This weekend I’ve watched two very different, but oddly similar, time travel stories. Next to horror, time travel is fast becoming my most-watched genre. Yes, it’s totally a genre. I’ve made a habit of trying to dig up Netflix curiosities to watch on a Sunday evening, and many of them seem to end up being time travel stories (maybe because it allows for interesting, grandiose sci-fi tales that can be told on a limited budget).
So, yesterday I began watching Dark, and this evening I watched The Man From The Future. Dark is a grim small-town drama that kicks off with a child murder or two and then gets seriously timey-wimey. The Man From The Future is a romantic comedy.
Yet, they have things in common. Both have a relatively small scope; encompassing a discrete set of main characters across two or more different times. Both have a central theme about about the past can not only affect the future, but how the future can affect the past. Both embrace the darker side of time travel, albeit with radically different takes.
And yes, both are also very enjoyable too.