Netflix runneth over with content. Whether you’re looking for drama, comedy, action, fantasy, or sci-fi, it has something to satisfy you, probably a great many somethings. Some shows blow up, but with so much competition, others never get the attention they deserve.
1899 is one of those shows. The first season of this bold sci-fi series dropped on Netflix in 2022, and it’s been fascinating people ever since. Don’t wait for it to show up in your algorithm to try it out.
1899 begins as a polished period drama
And ends as a sci-fi acid trip
1899 begins by introducing us to a number of passengers aboard the steamship Kerberos, which is traveling aross the Atlantic. in the beginning, 1899 presents itself like an opulent period drama with an ensemble cast. We meet Maura Singleton (Emily Beecham), a neurologist traveling alone from England to New York City. We get acquainted with Captain Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann), who’s still getting over the traumatic deaths of his family members in a house fire. We meet a young married couple, a French stowaway, a mother and daughter from Hong Kong, and more. It’s as if we’re being introduced to characters who will later be suspects in a murder mystery or something.
1899 does turn into a mystery, but of a much stranger kind. The Kerberos comes across the wreck of another ship from the same shipping company, called the Prometheus. Captain Eyk gets orders to sink it. Instead, he and a few others explore it, and find a mysterious young boy (Fflyn Edwards) living on it.
They bring the boy back to the Kerberos, which is when things really start to get weird. A ticking clock causes several passengers to throw themselves overboard. Portals to other worlds are found in some of the cabins. A strange black metallic substance begins spreading throughout the ship. Is any of this real? Can the characters trust their memories? And will they ever get to New York?
Atmosphere over plot
Learn to stop and smell the brain-melting roses
Part of the pleasure of watching a show like 1899 is soaking up the luxeriating in the mystery of it all. 1899 does provide answers to several of those questions, but it’s almost more fun to be as clueless as the characters as they frantically try to figure things out. In that way, 1899 pairs comfortably among other mind-bending shows like Devs, Severance, and Dark, the latter of which was also created by the team of Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar.
Rather than clawing for answers, Dark encourages you to sit back and enjoy the atmosphere, which is thick enough to cut with a knife. Dark is a grim show lit in shades of moody shadow, with danger around every corner. It’s also eerie and strange. Pay attention and you’ll start seeing weird details, like similar visual patterns repeated across the architecture of the ship, engraved on the furniture, and even stitched into the characters’ clothes. How could the same symbol repeat itself in all of these different, disconnected places? It’s one of the hints that the world as these characters know it isn’t quite right, and satisfying to find if you care to look close enough.
When the answers do come, they’re parceled out carefully, and often just lead to more questions. There’s a sense that the characters have only begun to dive down the rabbit hole by the time the show ends, which is why what happened to 1899 is so disappointment.
Everyone who sees 1899 says the same thing
Why did Netflix cancel this?
Credit: Netflix
All eight episodes of 1899 dropped on Netflix on November 22, 2022. Netflix canceled the show not even two months later.
Netflix has a reputation for canceling shows early and often, so this won’t surprise anyone in the know. And it’s not as though Netflix is unreasonable for canceling a show that didn’t draw in enough viewers to justify its price tag, but given that the network has given the axe to so many imaginative, promising series over the year, you start to wonder if there isn’t something wrong with the metrics they use to determine whether a show lives or dies.
Netflix’s propensity for cancelation is espeically galling in the case of a show like 1899, whose first season ends with huge questions left unresolved. Despite a Change.org petition with over 100,000 signatures, the show was never revived and likely won’t be. Even incomplete, the first season remains powerful and compelling, perhaps all the moreso because the final answers will always elude us.
Justice for twisty, turny, trippy TV
If you’re interested in mystery-driven shows like 1899, the Netflix series Dark is your natural port of call. You could also check out From, an ongoing horror show on MGM+ that plays with time and identity in some of the same ways that 1899 does, expect that it’s guaranteed a final season and a proper ending.
And if you want to seethe over Netflix’s perplexing decision-making, you can sample some of the other great shows the network axed unjustly.
Release Date
2022 – 2022-00-00
Network
Netflix
Showrunner
Baran Bo Odar
