I've just rewatched the show after 3 years. One question I haven't been able to let go of (although I probably should since it's all just made up...) is: Why does the two "wrong" dimensions we get to see exist in the way they do?

The show is hinting to this endless repetition of events like it's a time-loop, but like many have stated before, it's not a time-loop. It's a causal loop. So, what iteration are we seeing? Do we watch iteration 1, 2 and 3, and they solve the knot straight away? If this is the case, and the knot started existing straight away after H.G. Tannhaus experiment, then why out of all possible scenarios did the two worlds start existing as they are shown and not in any other particular way?

If the knot occurred later, by a series of events, then someone must have found a way to time-travel and start creating the time paradoxes that finally creates the knot we see in the show. But the way I understood it the first machine Tannhaus made doesn't allow time travel in and of itself, it just split the origin dimension in to two (or more?) dimensions and created the "passage" in the caves. No other way of time travel shown in the show would be accessible at this point.

But the passage in the cave wouldn't be accessible either until someone dug a tunnel in the right place of the cave. If the first time they dig the tunnel it opens passage to the same timelines as we see in the show, then it must have been dug in 1986 to allow travel between 1986 and 2009 (but not 1953 since it had not been dug out at that time and won't be until someone realises this possibility and there's some other time traveling device available).

I guess this would be enough for someone (probably Tannhaus still driven to find a way to save his family) to bring back future technology to 1986 that could speed up the invention of a time traveling device. Given infinite loops of this it's more inevitable than just likely to happen. And he would only stop this when someone goes back in time and leaves a baby in his care the same night as his family dies.

The problem with this scenario is that Tannhaus did his first dimension-splitting experiment in the 80's, right? Probably 86, right? That would give him very little time to find the passage and dig the tunnel and start timetraveling between -86 and -09.

This is disregarding the rumor that the origin dimension "ended" with Tannhaus experiment. Otherwise there would be no failed Tannhaus + undiscovered passage in the cave to work with, right?

If this is clsoe to the "truth", then I don't really think the show writers have made a reasonable attempt to put it together in a way that would make sense, since it would just be to much work for something that isn't shown in the series that we watch. Or am I being pessimistic here?

So far for me the "best" answer to this problem is: when HG Tannhaus "ended" his world, he didn't create two new dimensions, he created an infinite number of dimensions where all possible outcomes is represented. What we see is the two dimensions that lead to the "correction" of the timeline, because all other versions are just a bunch of messes and showing them would lead to a never ending Netflix-binge.

What we get to see is time repairing itself.

I like this idea since it plays with the thought of this happening all the time: People learning how to change the course of time and in the course of changeing it they make it so that they never had the drive to change the course of time in the first place... And life continues like it never happened.

But I don't know. What are you guys thoughts on this?

I'm just getting into the series and kind of distracted while I'm watching. It seems to be getting to the point now (episode 6) where I think it's going to be important to really know details of characters. I only really know who Mikkel is and the others I can't name. How confused will I be?

disappointed.

First I want to commend the mods and members of this sub. Seems like you're doing a fine job diving deep into a show you love. It reminds me of similar days in the Mr. Robot sub.

I've only spent little time here while trying to avoid accidentally clicking on spoilers (despite multiple failsafes, I'm capable of doing that!). But now that I've finished the show last night, I have to grudgingly admit S3 was disappointingly underwhelming for me. I couldn't shake the feeling it was plodding and repetitive. The revelation of a form of the multi-verse to resolve issues seemed unsatisfactory to me.

My question for the sub is: did anyone else feel this way only to change your opinion after a time? The disappointment started early on in S3 and the resolution didn't help.

Again, I'm glad you fine folks here have a terrific sub. This isn't a "this show sucks" "challenge the sub" post by any means. To the contrary...after S1 and S2, I thought this was going to be an all time great show for me. I hoped it would recover from what felt like a bland S3 start but it didn't for me.

Cheers, all!

