Hacker Cinema
1899
2022 · TV series · 1 season
Created by Jantje Friese, Baran bo Odar
MysteryDramaScience FictionFantasy
When mysterious events change the course of an immigrant ship headed for New York in 1899, a mind-bending riddle unfolds for its bewildered passengers.
10 positive6 negative1 neutralfrom 17 commenters
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20 comments on Hacker News
I cancelled Netflix long ago, they started cancelling their best shows (like 1899, etc) and producing absolute garbage. I mean just look at the quality of early/peak Netflix to now. Stranger Things is a great example, the decline is visible not just in the story but in the visuals. The documentaries are also bad now, I watched the "Manosphere" at someone's house, and while you can agree with the premise that these people are deranged, it was clearly a cash grab and didn't really move the needle. Then the catalogue has been gutted, and it's just mostly garbage now. Just awful stuff.
The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.
Crazy to see The Witcher Season 2 (renewed), Sandman (renewed) and 1899 (cancelled) so closely grouped.
It's a big problem because their catalog is also so spotty.
They should probably be ordering seasons in batches. Show runners don't really have much of a say, if they're told "okay we can give you one season and see how it goes" they're gonna say yes.
But in the case of 1899 was also a worse situation, to me, because the team had already proved themselves in another series (Dark) which was widely successful, except it didn't get successful until later on. These sort of series do require a bit more attention, people are not going to binge watch them like they do Wednesday. And that's okay (except apparently for Netlfix it's not okay).
And, I mean, I get it. Netflix strategy seems to be much more about optimizing a function that tries to minimize quality and maximize viewership. They literally don't care about high quality products. In fact, I would say, high quality products might even be undesirable as they might raise the bar of people's expectations.
1899 was my cutoff, too. They had the nerve to recommend the show to me after it had been canceled, which I didn't know at the time. Got invested and looked for a season two release date, which is how I learned it was canceled. No longer a subscriber now.
I stopped my Netflix subscription after they cancelled 1899. I really enjoyed the first season and while it might not be for everyone I thought it was amazing television.
It really sucks when you get excited by a project just for it to be cancelled after a season, or worse, after two seasons.
The amount of shows Ive really enjoyed that weren't given a conclusion was just too many. It's just a business model that doesn't sit well with me. I wish they gave these shows one more season or perhaps a movie (which is roughly equivalent to 2 episodes) to wrap things up.
It's not like they don't have the money.
I dont have a kid, but between work, chores, and other hobbies, I can only have 1 or 2 hours a day to watch anything. I can only slot a movie or a single episode within that time frame. Also, it’s something I do together with my partner so we always pick something that suits us both. And our backlog is getting bigger as we are adding older movies.
The cancellation of 1899 was a big blow for me. It’s the kind of show you can’t really binge watch as it requires focus to really follow what’s going on. And I think it would have grown its audience organically over time.
Demographics and density matter.
1899 was a detailed slow burn, not something you could throw on in the background while you're doom scrolling and still capture 90% of. Wednesday was a shallow faux-dark drama for the kids on holiday. We watched one episode, decided it wasn't for us, watched one more just to make sure, then never picked it back up.
Minors are where the money's at. Just look at YouTube and Twitch. Content for mature audiences is effectively over.
I do think there is a mood aspect to it. I didn’t watch 1899 right when it came out because I wasn’t ready for it mentally yet. A lot of things I watch around Christmas are lighthearted movies, including a bunch of Hallmark stuff. I don’t have the time or headspace to get to something like 1899, but when I finally did, I enjoyed it greatly.
So while 1899 technically ends on a cliffhanger, it works perfectly well as an open-ended story. I'd still recommend watching it.
It's slow. I love dark, probably my favorite tv show, still 1899 is slow. That being said, it's still looking like an amazing show, I like slow, but it was way too slow, but not to the point of canceling. They would have improved with the next season. Bah, I'm so disappointed in Netflix.
It seems like only books get endings. Isn't there a way to read books in a shared way, like tv, so that I could do that with my wife?
Why doesn't Netflix create shows that are more episodic? Like each episode is a self-contained story, like Star Trek (not the recent ones, they are barely Trek). And produce 20-30 episodes each season. Even if a few stories are not great, it still doesn't hurt the show much. People will continue to watch, and re-watch. It is also easier to start. I have been avoiding 1899, just because it feels so tedious to follow one over-arching story over 8 hours.
1899 cancelled? Another low for Netflix, that series was great. I wonder if series producers could demand upfront to be given by contract enough episodes to wrap up and complete stories so that the whole series doesn't lose all its value in case of DVD adaptation or re-run?
