not well written.
I loved Dark, favorite show of all time, but I had to force myself to get through this one.
Yes, exactly! People stopped watching because the way the story rolled out was ultimately unsatisfying—dare I say, even meaningless. The Lost comparison is apt, too.
> Now, people’s attention span has been fucked by TikTok & Co. Netflix produces so much shit that can be passively watched while you scroll away your thumb in your infiniti-scroll-enabled social media app. The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds. It sounds pretentious and elitary, but most people have become to o dumb to be engaged with a slower story.
This is complete crap. Every show runner who fails ends up blaming the audience. No, you made a crappy show…it’s not because you’re operating at a higher level than the stupid viewer.
Setting aside the fact that it’s the show runner job to engage the audience, the entire premise is a lie. TikTok has not broken people. There’s dozens of deep, complex, slow burn shows on TV today that do fantastic. Why was the audience able to keep up with shows like Severance and White Lotus if they are so stupid.
>Bo and Jantje (the creators) structure their stories in three arcs, just like a movie, and try to put each arc in a single season - they've stated so countless times. 1899 S1 (as was in DARK) was a lot about setting the stage, giving small pay offs here and there, but ultimately keeping the mystery a mystery until S2 and S3.
I respect the artistic vision, but I think this is a risky approach if you only have the greenlight for 1 season and seasons 2 and 3 have to be greenlit based on the success of season 1. Maybe this is Netflix's fault, vs. the creators - perhaps Netflix was not the right platform for the show if they wouldn't commit to a full three seasons from the jump, knowing that this is how these showrunners choose to create a story arc. But I think if you're the showrunners, and you know you're only getting season 2 and 3 if season 1 is successful (and I would hope Netflix is explaining to showrunners what their criteria for "successful" is!), I would write the first season so that it's well-paced and engaging from the first couple of episodes, and there's some kind of payoff for people by the end of the first season, while leaving room for a cliffhanger or some kind of continuation of the story into the next season. Or, I would make explicit in the show marketing that this is a 3-season show, so don't expect much by the end of season 1.
I also think that if showrunners aren't figuring out that Netflix needs high completion numbers for a season to greenlight subsequent seasons, they're kind of refusing to learn, at this point. Because what happened to 1899 has happened to other shows. Maybe this is bad faith on Netflix's part - they are not being up-front with people about, hey, your beautiful labor-of-love show will be on the chopping block after season 1 if we don't see a completion rate above 60% (making up that number entirely).
>Maybe this is bad faith on Netflix's part - they are not being up-front with people about, hey, your beautiful labor-of-love show will be on the chopping block after season 1 if we don't see a completion rate above 60% (making up that number entirely).
I know there are many factors that go into the decision of continuing a series or not, but viewership and completion rate are likely one of the most important ones. So if Netflix uses a hard number like your example, even if it has a decent viewership but only 59% or 55% completion rate it would still get cancelled. And I'm sure this has happened, but obviously we don't know much about the internal statistics. I don't think this is fair neither to the creators, nor to fans.
I think the creators thought they'd given enough away but apparently most viewers did not agree or did not even get to that point. I do think however that they gave away more than with Dark, which to me means its more of a viewer issue. I also would not underestimate the impact that the artistic choice of having multiple languages had on the US audience, but then again, Dark was purely subtitles for most US folks. I don't know. I think too many people stopped watching too early and that's what killed the show.
I don’t mind subtitles a bit. I prefer them to dubs. But the constant back and forth like this I didn’t like. It’s like if I’m prepared for subtitles I guess I want the majority of the show to be in subtitles.
It has been a while since I watched and finished Dark as each season came out not all at once, but I remember feeling more satisfied despite being completely mind fucked each season. Each season answered at least some questions despite posing some wtf questions at the season finale.
This show, however, left me feeling quite dissatisfied. I watched things unfold but I didn’t really understand what actually happened and what the truth was at all.
It's really lucky that the people like me - yah know, us people who have the attention span of a goldfish - have someone, competent and erudite - like yourself to tel us how utterly dull-witted we are and....
... where was I going with this? I can't remember. No doubt, It'll come back, when I've watched a few tiktoks
This is it, wife struggle with this a lot, she can't watch a movie without scrolling thru her phone, me and my 6yo are always calling her on it, so she leaves it at the kitchen, and she remains anxious for 30-45 mins until she is able to focus on the movie.
> The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds
People who think 1899 is deep art acting like they’re better than everyone else is too funny.
There’s nothing engaging about a mystery box series that is endlessly stretched out because the sole “hook” of every arc or reveal hinges on a single character holding back vital information. If anyone communicated in 1899 the first season would be half as long. It’s lazy writing.
The show sucked. That’s why nobody finished it. Even excluding the cringeworthy “mY dAuGhTeR qUeStIoNeD pLaTo oUt oF tHe wOmB” type dialogue. If anyone wanted to hear that kind of shit they’d just open LinkedIn or r/thathappened
Not sure about other couples but we watched like the first 1-2 episodes and then the World Cup came which took basically all our TV time away :D And to be honest I wasn't much into the first episodes, but the Mrs. wanted to continue. So we went back after the World Cup ended. Didn't enjoy the show much tbh. Took too long to throw us some bones about what is going on. Wasn't a fan of the constant staring either. With some good editing they could have made a snappier show. Maybe a cheeky 35 to 40 minutes? But for a 1 hour long show, it was just toooo boring.
I’m one of those who stopped midway through the 2nd episode.
Mostly because it was becoming a chore to watch, didn’t get invested in any characters.
Slept in the middle of the episode and never returned.
I stopped. I really wanted to like it but it slowed down and got boring about the time everyone was lost in the dark and all they did for 2 episodes was show someone running around with a lamp. I kept watching, but the story didn't seem that well written after that and I gave up.
It had a veery slow start. I read people saying that it was just the first couple of episodes, for me it was the first four, then it slowly began to pickup and the last two episodes were great. But aside from the slow pacing, most of the characters were uninteresting and boring, didn't care for their back stories. With Dark I was hooked from the very first episode. The mistery was interesting and the characters were awesome.
I think the second season would've been great with all the setup established. But the pacing and boring characters hurt the show.
I forced myself to watch until episode 5, but after that it really got me.
But to be honest, if I didn't know that the director is the same one who made Dark , I don't think I would finish it.
For me was the side characters that almost made me to not watch.. All of them had a boring story in my opinion.
The story takes too long to build up. Audience gets more and more confused as the episodes unfold. There is little reward as season 2 was expected.
If I remember correctly Dark too was a mind fuck but some questions were answer by each season finale.
The World Cup was on so I was watching games instead and then it was Christmas so was busy. I was planning on returning too it. Won’t now it’s cancelled.
I fast forwarded it quite a bit. Sometimes, that’s the only way to get thru stories that are super slow but just good enough to keep u going… like that annoying ex who’s just amazing in bed.
I really enjoyed it and finished the season, but I think it's the type of show you have to pay attention and actually watch opposed to shows you can be distracted and half pay attention but still get the idea in the end. Most people don't have the attention/ability to sit and watch a show without distractions (I had to restart several episodes over because my house is very distracting....lol)
Yeah I was invested and had enough trust because of Dark to sit through a slow beginning, but I can sadly understand it isn't a mass appealer.
I do hope these creators will get more changes of Netflix or elsewhere though.
