“Everything is Connected”

Abstract

The paper discusses the storytelling formulas of the first season of the German series Dark (2017–2020) by focusing on the key temporal and spatial aspects of seriality in the show, such as the time frame of diegesis (story time), the temporal structure of the story (discourse and narration time) and the unique temporal installation of the series. As argued, the story and visual textuality of Dark not only transcends time and space – thus to provide us with a complex narrative set – but, by atemporal and spatial storytelling jumps, it creates a map of inconsistencies of double discontinuity fairly new to television and serial narration. By focusing on these spatial-temporal aspects of the series, the paper sketches a new approach to postmodern television formulas, while it also offers a possible interpretation to the national characteristics of the production based on the recurring theme of captivity in time.