Also, please stop ending seasons with cliffhangers. Doing that equals to treating your viewers as dumb idiots who need an incentive to start watching the next season, aside destroying the series value in case of cancellation.
I told friends and family to wait for season 3 before watching 1899 and to start with Dark. I canceled my Netflix sub after they canceled 1899 and won't return to anything but torrents for Netflix content.
I'm not talking about any amorphous "most popular" lists in the app. Netflix publish weekly numbers on the hours viewed for the top shows / films. This is a fixed metric and a definite and comparable number. Here's the release week of 1899:
https://top10.netflix.com/tv?week=2022-11-20
There is no chance that they're fabricating these numbers. First, that would be securities fraud. Second, it would not work as promotion channel because basically nobody would look at this website to decide what to view. But it is great for getting data for obscure internet fights!
I watched the first episode of 1899 and could see why it was cancelled. Just an amalgamation of mysteries that don't seem to have much connection.
On the other hand, I also watched Wednesday and thought it was missing a lot of what made The Addams Family great. But I guess it just wasn't made for me.
> And if other people are also reluctant to start it for the same reason, that's going to hurt the viewership... which makes it all the more likely to be cancelled! You can't win.
I don't think they look at viewership when deciding whether to cancel a show. They look at the percentage of people that continued watching more than just the first episode.
I really recommend watching 1899.
It finishes the story before ending in a cliffhanger. And, honestly a second season would probably not be good at all, because there isn't much to add up to it.
The 1899 cancellation is when I realized that Netflix has no competent strategy to rolling out shows. It was #1 and #2 on their charts for weeks, only dethroned by Wednesday, yet they cancelled it. I fear that Netflix is eventually going to just make "Fast and the Furious" quality of original content, or they will go with franchises with known names that are licensed. They created the Witcher, are pushing out another season of it (despite the lead leaving, bad reviews and backlash on direction) and have a spin off that is universally panned.
Cinema is suffering from the same thing, which is why superhero films and franchises rule the silver screen. It's not a good direction for the artform or any semblance of quality. So many great franchises were rough (or had poor TV ratings) in their first seasons that are now considered classics. From Seinfeld to Parks and Rec to X-Files to Star Trek TNG, there are countless examples.
I know nothing about the business of making movies, but I have to say the quality of films/TV produced in the west has been in steady decline for quite some time. Sure there are odd creations that are really good (like Dune), but then the average is horrible. Same stories rehashed over an over with lots of clishe's, sex scenes squeezed in just because etc. But the worst is the dumbed down stories. It seems as if Western producers think the story has to be horribly simplified or there is no chance of "world success".
To see how it should be done look at South Korean(and some Japanese) dramas on Netflix. Not all are great, but the average is way better. It came to a point I think I just saw one western TV production last year I liked and there were probably 5 or more Korean ones. Why is it that they can make interesting and surprising stories into TV/films in places like Korea?. Similar for Japan, but I found many Japanese dramas seem to be too focused on picturing "internal struggles" of characters in a way that seems a bit overdone for a western audiences. For examples of what I mean see "Alice in Borderlands" (Japanese - suffers some previously mentioned issues, but overall very good). "Glory" (Korean - when you read the brief it sounds like something that would be horrible to watch, but they pulled it off great), "Train to Busan" (Korean film about freaking zombies that is actually good), D. P.(Korean,again brief seems completely cheesy "Military police searches for escaped draftees" in actuality it has great story, it shows some really hard realities of military draft, like abuse etc in a way that is really believable a normal person could end up in such situation etc.) And many more. The only western TV drama that was good was "1899" (German/UK production). This was really good too.
So why is it there is so much bad quality tv/films produced in the west? Such great opportunities wasted? I had great hopes for the Mandalorian. I couldn't watch more than 2 episodes because the story was written for 10 year old. Etc.
I watched “1899” last week and it was excellent. The characters seems real despite the very slow revealing of their backstories. I can’t stand most blockbuster movies. There’s always so much action going on that characters and plot suffer. No real dialogue between people. Just exposition and one-liners. And everything seems to be rushing. Compare Black Addams to Dune. Mad Max was also fast-paced, but the director knows that and focuses on the action to describe the characters instead of adding useless one-liners and forced jokes.
i am watching 1899 on netflix and it drives me mad how dark every scene is.
All old movies and series had lighted silhouettes in the night or dark scenes. Everyone knew that it means its dark but you could see what is actually going on. Its a movie not a webcam capture. We already fill in the gaps when it comes to the story, we can manage 'unnaturally' lit dark scenes