1899 Review
Potential spoilers for 1899!
1899 is a German Netflix Original series from the creators of Dark Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese. Production began in 2018 and it was released on Nov. 17, 2022. The show features similar visual elements as well as sci-fi and thriller aspects found in their previous series.
The story follows passengers aboard the Kerberos ship sailing from Europe to New York. The show opens with the main character Maura Franklin, played by Emily Beecham, waking up aboard the Kerberos ship on Oct. 19, 1899. She is a doctor searching for her brother, who was a passenger aboard the Prometheus ship that went missing four months ago. Maura received a letter from her brother saying to meet him in New York because he found out something about their father who owns the ship’s company.
1899 is a multilingual series and there are several scenes where the characters are interacting with each other, but they don’t understand what they are saying. The languages spoken are English, French, German, Danish, Polish, Spanish, and Cantonese. I loved the way the show handles the language barrier between the characters like when Jerome is introducing himself to Olek. He speaks French and Olek speaks Polish. Jerome says his name and motions his hand toward Olek while nodding his head.
The concept of reality and the mind playing tricks on you is a big part of the series. Maura doesn’t remember the majority of her life and learns more about her past as the series goes on, but the way the show ends throws a lot of the character’s backstories we do learn into question if it was real or not. I thought this was an interesting choice, as it makes all of the characters unreliable narrators.
The show does a great job of setting up the mystery and building tension early on like when Captain Eyk Larsen, played by Andreas Pietschmann, announces plans to turn the ship after receiving a signal from what he believes is the Prometheus. The passengers question his reasoning for turning the ship if they weren’t sure who the signal was from and the ship wasn’t asking for help. They also set up the conflict between first class and third class when a character from third class goes to the dinning hall seeking a doctor and the crew drag him back down. The first class passengers aren’t allowed to go down to third class. There are also bars to prevent them from going in and out. This divide only deepens when they find only one person aboard the Prometheus, a young boy and people on the Kerberos start dying causing many to blame the boy.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding the Prometheus and what happened to all the passengers since the ship is empty except for the boy and the parallels between the two ships as they slowly start to make decisions like sending out coordinates that seem eerily similar to things on the Prometheus.
Overall, 1899 creates an immersive experience for viewers utilizing the setting and how the characters interact with their environment as well as each other. The show manages to answer most of its mysteries, while creating new ones and was a very thrilling watch. If you’re looking for an interesting sci-fi series check it out.