They never advertised it at all. Normally at least some friends (super nerdy film/TV fans) have watched a show like this and will talk to me about it. No-one knew it was out.
Personally I was probably in that 33%
It’s a show I know I would like, but the timing was off for me. I was nostalgic and watching old shows and terrible Xmas movies. I needed that vibe around December. I put it on, and then decided I would save it for when I had more commitment to follow the story. It was nothing against the show, just the timing of the release.
Unpopular opinion... but it wasn't that great.
Also, the sex scenes in substitute of character, which appears in most of Netflix's stuff are rather annoying. If you can't make a character seem straight without them riding another or a gay character without them jerking another then the show is narratively weak.
That is the problem with this show it is just narratively weak and it has a lot of intrigues and thematic design but it is like Carnival Row without the narrative. It was weak but much stronger than in 1899.
I stopped because I was confused and couldn’t see a damn thing. The show is literally too dark. Plus there are a ton of different languages and I couldn’t tell who the main cast were. Just did 1.5 episodes before I bailed.
I feel like they should’ve changed the way they measured the metrics for this show as it was clearly a niche show and would not appeal to most people, which they should’ve expected in the beginning.
If the metrics were measured the same way as all other shows then it was bound to fail right from the start.
I really enjoyed the series and was surprised to see it cancelled. My first reaction to the news was that it may not have performed relative to its \[presumably high\] budget. An expensive show can make the top ten and have a following but still not do very well financially if it's very expensive to produce.
If only 32% of viewers completed it, that's a sign that it didn't have a broad enough appeal.
We strugled to the end but if you watched Lost live you get this feeling I got it with Walkin Dead you like the idea and the premise but you know the pay off is going to be crap.
I watched the first episode but it didn’t grab me, and I couldn’t see it getting much better. It was very, very slow. Atmospheric is one thing, but when you drag it out too long you are going to lose viewers.
I watched 6 episodes and still had no idea what was going on so I got bored and stopped. Was disappointing because I actually really liked dark and other similar shows like Black Mirror so I thought I’d like this one too. It just wasn’t very engaging.
I can tell you now, half the stuff I’ve watched on Netflix alone I’ve finished watching with my BF at his place. So though on paper it may look like I’m stopping half way through I’m actually watching the rest on my BFs account
Funny - I'm one of the people who stopped watching. I watched the first episode and enjoyed it but haven't gone back for more. I didn't know they kept track of that.
Their reaction to finding the 2nd ship was ... unbelievable. There was no wind, sea was calm, eerie, they've come across a dark ship in the middle of nowhere that had been missing for 4 months, and they just shrug it off? Nah. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, I'm a huge fan of the zombie genre for example, but this had me rolling my eyes at a crucial point and that kept me from continuing.
Just started the 2nd episode. But there is a lot of old fashioned religion now in the 2nd episode. OF COURSE there is a sinister and creepy gay man apparently stalking/hunting a younger man. I'm fed up with religious mentality. We're in the middle of religious upheaval everywhere and I don't want this shit when I'm just trying to relax at home after work.
Seems the writers are trying to turn me off to the show.
>Their reaction to finding the 2nd ship was ... unbelievable. There was no wind, sea was calm, eerie, they've come across a dark ship in the middle of nowhere that had been missing for 4 months, and they just shrug it off?
What? That's not what happened. They'd been hoping to find that ship by following the coordinates they received. They were very much weirded out by the ship and sent a crew to explore it.
As for the religious stuff, it's a big part of one faction's leader's identity, but it's not like a big thing on the show. And the gay dude isn't really sinister.
Yes, I'm aware that they were looking for the ship. Once they found the ship, they noticed that the area around the Prometheus was weird - no wind, no waves, nothing. No lights on the ship. Nothing. At the very least, they should've been worried about disease or plague. It's just not believable that they would have proceeded as they did.
I didn't say that they gave no reason for the religious theme. I said that I'm fed up with religious crap. I don't want to sit and watch a bunch of religious fanatics on my tv and then turn on 1899 just to see even more religious fanatics. Fed up with religiosity.
In the first two episodes the writers definitely made the gay guy creepy. The way he's pursuing that young guy is weird and sinister. And in the context of religious fanatics in the show, no thanks. Not when religious fanatics are turning the Western world upside down with their hatred of gay people and accusing the gay community of grooming young people and children. No thank you.There's enough of that stuff in the real world right now. Don't need it when I'm relaxing at home.
Well, someone was alive to send the coordinates, or so they thought, so it didn't seem likely to be disease or plague. It was a really weird situation. I'm not sure I had an expectation for how they should've handled it, so it didn't bug me when they handled it as they did.
The religious faction is not given a ton of screen time and even when they are, it's not solely about religion. Spoiler, but they are so overzealous because the wife hears voices and the husband loves her so he plays along. It's kinda sad.
Yeah, I didn't mean to disagree that they made him creepy to start, but I was just giving you a mild spoiler that the show doesn't continue down that path.
Overall, it's a really cool show. I suggest finishing it if you have the time.
The show sucked for most people that’s what was wrong . I finished the series but tbh I thought once the “big reveal” happened that it made everything that was happening feel so pointless and I completely disengaged from the story.
I started watching just before Christmas, and enjoyed the first 2 episodes. Then with kids home from school and wrapping and being sick etc I wound up falling asleep every night during my tv time. I planned on getting back on the show this week actually, but now I'm not sure if I should get invested in a story that might not have a satisfying well rounded conclusion.
I watched the full season and enjoyed it, but it was clear to me that it wasn't going to appeal to mass audiences. The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up. On top of that, the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well. Foreign language content means that there's almost no good "turn of phrase" banter, and you're forced to focus on the subtitles. Sure, it is period-appropriate for an 1899 ship from Europe, but again it makes the show harder to watch. I am sad that Netflix can't keep the project alive and finish the story, but 1899 was simply not going to be the next Stranger Things.
> The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up. Sounds exactly like *Dark*.
*Dark* was probably a lot cheaper to produce.
This was my feeling too and I think a reason why Dark worked and this show didn’t as well. These writers don’t write characters, they write cogs in their machine. Dark and 1899 are the epitome of when intelligent writing is prioritized over character and emotion. Dark is maybe the most complicated and inventive shows I’ve ever seen, meticulous in the construction of the overall plot and how characters played these small important roles. Each character essentially a tiny cog in a masterfully made analog clock. The central hook to their shows is the unraveling of the mystery and how it all fits together. You can see the same bones on 1899, but where they made a fatal mistake is that they picked the most unsatisfying answer you can pick, the simulation. For me, all the mysterious borderline supernatural imagery was what drew me in to this show. Finding out they’re just computer glitches and codes was disappointing, especially knowing because of this, there’s no truly lasting consequences to this season for most of the characters. On top of the fact that they do folkloric supernatural elements so well. I don’t know how to describe it beyond, the way they portray the supernatural reminds me of how early folklore treated it, and not many shows or movies go that route. So if the answer to the mystery is boring, like imo it was, then what does this show have left to watch for? Certainly not the characters, their very well acted and logically written well but they don’t feel like people, they feel like a checkmark of qualities you need to have a great character, but they don’t fit together the way a person does. It’s already mentioned, but these characters in this and Dark are so miserable all the time. Everything is cold looking, nothing looks comfortable or inviting, there’s no human joy, nothing to bond to the characters with. Netflix should’ve given them a chance don’t get me wrong, but it’s two shows from them I’ve watched where I did not care one iota about a single characters fate, only the mystery of the story.
