My hopes were high. Ships, darkness, mystery, drama ... all the things I hoped for were there but something was just off.
Firstly, what I liked: The acting is amazing and I couldn't identify a weaker link really. There is a great variety of characters and nationalities which helps making some scenes more suspenseful and interesting to watch since language barriers can make communication between the characters more difficult. Everyone did well on portaying their character in a believable way that made you feel for them. Actually I felt more for everyone than the main character, Maura Franklin for some reason but I can't really pinpoint why so I count that as neutral and just a very subjective aspect for me personally.
The aesthetic is a huge plus for me too. 1899 looks STUNNING in every single shot. I like films and series that choose a look and stick with it. This is so well done here. This is also where I got my expectations up when I was watching the first episode though. I loved the theme and aesthetic a story on a boat in a year like 1899 would bring and my brain immediately jumped to something lovecraftian. With the incredible creators of Dark behind this series I expexted a subtle lovecraftian horror that made me rethink my entire perspective on life.
Secondly, why I didn't enjoy this series as much as I would have loved to: After watching it one time now I have the same problem with this series that I had with Dark. I loved the vibe, I loved the topic and sometimes I like a little bit of pretentiousness too. This stretched my tolerance of the latter a little.
I get that characters have to keep their secrets to create suspense and keep the viewers interested but the amount of times I sat there thinking "Just answer the question!" or "Why don't you just say it!?" was a little much for me. Also a lot of smaller plot points were built up as something significantly more important than it turned out to be. Probably to make for a second season but it still made the ending feel pretty unsatisfying to me.
Also - so much unnecessary device using and cable plugging scenes where we didn't really get anything to hint at what the characters are actually doing by urgently pushing buttons and plugging cables in and out in a hurry.
All of that leads me to say that I actually liked the first and middle episodes the most because I thought it was interesting to see how they built up the mystery in the beginning and all the weird things happening. My favourite episode would be "The Calling" I think because the concept of this sound attracting certain people into the open sea and seeing all of them just jump to death gave me a good chill and nice eerie feeling.
This eerieness came back from time to time but mostly because of the music and not really because of what was happening anymore.
And in the end - did all of this even matter? I'm divided weather or not I should watch it again because on the one hand there might be more foreshadowing than I first picked up on but on the other hand with the ending in mind ... do I want to watch this whole thing again while knowing that none of this is really happening?
So I give this a 7 out of 10 because it's just an extremely well made show that a LOT of people will absolutely adore. I think I'm just disappointed because of my very specific horror/mystery interests and high expectations for the show.
Firstly, what I liked: The acting is amazing and I couldn't identify a weaker link really. There is a great variety of characters and nationalities which helps making some scenes more suspenseful and interesting to watch since language barriers can make communication between the characters more difficult. Everyone did well on portaying their character in a believable way that made you feel for them. Actually I felt more for everyone than the main character, Maura Franklin for some reason but I can't really pinpoint why so I count that as neutral and just a very subjective aspect for me personally.
The aesthetic is a huge plus for me too. 1899 looks STUNNING in every single shot. I like films and series that choose a look and stick with it. This is so well done here. This is also where I got my expectations up when I was watching the first episode though. I loved the theme and aesthetic a story on a boat in a year like 1899 would bring and my brain immediately jumped to something lovecraftian. With the incredible creators of Dark behind this series I expexted a subtle lovecraftian horror that made me rethink my entire perspective on life.
Secondly, why I didn't enjoy this series as much as I would have loved to: After watching it one time now I have the same problem with this series that I had with Dark. I loved the vibe, I loved the topic and sometimes I like a little bit of pretentiousness too. This stretched my tolerance of the latter a little.
I get that characters have to keep their secrets to create suspense and keep the viewers interested but the amount of times I sat there thinking "Just answer the question!" or "Why don't you just say it!?" was a little much for me. Also a lot of smaller plot points were built up as something significantly more important than it turned out to be. Probably to make for a second season but it still made the ending feel pretty unsatisfying to me.
Also - so much unnecessary device using and cable plugging scenes where we didn't really get anything to hint at what the characters are actually doing by urgently pushing buttons and plugging cables in and out in a hurry.
All of that leads me to say that I actually liked the first and middle episodes the most because I thought it was interesting to see how they built up the mystery in the beginning and all the weird things happening. My favourite episode would be "The Calling" I think because the concept of this sound attracting certain people into the open sea and seeing all of them just jump to death gave me a good chill and nice eerie feeling.
This eerieness came back from time to time but mostly because of the music and not really because of what was happening anymore.
And in the end - did all of this even matter? I'm divided weather or not I should watch it again because on the one hand there might be more foreshadowing than I first picked up on but on the other hand with the ending in mind ... do I want to watch this whole thing again while knowing that none of this is really happening?
So I give this a 7 out of 10 because it's just an extremely well made show that a LOT of people will absolutely adore. I think I'm just disappointed because of my very specific horror/mystery interests and high expectations for the show.