1899 Spoilers

If there is one series that we were too sad to see cancelled, it was 1899, especially for those of us who watched Dark and its first season.

"What we really liked about 1899, not 1898 or 1897, is that it's at a threshold. You're entering a new century, moving from something that feels old school to something new: the future. There was something fascinating about that exact moment. What happened in that period is that modernism collided with old beliefs," were some of Jantje Friese's words.

It was one of the series I was most looking forward to in 2023. 1899 was the heir series of the creative team of German origin that brought us Dark, one of the most watched series of all time, so my expectations regarding this series were quite high.

It only had one season and it fulfilled all my expectations and I'm pretty sure all of us who watched it. So much so that at the moment Netflix announced its cancellation we were completely outraged.

Writing about a production like this is really complicated because this series is a real puzzle indecipherable and more to establish a theory that continues the series or give it an end when this is one of those series that as it progresses instead of giving answers each chapter left us with more questions honoring its predecessor Dark.

What is "1899″ about?

As we can assume from its title, it is a period series set in that year. Its story is based on a voyage via steamship from Europe to the United States, where various people from all over the continent meet, dreaming of reaching new lands and seeking a better future.

However, that dream of growing economically becomes a nightmare of great confusion when, in the middle of the ocean, they discover another migrant ship adrift that gives an unexpected twist to each of the characters we will meet on screen.

A reflection that in my opinion is the most interesting part of the series. It is everything that means the journey from East to West, from the Old World to the New World, the passage to another world, which at the same time is like resurgence, rebirth or more specifically resurrection to a new life. And at the same time it is the same journey of the Prometheus ship which departs from Earth to a new habitable planet to be able to return to live a new home.
This story is fascinating to embark on a seemingly infinite ocean that is like the same loneliness and vastness of space to face the unknown and anything that can suddenly change our lives.

A myth that most likely served as inspiration for this series is the story of the mysterious Bermuda Triangle, another fascinating story that can also take our imagination to places beyond our apparent reality. The famous phenomenon told of unexplained disappearances of airplanes and ships between Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico in the 1960s. Something that can make us think of other dimensions, aliens or more realistically a consequence of the Cold War.

Symbology

Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, creators of this Netflix series, have a penchant for leaving many references in their productions and nothing is left to speculation.

Elements that are key to the development of the story, such as the letters, the pyramid, the scarab, the cryptic names of some things like Prometheus or Cerberus, or even the mystique of the sea.

The letters as messages that enclose a mystery. The pyramids as a symbol of the earth, scarab as a key that allows you to move forward or gives you some freedom, Prometheus the ultimate humanist who sacrifices himself for humanity and Cerberus the guardian dog of the gates of hell.

References

In Matrix the characters are in a simulation, the first sentence that Morpheus sends to Neo, which is Neo Wake Up. Well that Wake Up is key, also in this story because it is written in the pyramid which is the element that allows you to wake up and get out of reality.

Similarity with the Lost series, The Lost, it takes us to the past of the characters to get to know them better and know in what context they have come to the ship, there are also references to what is the Truman show, with that person who watches others through screens and even the Westworld series. And at the end maybe a little bit to Alien.

Another interesting detail is the different languages of these characters, which gives us the feeling that a very disparate and very different community, which at times do not understand each other is key, symbolically to show us that we are facing a representation of what humanity is with its cultural differences.

Who would have rebelled in the second season?

The British neurologist Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham) , is responsible for the simulation, it is not the grandfather, nor her husband Daniel (Aneurin Barnard). Eliot, her son, died in an accident, which led them to the infinite sadness and madness that losing a child represents.

Maura could not stand it and to escape the pain she decided to erase her own memory and enter the simulation to escape her unbearable reality with the complicity of her brother Cirian. But her husband Daniel, who loves her and does not want to lose her as he lost his son, tries to make her come to her senses, recover her memory, accept the loss and heal her wounds.

The inverted triangle represents the earth element. There is a possibility that Project Prometheus wanted to find a settlement for humanity on another planet, seeking stability and conditions similar to those on planet Earth. They may also be exploring the universe trying to find another place where life could exist.

The ship in the future is the reality, there is a context that is that the earth has collapsed by the abuse of human beings and the ship is like a kind of Noah's ark with 1423 crew members, who are the survivors of the apocalypse on earth, who are now looking for a future for humanity, on another planet.