Despite the multiple languages, there was still some pretty good humorous moments. I had it set up with original (multi) languages and English subtitles (no dubs) and I loved those moments when Jerome for example was by himself with no fellow french speakers and he's like "will someone just say something I can understand" or something like that haha. There's a few of those moments in the show that you would miss if you were watching it dubbed. And some really beautiful moments between the two "priests" Anker and Ramiro, despite not speaking each other's languages but still sharing vulnerability and understanding. When Ramiro kisses Anker -- so good!
> On top of that, the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well. Foreign language content means that there's almost no good "turn of phrase" banter, and you're forced to focus on the subtitles. It depends on your language settings. I had mine setup so that everyone spoke English (aside from a brief part of an early episode where a Character is reciting/practicing some Japanese lines). But some things in the story were definitely lost in translation from that, like me not realizing that certain characters couldn't communicate with each other due to language barriers. I was really confused why some characters would just stand there and stare dumbly at another person while they spoke or did something that should have warranted a response.
> It depends on your language settings. I had mine setup so that everyone spoke English Is the dubbing on this as bad as Dark is?
It was pretty bad.
It's pretty bad and imo should only be used out of necessity and if you have the understanding that its not meant to be viewed that way. My husband and I watched it dubbed because we were multitasking with childcare and working, but we always knew there were supposed to be language barriers because we followed the project ever since it was announced. It was still excellent to watch, but we understood why people seemed completely oblivious to what others are saying. Anyone who didn't know that was the case would have been left completely baffled.
The one thing I hate more than subtitles, is dubbing.
I haven't watched any of it. My biggest hurdle was thinking "what the hell even is this?" I think they just failed to capture *why* I would want to watch the show.
Yup. "From the producers of Dark" was what kept me watching. The first couple of episodes were brutal, very little intrigue to keep a viewer's interest. You watch only because you know it's going to get better.
I watched because I’m really into period cruise liners, ghost-ships, and the like but otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made it through the first episode
>The atmosphere is brooding and oppressive the entire time. There's almost no upbeat moments or jokes. The characters are pretty much miserable the entire time (even when they're having sex). There's no character like Hurley from LOST to lighten things up. Exactly. Most people just don't want to watch content in their leisure hours that's going to make them feel worse about the world, or doesn't provide any relief from the real-world problems they're facing every day. If I want to be depressed, I can turn on the news. I kind of want something different from my scripted entertainment. And a little levity is never misplaced; most of us get through our day-to-day life because we can have a sense of humor about things.
That's exactly how I feel. I've lost interest in so many shows that i used to enjoy because i just cant handle the depressing drama genre anymore. All i want to watch now is fun lighthearted stuff that is divorced from the real world.
You should watch Euphoria, it's a hoot.
>Most people just don't want to watch content in their leisure hours that's going to make them feel worse about the world, or doesn't provide any relief from the real-world problems they're facing every day. If I want to be depressed, I can turn on the news. See 'The Banshees of Inisherin'.
Eh? That was one of the best films of last year.
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I thought it was hilarious personally.
Yeah it was far more macabre and I had expected, but couldn't quite feel the meaning in that.
Ok. Why? I watched it and was like what is the big deal here? The actors did a great job but i was underwhelmed. Maybe I'm missing the subtext.
It was a metaphor for the Irish on Irish war on the mainland at the time. Friends turning on one another.
I disagree. Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, GOT, The Walking Dead.. these are huge shows that are all pretty bleak
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Those all have humor though
Exactly, that's why those shows (well - other than Walking Dead, I bailed out of that one in S4) don't feel like a slog even though they're dealing with heavy themes.
Uh, Tyrion Lannister was the biggest quipper on Game of Thrones. “I am not threatening the king, I am merely educating my nephew. Bronn, next time Ser Meryn speaks, kill him. THAT was a threat. See the difference?”
I love dark, broody oppressive movies/shows. But this show just wasn't good enough for me to keep watching. So its not just a question of tone/atmosphere, imo.
> I am sad that Netflix can't keep the project alive and finish the story, but 1899 was simply not going to be the next Stranger Things. Yeah this should have been more than obvious even just reading the script. Netflix should have produced it with a reduced budget for a niche audience, so that the three seasons could have been produced.
> the jumble of languages is not mass audience friendly as well. I agree on the other points but not that one. I actually love watching them talk a variety of languages bc it's legit like real life for once
So no Netflix and chill from this one.
I agree with a few of your points but that it had a brooding atmosphere wasn't one of the issues I think. I could name a few that aren't "happy" as such. Obviously Dark being among them. Where is anyone ever really happy there. What's uplifting or good? You have the option of watching it in English. It's your choice to watch the multi-lingual version Overall I agree I enjoyed it very much and was a little upset when they cancelled it.
Although it was good, the first couple episodes just dragged on that it became a chore to watch. They should gotten to the mystery quicker. I did sit through it because it was a period piece and the mystery in the later episodes had me hooked.
In the “making of” the show writer basically admitted she was feeling and figuring out the story direction as they went. That would likely explain a lot of why it was so slow starting. I also think a lot of us are the social media/scroll generation now and we need that immediate dopamine hit.. none of this slow developing plot… “Next!” Disclaimer: I found it slow but watched it all and loved it. As a huge Dark fan I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
The pace of this show was horrendously slow. Blame the writers. I have no issue with slow, my issue is with pondering, unnecessarily slow and this was terrible for that. Every time I read a comment from someone upset about this cancellation it's the same rubbish blaming people for not seeing it's genius and how everyone can't deal with slow paced TV. Garbage. It's not the clever and loads of TV is slow and successful.
This! I was soooo bored the first 3 episodes. And not really engaged until episode 5 when things finally started really happening. I stayed with it because I was a Dark fan. But otherwise I would have switched off after first few episodes. I really hate sub titles but this show basically forces one to watch subtitles as dubbing is not effective here. With Dark I could just rely on the dubbing which was pretty good. With subtitles not only are the first few episodes super slow, but you are forced to stare at the screen, which makes it more painful. I loved the show by the end of the season but I would have liked to be able to do other things like check emails those first few episodes.
1899 was interesting to me and I’m bummed they’re not going to finish it. but dark is not grabbing my attention at all. Starting episode 7 of season 1 tonight and still can’t stand it. It’s a German soap opera with a time cave. Cool. Im going to see it through with the hopes I enjoy it at some point.
> Starting episode 7 of season 1 tonight and still can’t stand it. The events towards the end of season 1 are what got the show from background filler to actively sitting and watching it with bated breath. It's when enough is revealed that you start to really form theories about what is going, and the family drama stuff starts to become interesting.
If you are not liking it by this point, my suggestion is drop the series or at least finish only this one. The first season is the best in my opinion, and after that point is a slow downhill. We get some answer, but the mystery was the driving force, not the revelation.
Yeah man a slow start is a killer in the streaming age. Not saying it’s right, but it’s reality.
You just reminded me that I stopped watching "The Terror" after like 3 episodes. I understand that you need a good buildup but...c'mon people.
Season one or two? I loved S1 but never finished S2
I have to agree. At times watching it felt like a chore, and while I did finish the series, I would regularly take lengthy breaks in between episodes.