SOLVED - thanks everyone

I put S3 spoilers in the title since honestly idk how far into the show it's revealed but I was 4 episodes into season 1 and loving it but mid-episode I was like who's Charlotte again since we just went back in time and ultimately saw a message saying like "Couldn't believe it that Mikkel was Jonas's father".
Please don't spoil further but like which season is this revealed? If it's season 1 it's not the end of the world but if it's later seasons then it really sucks

Obvs please don't spoil anything else and if somehow he isn't Jonas's father lmk but don't say who is yk, tysm for the help in advance

Can someone explain to me why Noah saves Charlotte from Adam after getting the missing pages from Claudia??

Currently there apparently is a new spark of discussion about whether or not there is only one cycle, which could be due to new people joining the sub who have yet only watched the show once and not yet picked up on everything.

This led me to realise that I've only seen this theory fully developed for one to two years on this sub. I've not been on here for longer than three years tho, so that might be why also. Did it really take us so long to collectively figure this out? If yes, it really speaks to the genius of the writers and how complex the show is.

PS: I've also seen that more and more members now accept the ending as the only natural possibility for the story to end, given it's own rules (especially with what's shown in the time stream between the three worlds). I think season 3 was way more controversial a while back.

In the last episode of season 2, and a few times in season 3 on a specific character it has this beat and kind of different version of the end credit track. When I search for the end credits song on youtube it's just with the normal one for whatever reason. Does it even exist to listen to?

This post is not saying anything new but I'm seeing people in this sub beginning to believe in the "infinite cycle, Claudia split herself" nonsense so I'll just repeat how it all works. Claudia did not split herself, she has the golden orb. Before Noah kills her, she traveled a few months ahead of the 33 year cycle and talks to Adam and then her younger self from 2040, which is how she knows there's an origin world, it's bootstrapped info like the rest of the show. This is show about time travel guys, why do you suddenly go "but she should be dead"?

is a town with many mysteries, so to involve our roleplayers even more, we decided to run our own ARGs (Interactive mysteries, where our residents / players can solve puzzles to find clues and uncover its mysteries).

The goal of the subreddit stays the same - we are doing everything in our power to seem like a normal town in Washington at first sight, but lurking through the subreddit, you will very quickly realize that something isn't as it seems. There are strange grey saucers flying above Oak Mountain, bizarre radio transmissions broadcasting coded messages, or a secretive research organization that is running experiments on our residents.

We have a monthly newspaper, we run scripted and non-scripted storylines, and we are preparing a series of ARGs after we finish the current one.

We are drawing ideas from famous fictitious towns like Twin Peaks, Hawkins, Brights Falls, Gravity Falls, Winden, and even Stars Hollow. And many more!

If you like this idea, please come join us!

PS: And if you'd like to catch up to the current ARG investigation, you can do so through this post from one of our residents / players:

Season 1 and 2 has some cause and effect chains that make sense even with the whole time travel shtick.

But in season 3 everything goes out the window when jonas is either picked up by martha or isn't. If there is an endless loop, why does it always split into those specific points? Why does't it part in 4,8, 16... 2ⁿ other branches in the next iteration?

Cool show ruined by a stupid plot device.

Finished rewatching this, it's still my fav show ever with Chernobel as second, every episode is just masterpiece which is hard to achieve in more than one season shows.

But i still don't get the finale (and the third world didn't feel like it was built-up enough for, imo).

specifically how Claudia broke the almost infinite cycles.

So, can someone pinpoint me the exact time that something different happened in this cycle that made her use Eva's time stop trick for making her time-clone?

Wow.

That’s all I can say.

WOW

I made a post on here about 2 weeks ago about how I was loving dark and was in the middle of season 1. How little I knew. How young I was. This series…. Words cannot describe how incredible this series was. Everything was perfect. The characters, the plot, the pacing, the emotions, the dialogue, the setting, the scenery, the music… EVERYTHING.

