Series / 1899

What is lost will be found.

1899 is a Netflix epic period mystery-horror series created by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, the couple previously behind Dark (2017). Though produced in Germany, the series is multilingual, with each actor speaking their native tongue.

It's the year 1899. The steamship Kerberos has just departed from Southampton, and is currently set for New York City. On it rides numerous migrants of different nationalities, united in their hope for new lives in the United States.

However, during its journey, the ship receives a mysterious message, leading it to another vessel adrift on the open sea. The ship is none other than the Prometheus, another steamship that had mysteriously disappeared four months prior, now in a ruined and abandoned state. As a mysterious riddle unfolds, the passengers' hopeful journey begins to turn into a nightmare.

The series stars returning Dark actor Andreas Pietschmann, alongside Emily Beecham (Into the Badlands, Cruella), Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk, The Goldfinch), Miguel Bernardeau (Elite (2018)), Maciej Musial, Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones, The Crown), Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen (The Rain) Clara Rosager, Rosalie Craig, Maria Erwolter, Alexandre Willaume, Yann Gael, Mathilde Ollivier (Overlord (2018)), José Pimentão, Isabella Wei, Gabby Wong, Jonas Bloquet (Elle), and Fflyn Edwards.

It premiered on Netflix on November 17, 2022. The show's cancellation was announced in January 2023.

Previews: Teaser 1, Teaser 2, Trailer

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1899 contains examples of:

• Abusive Parent:
  • Krester’s mother is one of these; particularly of the emotional variety. She is however devastated and driven to sobbing when she receives news of Krester’s death.
  • Henry Singleton is heavily implied to be this to Maura and her brother; albeit, to a world-bending degree. Even though it’s revealed he is NOT responsible for the neural labyrinth or the simulations.
• Alien Geometries:
  • The mirror-tiled chutes in Maura’s and Captain Eyk’s living quarters, that transport them to the locations of their past tragedies.
  • The black, crystalline growths that appear and expand throughout the Kerberos in Episode 6.
• Anachronistic Soundtrack: The soundtrack prominently features classic rock hits despite the setting being Victorian. This initially seems out of place, but is a hint that the setting is much more modern than it initially appears.

• Arc Number: 1011. Referring both to Maura’s room number on the Kerberos and her cell number from the mental hospital.
• Arc Words: The words "Wake up" are repeated throughout the series, most notably whenever a character is shown waking up from a nightmare. This also serves as a hint that the events of the series take place in a virtual reality.
• Arc Symbol:
  • The triangular alchemical symbols for the classical elements, which appear on everything from clothing to mysterious artifacts in the trailers. Even the Bermuda Triangle is covered in a newspaper article.
  • The most frequently-seen symbol is the one for Earth, which may carry extra significance given the reveal that they are in space.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The vengeful madman who terrorized Tove’s family and raped her. She bludgeoned him a few times with a rock before blowing his brains out with his own rifle.
  • Virginia Wilson is an unfeeling Miss Kitty who treats Ling Yi and Yuk Je like dirt. Later on, though, Virginia contacts some sort of poison from the virus and gets erased from existence. However, as with most of the "real" characters, she's shown to be alive on the spaceship in the finale, so the "victim" part is debatable. We also notably never see her traumatic past, unlike most of the other main characters.

• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: In Episode 5, Lucien admits he does love Clémence. He just wishes he didn’t.

• The Bermuda Triangle: A newspaper seen in the trailers has an article discussing the region and its relation to many mysterious nautical disappearances in the Atlantic.
• Big Applesauce: The Melting Pot reputation of the United States (especially New York) is presumably why it's a destination for so many migrants.
• Break the Haughty: After the first half of the season portrayed him being smug, elitist, hedonistic, and dismissive of his actions’ consequences, Ángel is shown in Episode 5 sitting in a fetal position, rocking himself back and forth in a terrified stupor while singing a lullaby to soothe himself. No doubt this is from a combination of Krester viciously rejecting him (despite it being an act), being locked in his own room for approximately a whole day or more, and the terror of seeing passengers inexplicably tossing themselves overboard.
• Burial at Sea: This is how Ling-Yi and her mother disposed of her friend’s body after she accidentally killed her with an overdose of sleeping medicine.