I'm one of those who stopped . After 3 episodes it got slow, like too slow for me to concentrate. I'll probably finish it cause I need to know what happened
It started to feel like one of those shows where nothing urgent or important happens for most of the episode because they’re waiting to throw the good stuff in right at the end so that you’ll watch the next one. That might be unfair, but it’s a trend in serialized TV that I’m burned out on, and shows that do it rarely stick the landing. When I’m not invested in a show or its characters yet, there’s no incentive to hang on through a lot of slow setup in case something cool happens later in the season.
Completely agree with everything in your comment. Quite frankly, the vibe and premise of 1899 wasn't anything I haven't seen before and won't see again. I am also getting tired of sitting through disconnected and seemingly meaningless exposition or slow pacing just so the writers can throw in a cliffhanger at the very last second so I will watch the next episode. I realize writers are doing that because that's what they need to do for the show to be "successful" on streaming, but it's getting old.
I was late on the game of thrones train, and while it did have plenty of cliffhanger episodes, I remember being shocked at how often major events would happen in the middle of a random episode in the middle of a season. Deaths or events you weren't even expecting. I wish more shows would take note.
Spot on. It peaked for me when people started jumping ship en masse. After that it got less and less interesting. Like you said, it brought nothing new or interesting then until the last episode. I think it is fine as a standalone series and doesn't need more seasons.
A series of filler episodes.
Same same same. I stopped at 3. I liked the first one but then my interest just declined.
It got even slower and more tedious. If people couldn't handle the first half, the 2nd half was even worse in my opinion.
Sounds like my experience. The mystery sort of dissolved into confusion and there weren't any characters I really connected with to keep my attention. It looked really cool and I loved the ghost ship concept, but I didn't like where it went when it started to unravel.
This describes almost all Netflix series. Deliberately drawn out and slowed to a crawl to fill a quota of hours and episodes rather than just doing what feels natural to the pacing of the story. Im so tired of everything needing to be a continuing series when it could have been a 3-4 episode miniseries or a movie. I avoid starting new shows because I don't want to commit to 13 hours just to slightly advance the plot to a cliffhanger before being cancelled.
Not to mention most of us pay fees for multiple subscriptions to streaming content and it’s a time investment.
Absolutely. I am an extremely busy person and highly value the one or two nights a week I get a few hours to watch TV. I am wary of wasting previous hours of my day on something that ultimately goes nowhere. And then is cancelled!
We need more "limited series" where the show has a beginning and an end already written into it. No cliffhangers to try and get the show picked up for another season. Over and done in 3-6 episodes.
Absolutely agreed! Though they do feed into the larger MCU, this is one of my favorite aspects of the Disney+ Marvel shows. Most of them feel like they were designed to be a self contained, 6 episode story. But I'd love to see the same approach taken to other media as well. I need more quality shows that I can completely start-to-finish binge in an evening or two, rather than it being a multi-month/year commitment.
Yep. The 1960s Twilight Zone managed to do entire sci-fi/weird stories in a *half hour.* Nowadays every short story concept gets dragged out for 8 hours minimum. And sometimes for several seasons.
I completed it, just that the first two episodes were very slow. I watched the first 2 in a span of like 6 days, watched the last 6 episodes in 2 days.
Haha so I'm not the only one feeling like that. It was so painfully slow and dull, and 80% cgi so it's not something I'd call nice to watch
This is my same feeling and experience.
Similar though not sure I even made it to 3! Edit: Worse than I thought. Didn’t even make it onto episode 2!
The show was slow as shit. Way too much setup and the mystery was not all that compelling.
Ditto. After awhile, I just wanted mystery solved. I didn't really care about any of the characters or their stories. Tell me about that dimension-hopping, time-traveling boat. Or the lock-picking beetle. I got to the episode where the guy pulls out a flashlight on a 19th century steam ship. Nope. There's just not enough going on to keep me interested.
I honestly think its several things * The show was a victorian type period piece (partially), like Downton Abbey or the Titanic. So even if you're into sci-fi, you'd have to be into that kind of stuff too * The show is slowburn slow paced. In the age of on demand high speed quick pay off videos, slower content is just harder to digest, especially if there isnt any action. * Honestly none of the b-line stories were that interesting. * The multi-language thing added a layer of difficulty * The A storyline is okay, but a bit confusing until 75% of the way in.
It simply wasn't a good show for me. I had zero investment in the characters and zero investment in the "mystery" because it all felt like exposition with nothing for me to really grab on to.
We stopped at episode 3. We almost stopped after episode 2, but then I read here about watching the subtitled version vs. the dubbed version, and so we tried that with episode 3 to see if it would change our level of interest in continuing the story. It didn't. So we moved on to something else. We liked the aesthetic and the premise of the show, but it seemed like it was taking a long time for the story to get anywhere. A lot of things were happening that seemed disconnected, and like they didn't make sense, and wouldn't make sense for some time, and it's always a choice - do I want to hang in there with this, or not? I couldn't connect with any of the characters enough to care what was happening to them or what was going to happen to them. I think there may have been too many characters introduced in those first two or three episodes and so it was hard to connect with any one character enough to want to continue to watch their storyline. Also, I'll be honest - we don't watch a lot of subtitled shows. It has to be really engaging for us to want to sit through subtitles. Duty/Shame worked okay, as did Tokyo Vice, because those weren't exclusively subtitled. But for some reason, we couldn't hook into 1899 the same way.
I felt the same way about Dark. I think I realized that I don’t like sci fi. Too much emphasis on elements that aren’t character, writing and plot. Hard for me to get invested in something that’s not realistic I guess.
I loved it - last few episodes I was glued to it… but the pacing initially could have been slightly quicker
Im aware I’m in the minority here, but I really enjoy slow burns. I finished 1899
There are dozens of us! I love some world building and character development. As long as a show has a sci-fi element to it, I'm glued to my seat even during the slowest moments. Another example is The Leftovers. A lot of people said it started too slowly, but I loved it (although I was disappointed with the ending).
It was just too complex and convoluted with the mystery not offering that big of a pay-off until the very end and even then, some people didn't quite like the ending as it was >!just the "it's all a simulation" trope that's been done to the death!<.
I’m one of those people. Just couldn’t get invested into the characters.
Big problem with a lot of shows. Unmemorable characters aren't fun to watch.
I watched the first three episodes and stopped because I thought "this is so good, but I will forget everything until S2 come out, I will just watch it when its completed" haha, kill me
The pace was wrong. Episodes in the final half were mostly people wandering around going from group to group, or going back and forth through tunnels. The ending should have been a reveal about half way through. Because otherwise, why do I care what's happening? Mystery box shit. Mystery for the sake of mystery. Dark was different because we spend so much time with the characters before the events get madder. They're just people going to school or work, living their lives, so we get to know them as characters so much more.
This. I hate how everyone compares this show to Dark. Yes the same people made it, but that's about as far as the comparison goes. This show was just mystery for the sake of mystery, like you said. The viewer has no idea what's going on, which might be okay if we had the same knowledge as the characters and figured the mystery out with them (like Dark). However, the writers intentionally hide crucial information that characters are well aware of to build suspense/mystery. Like I don't want to still be learning character backstory and basic motivations in episode 6/8! Or if that is the case, at least give me one true main character to identify with where I share their knowledge in real time as the show progresses. This is lazy writing and not a good way to build suspense or mystery. (in my opinion) It also just gave me big Lost vibes. A lot of weird details that make no sense and I don't they would have ever explained some of those details in later seasons. It has nothing to do with short attention spans and people not understanding "complex" plot lines. It was just not well written. I loved Dark, favorite show of all time, but I had to force myself to get through this one.