This show gave me the greatest sense of futility I’ve ever seen in any form of media. Season 3, episode 7, where we see the cycle going on over again. There was a song playing that had a lot of beats. I couldn’t help myself, by every beat I was muttering to myself “Over. And over. And over. And over. And over,” by every beat. The way this show was structured made me care about these character so much, and I just couldn’t get past how futile every action of theirs was. I kept thinking “why do they do it? Why do they continue the cycle again and again for eternity? A never ending loop of their own design!” How much despair they had when they couldn’t CHANGE ANYTHING. The cycle continues. Eva wants to save her child, Jonas wants to end the cycle. Both locked in a tug of war over time for eternity. Over and over. The cycle never changes. I didn’t know how the writers would untie that impossible knot. I didn’t know if I wanted them to because that would be the end of so many characters due to that impossible family tree.

And then there was the ending. Oh the ending. I should have seen it coming. The ring has 3 loops. 33 year interims. 3 dimensions. A 3rd world. One accident that set a father into such despair that he would try to conquer time. And he did. That ending was so perfect guys. The writers are geniuses, no getting past it. Everything came together. And the relief shown on the actors faces when they are dissipating, where they know the cycle of hell is finally over….Pure perfection. Bravo.

This show has changed TV for me forever. I don’t know how anything can come close to this kind of plotting and writing again. It did not dethrone Breaking Bad as my favorite show, but it sits very comfortably in the #2 position. And now, I can finally stop the binge.

11/10.

Perfection.

Dark.

So I just finished s2 and I’ve really been enjoying the show. I think I’ve understood everything so far, but every episode just asks more and more questions and there’s tonnes of mysteries that are still left unsolved. Some examples are Adam’s actual motivations, what the hell the apocalypse actually was, logistics about time travel machines and the child murder, who created time travel or whether it’s a result of the bootstrap paradox etc etc. I get this is the point of the show, but I just want to know whether the last season does a good job at wrapping up and explaining all the time travel stuff so I know what to expect. I don’t really need to know cuz I’m gonna watch the rest anyway lol but I don’t want to be disappointed by another cliffhanger ending. So does s3 give you all the answers? (obvs give a vague answer to avoid spoilers)

Side note: If there are already answers for some of the examples in the first couple seasons and I’m just thick then let me know lmao

I have been trying to watch this show for YEARS (I get through s1 and then fall off because I’m bad at watching shows by myself) and my roommate suggested we watch it but from s1 alone I know it could be a hard watch for him. Any specific concerns past s1 I should prepare him for kinda specifically in regard to animal abuse/death or suicide/self harm? I’d feel really bad getting him into it and then something come up I couldn’t prepare him for since I haven’t seen the whole thing.

Edit: I’m aware it’s a dark show yall I’ve seen season 1 i just wanted to know what episodes to warn him of.

For some context, I’m marrying my best friend later this year and I’ve been thinking of the various gifts I can give her on that special day.

When I met her, she introduced me to Dark, her favourite show, and it quickly became a favourite of mine too. We met as Season 3 was releasing so it’s always had a place a special place in our hearts.

Last year I surprised her with a trip to Germany where we went location hunting (thank you to all those redditors that helped me organise that)!

I’d love to get her something personal relating to the show and wondered if there was any chance of getting in touch with anyone related to the show.

Imagine if I could get a vid from a cast member to show her on our big day for example! That would be nuts.

Any ideas or help would be fab

Why does ulrich say he has a work trip to Frankfurt and then it’s never mentioned again?

Hello, as above, I have a lot of questions but this one I cant seem to find an answer to on any of the existing threads:

How did the Alt Martha or any of the alt world ppl discover that there is a 2nd world they could travel to? Does this mean their Alt H.G. Tannhaus built a more sophisticated device (the sphere) that could both travel through space & time?

Im not sure if these were ever explained and I just missed them. Hope you could enlighten me anyway!

Thank you

What is a good book to learn more about the real aspect of wormholes and time? The series got me interested, and the few things tannhaus as example explains are "realistic" in a way and I'm just interested to learn more about it

So I thought it was just the same scenes that we have seen from season 1 etc. But I saw a comment on a reaction video that was basically like "I'm annoyed they thought that the end montage was just scenes from season 1". So is there anything else or special thing about this montage, I should know about?