• Creepy Child: The Boy who first appears from one of the Prometheus’s dining room cabinets at the end of Episode 1; and his appearances onward. Mainly due to his perpetual silence, his morose facial features, the enigmatic stone pyramid as his keepsake, and his affiliation with Daniel.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Every protagonist and some supporting characters have one with varying degrees of trauma.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Every passenger on the ship is pretending to be someone they're not. Some of them take it more literally than others.
  • Lucien is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion, who stole a uniform off a dead lieutenant. His own wife falsely believes he's a decorated officer from a rich family.
  • Ling-Yi accidentally poisoned a childhood friend, then stole her identity to travel to New York as a Geisha.
  • Ramiro isn't a priest, he just killed a real one and took his clothes.
• Death of a Child: Ada, Krester’s little sister is found dead at the end of Episode 2.
• Decoy Backstory: The series revolves around a group of passengers on a steamship in 1899, each of whom has their own tragic backstory. In the final twist, it's revealed that they're actually passengers in suspended animation on a spacecraft in 2099, implying that their backstories are illusory.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Maura is demeaned by a few passengers for being a woman who sought a profession in neurology.
  • Jerome is treated like dirt on a few occasions for his dark skin.
  • Olek is addressed as “Polack” by a few of his fellow workmen.
  • Homosexuality is taboo as exemplified by Ángel, Ramiro, and Krester.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Captain Eyk frequently engages in this as a way to cope with the arson-based death of his family.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first episode, after Lucien storms away in humiliation over his failure to perform, Clemence's feigned concern twists into a triumphant smile, revealing her as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. However, while her marriage remains unhappy, this sadistic and manipulative side of her character never reoccurs.
• The Ending Changes Everything: Daniel ultimately manages to change the simulation’s code enough to prevent another loop, giving Maura the opportunity to escape. When she wakes up, she discovers that she and the rest of the main cast were in hibernation on the Prometheus ship — actually a spaceship in the year 2099.
• Fauxreigner:
  • Ling-Yi dresses as a Japanese geisha despite growing up in a Cantonese-speaking region. This is because she is starting work as a prostitute under Virginia Wilson’s employ.
  • Ramiro is not Spanish like Ángel, but is the latter’s Portuguese servant.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The alchemical triangle symbols can be seen all over the Kerberos, including on the first class carpeting and miscellaneous decorations, as well as a hidden device Sebastian uses to communicate with Henry Singleton.
  • The alchemical symbols are also present on the outfits of some of the passengers. Clémence, in particular, wears earrings and hair clips with the triangle symbol, and there's a beetle similar to the ones Daniel and the Boy are using embroidered on the neck of her dress.
• French Jerk: Deconstructed through Lucien. His moments as a jerk aren’t because he feels culturally and intellectually superior but because of the trauma from his recent past, feeling disillusioned by his transition into the Nouveau Riche life, and suffering from a disease that's slowly killing him.
• Friend to Bugs: Daniel to the beetles. The Boy as well to the same green beetles.
• Genre-Busting: Contains elements of period piece, supernatural horror, psychological horror, psychological thriller, mystery thriller, action-adventure, immigrant drama, and science fiction. PHEW!
• Ghost Ship: The Prometheus, which is mentioned to have disappeared months ago in a newspaper and is rediscovered by the Kerberos in an abandoned, derelict state.
• Homage: The series borrows some key elements from the Pertwee-era Doctor Who serial Doctor Who S10 E2 "Carnival of Monsters", in which a variety of lifeforms from across the galaxy are miniaturised and trapped inside a “Miniscope” — essentially a high-tec vivarium within which humans and various aliens play out a simulated sequence of events time and time again as a kind of peep-show for observing beings. The human exhibit within the Miniscope also uses a period-setting, and features a group of travellers aboard the S.S. Bernice, a cargo ship with a small complement of passengers crossing the Indian Ocean in 1926, doomed to live a few hours of a single day over and over in a permanent time-loop. After the Doctor and Jo discover a plate in the floor of the ship that leads into the machine’s workings, they manage to find an exit and shut it down for good.
• Intellectual Animal: The green beetles are capable of opening locked doors, including hidden ones in the mirror-tiled chutes.