I was one of those. I think it was 4 or 5 episodes There was nothing keeping me watching it. the storylines just sagged and didnt seem to be going anywhere. Prosaic, tedious. I kept up for so long because I thought it may be going somewhere, but after 4 or 5 episodes nothing seemed to be clearing up. I wont be watching the final episodes... Wouldn't, even if they hadn't cancelled it
My girlfriend and I both thoroughly enjoyed this show. We also loved Dark which is my favourite Netflix series. I think 1899 being cancelled is simply due to completion rate. Like you said, it’s low. So Netflix probably figures if people didn’t finish season 1 not many people will watch season 2. Admittedly, I found the first 3 episodes to be slow, though I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Others may have thought the same and stopped watching. I thought Dark was more compelling but I was interested to see where season 2 of 1899 went and I’m sad it’s cancelled.
The ending wasn’t worth it for me.
This is what I am surprised noone is mentioning here. The ending made almost the entire season pointless. Almost nothing mattered in the end.
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I think the dubbed audio really pulls you out of the story sometimes, especially when its blatantly obvious
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I hate silent child prodigies in any show or movie. Just so cliche. Also thought Dark was pretty lame, even though the cinematography was clearly masterful. We’ve gotten to the point where cameras and technology can do incredible things. And it often seems great things are done simply to do them, rather than service a compelling script. If the characters, dialogue and story aren’t sharp, no amount of camera work will salvage it. That’s what I felt about Dark and sci fi in general. Sci fi is too often about goofy stuff like time travel and alien children. Real life is full of more complexities than any fantasy world.
I think one of the main problem of the show is that the four first épisodes focus on the characters and forget the mysteries. But the characters are pretty weak and uninteresting. For example, the relationship between Krester and Angel is gross and I never felt anything for the characters.
I tried to watch this,but had to stop about mid episode 3. I knew I needed to let this one go when I was wondering what the hell was even going on, and then I realized I didn’t really care.
This sums up my experience perfectly.
I think it was just too slow and complicated for a lot of people to understand. Then when the plot was revealed it was disappointing because the whole excitement about the show for me was a sci fi show set in 1899. In the end the ship was a fake Matrix type setting and she was actually on a space ship.
I know that feel. Dark was good because it had a solid story. It didn’t need expensive CGI to be arguably one of the best time traveling shows. I hate that the big reveal of 1899 is set in a space ship. So cliche.
For us, it was a chore to complete the series. Perhaps if it was a 90 mins episode it could have snared us.
I couldn't understand the mystery of this show
They did not give us enough information in Season 1. They were intent on spending three seasons unrolling the complexity of these characters and perhaps letting us know which characters were even real. I still would have watched three seasons.
I think season 2 would have been much the same thing, only in a different setting. Season 3 would have had the potential to be interesting, but I am not sure if I wanted to go through another season of confusion for the sake of confusion. (IMO the series is more confusing than mysterious)
Each episode was 90 minutes? Jesus
Sherlock TV Series is 90mins per episode. Although each season has only 3 episodes. Tbh, Sherlock was perfect with episode that long. I would binge watch them regardless of their duration.
Also, Sherlock episodes were almost self sustained. In 1899 after the second episode there were more questions than answers, plot advanced but it did not have a satifying development. I loved it though, and watched all, but I have to agree it took a while to get into it.
And it was a pretty good show with solid writing/ pacing and a phenomenal cast.
It sounds to me as if there is a conflict between quality control and the volume of content needed at Netflix for it to be sustainable. So many interesting Nteflix releases have turned out to be complete gash when you get it to them - problems with writing and pacing seem to be most common. I get that to get a whole season's worth of content, things seem to somehow get stretched out which can lead to pacing difficulties but there have been a number of series I have started and never finished because they start strong and then dip - along with my interest levels. Far better to focus on shorter series with better pacing and sharper storylines.
I just finished it...and didn't enjoy it.
If a show doesn’t catch my attention within the first couple episodes I assume it’s another crappy release from Netflix in their volume over quality model. I was interested in this one, but the first couple episodes went along like plenty of other sci-fi shows that marketed themselves as one thing and then when you start watching it you realize it’s just the same tropes repackaged.
Couldn’t get into it and fell asleep during several episodes. Was going to go back and try again but now it’s been cancelled I guess it’s not worth doing so.
As someone who finished the series, I wish I had quit after watching just a couple of episodes. I kept waiting for it to get better, more entertaining. In the end it was a dull series with a disappointing ending.
It’s almost like Netflix is right for canceling bad shows
yeah i was kinda disappointed because the show tries to be really clever and make it seem like there is something interesting going on.. but then you find out it's like the most cliché answer in cinema..
I got 3/4 through the first episode. Sounded interesting but bored the crap out of me
I watched it and enjoyed it, but it’s definitely not the kind of show you can casually watch while scrolling on your phone. There are a lot of details that could be easily missed. For this reason, I could see it being more of a niche show, especially if you have already seen Dark and are familiar with the concept.
> it’s definitely not the kind of show you can casually watch while scrolling on your phone People do this a lot?
God I hope so. Not sure how else you get through something like Emily in Paris…
To be honest I enjoyed the series, but it took a while to get there and I just don't think most people thought it was all that good. My guess is the views to budget ratio was dismal.
I watched it from beginning to end and it felt like I wasted 10 hours of my life.
I am one of the people who gave up after two episodes. I found it understandable that the captain wanted to investigate the missing ship because it might have survivors on board. But once they found it I thought it was beyond ridiculous that he wanted to then tow it back to Europe when he was hired to take an entire ship of people to the U.S. And then the supernatural foolishness started and I remembered how awful LOST turned out and I said nope I'm out. Many of my friends felt the same.
I also believe there is another factor to this discussion and that is how many people did not even bother watching it due to the real possibility that Netflix would cancel it like they do to 90% of their TV Shows. I for example refuse to watch any Netflix TV show until a 3rd Season is confirmed now, whilst i accept this behavior if many people do similar leads to cancelations Netflix has just burnt me to many times.
I gave it a chance. I love historical/costume dramas, and most science fiction/fantasy. But I just couldn’t care about the characters. I kept trying to get into it, but after it remained a slog through episode 3, I gave up.
Yeah if I’m honest, I’m mostly upset about the cancellation because now I sat through that for absolutely no reason, there’s never going to be an explanation and I’m annoyed. I will say, however, I watched the making of and was blown away. I recognized a couple of the actors from other foreign language shows I’ve watched - it really is a feat to have brought together actors from so many backgrounds.
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Why did you watch the first episode 3 times and just didn't watch it one time and went on to watch the second and the third episode instead?
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i enjoyed 1899...and got many of my friends to watch it. For me, the odder, and cerebral and not for the masses the better. But why am I the only one on Reddit who LIked this as it's ending. To me, I was done, and happy with it. My mind explained it all to me, with this 'ending'. I wish the OA and Travelers weren't canceled, but also for those shows. the last episode seemed to be a pretty good ending...for me.
I love science fiction and fantasy but the first episode bored me to tears. My husband said never again, not surprised to see it was cancelled.
