In November 2022, one of the most anticipated TV shows of the year — 1899 — finally aired on the most popular streaming platform — Netflix.
Netflix, where weird and obscure shows can find a place and audience, also seemed to be very excited about the prospects of the said show as they had been pushing it for quite some time.
However, things took a dark turn after a month or so as the creators of the show announced that there would be no second season.
To me and many others, who were super excited about the show a few months ago, the news wasn’t as surprising as it sounded. We saw it coming!
Why! Let me explain!
1899 is a multi-lingual sci-fi-turned-horror mystery thriller — overflowing with characters who have opaque pasts & unclear presents. Meanwhile, it also tries to address a variety of subjects — ranging from time travel to neuroscience.
The show offers a unique buffet of characters, mainly European migrants, who are (Spoiler Alert!) on a streamer ship and going to the US while hoping to forget their not-so-great pasts and work for a bright future.
With more than a dozen subplots, the most important one is linked with a doctor-turned-neuroscientist Muara Franklin who seems to have no idea of what she was doing before boarding the ship or (Spoiler Alert!) entering the simulation.
The first six episodes of the 1st season offer brief snippets vis-a-vis the lives of the characters — enabling the viewers to have some understanding of why they seem to be running away from their pasts and are in a hurry to reach the new world. However, it is in the last two episodes that the whole fiasco on the ship seems to make some sense to the viewers — solving a few of the riddles.
And (Spoiler Alert!) revealing that it’s not real, rather it’s a SIMULATION!
Sounds like a very Dark-esque story!
Well, the show was created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese: The same duo who gave us one of the best time-travel shows ever — Dark. So, naturally, the similarities were there. However, 1899 felt grander and more complex, not to mention it was far more expensive than the popular German show. And that is exactly why Netflix decided against taking a risk for another season of the show.
Already riddled with loss of subscribers and a decline in viewership, Netflix thought of 1899 as its savior. Unfortunately, 1899 fell short of meeting the expectations of the platform as well as the audience.
Given the hype and anticipation, the audience was looking for something better than Dark or at least a show that can rival the German show. As the burden of expectations increased with every episode, a sense of disappointment also grew. Resulting in less than a 50 percent completion rate of the show.
Rightfully so!
The show was agonizingly and unnecessarily slow and offered a lot of subplots without paying enough attention to any of the ones. In short, it was a weird mix/combo of Sci-fi, horror, and mystery thriller elements — lacking any sort of closure.
Overall, a solid 7.5 out of 10.
I personally believe that Netflix should have shown more patience as the second viewing of the show may have changed the opinion of the fans. But for a streaming platform that works on algorithms and data, it doesn’t seem like a reasonable decision to put millions of dollars into a not-so-successful project.
The bottom line is 1899 can neither be designated as a failed project or a successful experiment rather it was an above-average show that got buried beneath the burden of expectations and a lofty budget — compelling Netflix to part ways and look for salvation somewhere else.
Read more:
