Netflix's Dark is Great

Most of my blob-around time goes to YouTube rather than to Netflix. Before I had Netflix, I was worried that it would suck up all my spare time.

Like how Netflix’s “Dark” sucked up all my time.

“Dark” is a show which was written for the kind of people who love modelling things with graphs, and KT45 modal logic. I mean, I didn’t go to the effort of doing that, but it’d be kinda fun.
I did often have to pause and rewind 30s a few times to catch what was being said. The show has many characters and a dense network of interactions.

The show has some light sci-fi, with elements of mystery and a bit of suspense.
The sci-fi aspect is a bit of time travel; and the show has different cases of “Grandfather Paradox”es going on. – This gets combined with a love of dualities, repetitions and reflections. It’s fun.

The second season just released. I think the first few episodes of each season were a bit slow to build things up. (This is at the same time as having so many characters!). And the ending of each season is a bit ‘meh’. And a couple of the character actions come across as irrationally convenient for the plot.
But I really loved the stuff in the middle.

Just some rapid-fire thoughts on other shows I’ve watched:

• “Murder Mystery”. Eh. It’s okay. I kinda wondered if it’d have different endings like “Clue” did.

• “The Nice Guys”. Eh. There’s one joke which managed to land quite well.
  The plot is a sortof neo-noir where the titular nice guys try to find a young woman who’s made an adult film which exposes corruption in government.
  – I’ve seen films like “Die Hard” described as power-fantasies for middle-aged guys. I think plots like this are the same kind of power-fantasy: rather than market-forces or complex systems, it’d be nice if the damaging effects of socially/environmentally-bad policies could be blamed on a secret cabal that can be beaten.

• “Always Be My Maybe”. The guy is cute/charming. It features a scene where the in-vogue Keanu Reeves acts like an asshole.
  The rest of the film? Eh.
  There’s a romance plot between the two characters, but the story kindof relies on an archetypal plot and doesn’t really manage to land enough of the points well enough.
  – I enjoyed “The Accountant” even though I can see it’s a crap film. I could see people liking “Always Be My Maybe” as kindof a “representation matters” film, but it’s not very good.

• “John Wick 3”. My girlfriend enjoyed it more than I did. John Wick has way too much plot armour. Especially towards the end. – Though there is a segment of the movie which is closer to the dumb-cool-action spirit of the first movie: Halle Berry’s character and John shoot there way out of some compound.
  I’d pass on the rest, though.

• “Narcos: Mexico”. Outstandingly good. I dunno in terms of accuracy or Americo-centrism or whatever. But the Narcos writers are great at writing tense episodes.