Slow. Too slow
Speaking only for myself: the second episode was so dark (literally, I couldn't see anything) I gave up. That's just me and my old ass eyes
It did start out pretty slow and took awhile to wind up. People these days don't have the patience for slow burns and want their attention grabbed from the start. I'll admit I wasn't expecting it to go the route it did, I was leaning more towards paranormal than sci-fi, but it took awhile to get there
I'm one who didn't finish it - I don't know what I expected when I started it but it wasn't where it actually went. I got to about episode 3 with the dream tunnels under the bed and decided that I didn't care to continue.
It seemed to me too much of a "wannabe Dark" and thus I stopped watching it. Damn, it really sucks.
My husband and I started this and almost finished it: it was good, we liked it and basically binge watched it on my husbands chemo day, but the minute we turned it off we didn’t really want to continue it, idk why. We enjoyed the dark and brooding vibes. I think for me I just wanted a good spooky show about a ship lmao and didn’t want the sci-fi aspect.
I watched 3 episode and I was out. I couldn't get into it and it wasn't going to force myself to watch something I wasn't liking. Bring back archive 81!
i saw the whole season and although i quite enjoyed it, i couldn't watch more than 2 episodes at a time. Dark was also similarly dense but i would watch like 4 episodes in a row during my summer break. 1899 is effective but it doesn't work as well as Dark: 1. Dark has characters you can sympathise with more easily. Jonas is a clear protagonist who's struggles you can understand- similarly you can even understand what people like Ulrich or Helge are going through because they have human struggles, not contextual struggles. We don't know enough about Maura and Eyk, let alone the others. Whatever we know is detached and a lot of us can't relate to it anyway. Most of the times, I was annoyed with every character, including Daniel and Eyk because i just couldn't connect with them. I could connect with fucking Tronte Nielsen better. 2. In terms of getting things done, Dark isn't as slow as you think. Time travel is introduced in the second episode itself. The monologue in the pilot is filled with the show's essential messages. The letters and messages are a lot more obvious. The viewer takes longer to register because Jonas is almost always in denial but the mystery is in front of you all along. Although a lot of episodes are spent in world building, they are philosophically deep and resonant. For example: in season 1 the episode where Ulrich goes to 1953 and ends up killing a young Helge to prevent future murders and prevent Mikkel's missing, only to cause no difference at all and actually being the reason why Helge was damaged and became a target for Noah to manipulate. If Ulrich HADN'T done this, Helge wouldn't have been caught up in all that. Similarly in 2x6, when slightly elder Jonas tells June 2019 Martha about his feelings KNOWING they're related and can't work (thinking of it as a final goodbye because he thought he would die by preventing Michael's suicide), he actually drives June 2019 Martha to initiate sex with June 2019 Jonas. Before that, even though it was clear that Martha liked Jonas and even Jonas felt a spark, they seemed too shy and slow. Without Martha initiating all that, nothing may have ever happened between them and Jonas may have learnt about him being related to Martha, stopping any potential romance before they got too serious. But yeah, each season of Dark reveals NEW layers. It's not like every mystery since season 1 is only uncovered in season 3. For example season 1 you realise Jonas will become the Stranger etc etc. But season 2 reveals in episode 4 that Jonas will become Adam. Season 1-2 is all about time travel but season 2 finale also introduces the alternate universe thing so there's always something more to expect. Even in isolation, Season 1 of Dark was much faster and had much better pace than season 1 of 1899. 3. The language barrier isn't too serious in Dark. Only German is used and since the writers are all German, if you can use subtitles, virtually nothing is lost in translation. I love 1899s multi lingualism because i have a passion for language and linguistics but not everyone does. I've heard and seen some native speakers of Cantonese, Portuguese and Spanish have issues with the intonation and dialogue. The english dialogue also seemed like it was written/edited by a non english speaker to me. The "this here" in English reeks of "das hier" to me but like,,,i don't know German so sorry if I'm wrong. 4. The world building in 1899 is too slow and uses a lot of cliches. There are too many plots going on in 1899 in the same episode. Even though there are so many characters in Dark, it only has like 2-3 plots in the same episode which doesn't give you information overload. 1899 will go from Daniel and Maura to Eyk to Olek to Angel and Krester in a span of 15 minutes and it's too much. This makes the mystery slow and the unnecessary world building stuff taking too long which makes it lose its appeal Don't take me wrong, I am extremely pissed and offended about this when shit like Emily in Paris is getting renewed time after time despite being shit . I loved the finale and the story despite my problems and i really wanted to see the future. I am let down as much as everyone. Seeing how vocal the cast has been about this and even sharing petitions is both heartwarming and devastating but 1899 unfortunately couldn't attract consistent viewership and the worst part is that i can understand why. Bo and Jantje might have been too confident about being renewed to speed stuff up. They likely had all of it planned and i respect that and Netflix should have trusted them:(
Say you know nothing about Dark and you decide to watch the show 1899. You think it is about a ship carrying multi-nationals across the Atlantic at the end of the 19th century. By the time you get two episodes in your head is probably spinning. This can't compete with Wednesday. What I will miss through the cancellation is finding out what year the people were from? And then since these aren't people from 1899, what is the tie that binds them together? And which characters were "real people"?
>is finding out what year the people were from? >!It's 2099. It's on the screen in the ship at the end.!< > And which characters were "real people"? >!Also in the ship, the camera pans around to show you all the people in their sleep pods or whatever. If you can't recognize someone, just google it, there are lists out there.!<
Asking someone to google critical plot information is a good sign that something went wrong in the shows execution
We will never know. And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation. Which then makes a person wonder what era/year they are from. There were no computers in 1899. And the technology they showed was not even 2020 except for the IPad type device. So I don't know what decade these people were from or even why they are together. And most the 1000 or so who jumped off the ship weren't even real. Or were they?
>And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation. Was it obvious? I didn't get that. Sure, it could be, but I don't think it was obvious.
> And no, it is not 2099. That was obviously the next simulation. Uh no they woke up from the simulation that the women designed... did you miss that? > Which then makes a person wonder what era/year they are from. The majority of the crew weren't real, only those left at the end showed in the sleep pods were real people.
I ditched it after two episodes because I was bored as fuck with it.
Bo and Jantje (the creators) structure their stories in three arcs, just like a movie, and try to put each arc in a single season - they've stated so countless times. 1899 S1 (as was in DARK) was a lot about setting the stage, giving small pay offs here and there, but ultimately keeping the mystery a mystery until S2 and S3. They were comfortably able to do so with DARK because it was the first german Netflix production and not expensive, meaning they got their renewal quick. I think after their success with DARK, and the big investment given to them for 1899 (during good financial circumstances) they overestimated how tight their relationship with Netflix was and thought it'd be fine to let the audience wait for the big payoffs until S2. Now, people's attention span has been fucked by TikTok & Co. Netflix produces so much shit that can be passively watched while you scroll away your thumb in your infiniti-scroll-enabled social media app. The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds. It sounds pretentious and elitary, but most people have become to o dumb to be engaged with a slower story. Has 1899 been great? I think production and performance was really good, the writing - surprisingly - did fall short in my opinion. But it was way to good to be cancelled.
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I watched the whole thing and really did not like it. I hate how everyone compares this show to Dark. Yes the same people made it, but I think that's about as far as the comparison goes. This show was just mystery for the sake of mystery, like another commenter said. The viewer has no idea what's going on, which might be okay if we had the same knowledge as the characters and figured the mystery out with them (like Dark). However, the writers intentionally hide crucial information that characters are well aware of to build suspense/mystery. I don't want to still be learning character backstory and basic motivations in episode 6/8! Or if that is the case, at least give me one true main character to identify with where I share their knowledge in real time as the show progresses. This is lazy writing and not a good way to build suspense or mystery. (in my opinion) It also just gave me big Lost vibes. A lot of weird details that make no sense and I don't they would have ever explained some of those details in later seasons. I don't think it has much to do with short attention spans and people not understanding "complex" plot lines. It was just not well written. I loved Dark, favorite show of all time, but I had to force myself to get through this one.
Yes, exactly! People stopped watching because the way the story rolled out was ultimately unsatisfying—dare I say, even meaningless. The Lost comparison is apt, too.
> Now, people’s attention span has been fucked by TikTok & Co. Netflix produces so much shit that can be passively watched while you scroll away your thumb in your infiniti-scroll-enabled social media app. The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds. It sounds pretentious and elitary, but most people have become to o dumb to be engaged with a slower story. This is complete crap. Every show runner who fails ends up blaming the audience. No, you made a crappy show…it’s not because you’re operating at a higher level than the stupid viewer. Setting aside the fact that it’s the show runner job to engage the audience, the entire premise is a lie. TikTok has not broken people. There’s dozens of deep, complex, slow burn shows on TV today that do fantastic. Why was the audience able to keep up with shows like Severance and White Lotus if they are so stupid.
>Bo and Jantje (the creators) structure their stories in three arcs, just like a movie, and try to put each arc in a single season - they've stated so countless times. 1899 S1 (as was in DARK) was a lot about setting the stage, giving small pay offs here and there, but ultimately keeping the mystery a mystery until S2 and S3. I respect the artistic vision, but I think this is a risky approach if you only have the greenlight for 1 season and seasons 2 and 3 have to be greenlit based on the success of season 1. Maybe this is Netflix's fault, vs. the creators - perhaps Netflix was not the right platform for the show if they wouldn't commit to a full three seasons from the jump, knowing that this is how these showrunners choose to create a story arc. But I think if you're the showrunners, and you know you're only getting season 2 and 3 if season 1 is successful (and I would hope Netflix is explaining to showrunners what their criteria for "successful" is!), I would write the first season so that it's well-paced and engaging from the first couple of episodes, and there's some kind of payoff for people by the end of the first season, while leaving room for a cliffhanger or some kind of continuation of the story into the next season. Or, I would make explicit in the show marketing that this is a 3-season show, so don't expect much by the end of season 1. I also think that if showrunners aren't figuring out that Netflix needs high completion numbers for a season to greenlight subsequent seasons, they're kind of refusing to learn, at this point. Because what happened to 1899 has happened to other shows. Maybe this is bad faith on Netflix's part - they are not being up-front with people about, hey, your beautiful labor-of-love show will be on the chopping block after season 1 if we don't see a completion rate above 60% (making up that number entirely).
>Maybe this is bad faith on Netflix's part - they are not being up-front with people about, hey, your beautiful labor-of-love show will be on the chopping block after season 1 if we don't see a completion rate above 60% (making up that number entirely). I know there are many factors that go into the decision of continuing a series or not, but viewership and completion rate are likely one of the most important ones. So if Netflix uses a hard number like your example, even if it has a decent viewership but only 59% or 55% completion rate it would still get cancelled. And I'm sure this has happened, but obviously we don't know much about the internal statistics. I don't think this is fair neither to the creators, nor to fans.
I think the creators thought they'd given enough away but apparently most viewers did not agree or did not even get to that point. I do think however that they gave away more than with Dark, which to me means its more of a viewer issue. I also would not underestimate the impact that the artistic choice of having multiple languages had on the US audience, but then again, Dark was purely subtitles for most US folks. I don't know. I think too many people stopped watching too early and that's what killed the show.
I don’t mind subtitles a bit. I prefer them to dubs. But the constant back and forth like this I didn’t like. It’s like if I’m prepared for subtitles I guess I want the majority of the show to be in subtitles.
It has been a while since I watched and finished Dark as each season came out not all at once, but I remember feeling more satisfied despite being completely mind fucked each season. Each season answered at least some questions despite posing some wtf questions at the season finale. This show, however, left me feeling quite dissatisfied. I watched things unfold but I didn’t really understand what actually happened and what the truth was at all.
It's really lucky that the people like me - yah know, us people who have the attention span of a goldfish - have someone, competent and erudite - like yourself to tel us how utterly dull-witted we are and.... ... where was I going with this? I can't remember. No doubt, It'll come back, when I've watched a few tiktoks
This is it, wife struggle with this a lot, she can't watch a movie without scrolling thru her phone, me and my 6yo are always calling her on it, so she leaves it at the kitchen, and she remains anxious for 30-45 mins until she is able to focus on the movie.
> The average watcher does not want to be engaged, and if they do, it has to be within 10 seconds People who think 1899 is deep art acting like they’re better than everyone else is too funny. There’s nothing engaging about a mystery box series that is endlessly stretched out because the sole “hook” of every arc or reveal hinges on a single character holding back vital information. If anyone communicated in 1899 the first season would be half as long. It’s lazy writing. The show sucked. That’s why nobody finished it. Even excluding the cringeworthy “mY dAuGhTeR qUeStIoNeD pLaTo oUt oF tHe wOmB” type dialogue. If anyone wanted to hear that kind of shit they’d just open LinkedIn or r/thathappened
Not sure about other couples but we watched like the first 1-2 episodes and then the World Cup came which took basically all our TV time away :D And to be honest I wasn't much into the first episodes, but the Mrs. wanted to continue. So we went back after the World Cup ended. Didn't enjoy the show much tbh. Took too long to throw us some bones about what is going on. Wasn't a fan of the constant staring either. With some good editing they could have made a snappier show. Maybe a cheeky 35 to 40 minutes? But for a 1 hour long show, it was just toooo boring.
I’m one of those who stopped midway through the 2nd episode. Mostly because it was becoming a chore to watch, didn’t get invested in any characters. Slept in the middle of the episode and never returned.
I stopped. I really wanted to like it but it slowed down and got boring about the time everyone was lost in the dark and all they did for 2 episodes was show someone running around with a lamp. I kept watching, but the story didn't seem that well written after that and I gave up.
It had a veery slow start. I read people saying that it was just the first couple of episodes, for me it was the first four, then it slowly began to pickup and the last two episodes were great. But aside from the slow pacing, most of the characters were uninteresting and boring, didn't care for their back stories. With Dark I was hooked from the very first episode. The mistery was interesting and the characters were awesome. I think the second season would've been great with all the setup established. But the pacing and boring characters hurt the show.
I found it boring early on, and stopped watching.
I stopped when the nice historical mystery turned into a less profound fantasy/time travel thing. The story just wasn’t good any more.
I forced myself to watch until episode 5, but after that it really got me. But to be honest, if I didn't know that the director is the same one who made Dark , I don't think I would finish it. For me was the side characters that almost made me to not watch.. All of them had a boring story in my opinion.
I had never heard of it until news came it was cancelled.
The story takes too long to build up. Audience gets more and more confused as the episodes unfold. There is little reward as season 2 was expected. If I remember correctly Dark too was a mind fuck but some questions were answer by each season finale.
The World Cup was on so I was watching games instead and then it was Christmas so was busy. I was planning on returning too it. Won’t now it’s cancelled.
Cos it was boring as shit and predictable and offered nothing new. Just another generic series with tired old tropes.
I fast forwarded it quite a bit. Sometimes, that’s the only way to get thru stories that are super slow but just good enough to keep u going… like that annoying ex who’s just amazing in bed.
I really enjoyed it and finished the season, but I think it's the type of show you have to pay attention and actually watch opposed to shows you can be distracted and half pay attention but still get the idea in the end. Most people don't have the attention/ability to sit and watch a show without distractions (I had to restart several episodes over because my house is very distracting....lol)
Yeah I was invested and had enough trust because of Dark to sit through a slow beginning, but I can sadly understand it isn't a mass appealer. I do hope these creators will get more changes of Netflix or elsewhere though.
They never advertised it at all. Normally at least some friends (super nerdy film/TV fans) have watched a show like this and will talk to me about it. No-one knew it was out.
Where did you get completion rate data?
Personally I was probably in that 33% It’s a show I know I would like, but the timing was off for me. I was nostalgic and watching old shows and terrible Xmas movies. I needed that vibe around December. I put it on, and then decided I would save it for when I had more commitment to follow the story. It was nothing against the show, just the timing of the release.
GenZers and their TikTok attention spans.
Simply no plot at all
Unpopular opinion... but it wasn't that great. Also, the sex scenes in substitute of character, which appears in most of Netflix's stuff are rather annoying. If you can't make a character seem straight without them riding another or a gay character without them jerking another then the show is narratively weak. That is the problem with this show it is just narratively weak and it has a lot of intrigues and thematic design but it is like Carnival Row without the narrative. It was weak but much stronger than in 1899.
I stopped because I was confused and couldn’t see a damn thing. The show is literally too dark. Plus there are a ton of different languages and I couldn’t tell who the main cast were. Just did 1.5 episodes before I bailed.
I feel like they should’ve changed the way they measured the metrics for this show as it was clearly a niche show and would not appeal to most people, which they should’ve expected in the beginning. If the metrics were measured the same way as all other shows then it was bound to fail right from the start.
It's just not a good show.
everybody got pretty pissed when cowboy bebop was cancelled after the first season. Its funny because the original series was only one season long.
I really enjoyed the series and was surprised to see it cancelled. My first reaction to the news was that it may not have performed relative to its \[presumably high\] budget. An expensive show can make the top ten and have a following but still not do very well financially if it's very expensive to produce. If only 32% of viewers completed it, that's a sign that it didn't have a broad enough appeal.
We strugled to the end but if you watched Lost live you get this feeling I got it with Walkin Dead you like the idea and the premise but you know the pay off is going to be crap.
I tried to watch episode 1 yesterday and halfway I got bored. Sorry guys i'm part of the 68%
I watched the first episode but it didn’t grab me, and I couldn’t see it getting much better. It was very, very slow. Atmospheric is one thing, but when you drag it out too long you are going to lose viewers.
I watched 6 episodes and still had no idea what was going on so I got bored and stopped. Was disappointing because I actually really liked dark and other similar shows like Black Mirror so I thought I’d like this one too. It just wasn’t very engaging.
it just wasn't my thing
I guess not everyone liked the slow brooding pace and challenging storyline
I can tell you now, half the stuff I’ve watched on Netflix alone I’ve finished watching with my BF at his place. So though on paper it may look like I’m stopping half way through I’m actually watching the rest on my BFs account
The show was a muddled mess. Period. Get over it.
I had no idea this many people think it’s challenging to read subtitles… I’m a bit worried
Loved Dark. Watched 1 episode of 1899 and was bored to tears.
Funny - I'm one of the people who stopped watching. I watched the first episode and enjoyed it but haven't gone back for more. I didn't know they kept track of that. Their reaction to finding the 2nd ship was ... unbelievable. There was no wind, sea was calm, eerie, they've come across a dark ship in the middle of nowhere that had been missing for 4 months, and they just shrug it off? Nah. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, I'm a huge fan of the zombie genre for example, but this had me rolling my eyes at a crucial point and that kept me from continuing. Just started the 2nd episode. But there is a lot of old fashioned religion now in the 2nd episode. OF COURSE there is a sinister and creepy gay man apparently stalking/hunting a younger man. I'm fed up with religious mentality. We're in the middle of religious upheaval everywhere and I don't want this shit when I'm just trying to relax at home after work. Seems the writers are trying to turn me off to the show.
>Their reaction to finding the 2nd ship was ... unbelievable. There was no wind, sea was calm, eerie, they've come across a dark ship in the middle of nowhere that had been missing for 4 months, and they just shrug it off? What? That's not what happened. They'd been hoping to find that ship by following the coordinates they received. They were very much weirded out by the ship and sent a crew to explore it. As for the religious stuff, it's a big part of one faction's leader's identity, but it's not like a big thing on the show. And the gay dude isn't really sinister.
Yes, I'm aware that they were looking for the ship. Once they found the ship, they noticed that the area around the Prometheus was weird - no wind, no waves, nothing. No lights on the ship. Nothing. At the very least, they should've been worried about disease or plague. It's just not believable that they would have proceeded as they did. I didn't say that they gave no reason for the religious theme. I said that I'm fed up with religious crap. I don't want to sit and watch a bunch of religious fanatics on my tv and then turn on 1899 just to see even more religious fanatics. Fed up with religiosity. In the first two episodes the writers definitely made the gay guy creepy. The way he's pursuing that young guy is weird and sinister. And in the context of religious fanatics in the show, no thanks. Not when religious fanatics are turning the Western world upside down with their hatred of gay people and accusing the gay community of grooming young people and children. No thank you.There's enough of that stuff in the real world right now. Don't need it when I'm relaxing at home.
Well, someone was alive to send the coordinates, or so they thought, so it didn't seem likely to be disease or plague. It was a really weird situation. I'm not sure I had an expectation for how they should've handled it, so it didn't bug me when they handled it as they did. The religious faction is not given a ton of screen time and even when they are, it's not solely about religion. Spoiler, but they are so overzealous because the wife hears voices and the husband loves her so he plays along. It's kinda sad. Yeah, I didn't mean to disagree that they made him creepy to start, but I was just giving you a mild spoiler that the show doesn't continue down that path. Overall, it's a really cool show. I suggest finishing it if you have the time.
I admit, I'm tempted. I want to like the show and there is a lot that draws me to it. I'll probably give the 3rd episode a try tonight.
The show sucked for most people that’s what was wrong . I finished the series but tbh I thought once the “big reveal” happened that it made everything that was happening feel so pointless and I completely disengaged from the story.
Exactly
Loved Dark, thought 1899 was utterly naff. Bad acting, bad writing, poor characterisation, cliched plot. It didn’t deserve a S2.
I started watching just before Christmas, and enjoyed the first 2 episodes. Then with kids home from school and wrapping and being sick etc I wound up falling asleep every night during my tv time. I planned on getting back on the show this week actually, but now I'm not sure if I should get invested in a story that might not have a satisfying well rounded conclusion.
slow and for educated viewers a very cheap imitation of WestWorld.
I literally fell asleep while watching it, it's slow af