• Interface Spoiler: A non-videogame example, due to the show's frequent use of subtitles to deal with the multitude of languages among the cast and crew. In certain scenes, the subtitles indicate that Ramiro and Ling Yi are speaking Portuguese and Cantonese, respectively, before the dialogue reveals that they are only pretending to be from Spain and Japan.
• It's All My Fault: Krester beats himself up for Ada’s death.
• Language Barrier: Even if English or, occasionally, German are used as common languages, most characters speak their own native tongue and they get into awkwardness or complete unawareness of what the other says. A few characters are able to communicate in a second language that fits their background (the Danes and the Polish Olek speak some German; Eyk the German captain speaks fluent English, Mrs Wilson the British socialite speaks French and - less typically - Cantonese), but other than that, most passengers are firmly separated by the language barrier.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • All the characters sport a single trademark outfit throughout the entire series, with the only variations provided by adding or shedding layers. While this is justified for crew members, lower-deck passengers and the priest, it's particularly noticeable on the rich, first class ladies, who don't change outfits between morning and evening (as would be the norm in the time period), or even consecutive days. It's an early indicator that something's not quite right with the "reality" of the ship.
  • In Daniel's room of memories, a closer inspection of the photographs shows that Maura and Elliot sport the same Victorian clothes in their photographs with Daniel as a family, which should be outside of the timeframe of the Kerberos. Another clue that the simulation runs even deeper than the ship voyage.
• Mega Maelstrom: When the simulation ends, the Kerberos is pulled into a massive whirlpool that brings it to the ship archive.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: Notably averted. Despite the dark, intense nature of the show, the official trailer uses Jimi Hendrix's upbeat cover of "All Along the Watchtower", setting it apart from the typical trailer trend. Even as the action increases, it doesn't even derivate much from the original.
• The Mole: Sebastian is working for Henry.
• Multinational Team: The main characters in the series represent a broad spectrum of nationalities (British, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish), all of whom (for the most part) speak in their respective native languages. As the Language Barrier comes into play, emotions and personal connections become essential for communication when things start to go awry.
• The Mutiny: One is organized and set in motion by Franz with the support of the lower deck passengers. This is intersected with Anti-Mutiny.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Ling-Yi has felt this way ever since she accidentally killed her friend through a medicine overdose. She merely wanted to switch places with her friend and impersonate her to live (what she believed was) a better life. To say that she feels guilty and devastated would be an understatement.
• Nobody Can Die: Numerous named characters die and by the end of the series it seems there are only two main characters who get off the ship unscathed. However, they are all in a simulation, so none of them are truly dead.
• Noughties Drama Series: Even though it premiered more than a full decade after the noughties ended, it strongly resembled those older shows, with comparisons often made to mystery-arc series, particularly Lost, with its similarly multinational cast and building unreality.
• Ominous Fog: Appears in Episode 3 and may have been deliberately conjured by unseen forces; as well as having the power to transport colossal objects (like the Kerberos) through space and time.
• Parental Favoritism: According to Maura, her father, Henry Singleton, explicitly preferred her over her brother, Ciarán.
• Pregnant Badass: After the first two episodes, Tove transitions into this.
• Psychic Link: Seemingly between the green beetles and whichever human is in close proximity to them.
• The Reveal:
  • Episode 2: Ramiro is not a priest or Ángel’s brother, but his Portuguese servant. AND they are actually secret lovers.
  • Episode 3: Ling Yi is being employed by Virginia Wilson to work as a prostitute. And the reason she wants to start a new life is because she is running away from her crime: accidentally killing her friend via overdose from sleeping medicine. In fact, her friend was the girl who was originally employed by Virginia Wilson to work in prostitution. Also, her servant is really her mother. We also find out Ramiro murdered a priest and stole his clothes.
  • Episode 4: Lucien and Jerome knew each other while serving in (what is presumably) the French conquest of Tunisia; having murdered one of their superiors. Lucien betrayed Jerome when he was reluctant to follow the former’s plan to escape from the warzone.
  • Episode 5: Maura Franklin is Maura Singleton. Daughter of Henry Singleton, the company owner who bought the steamships.
  • Episode 6: The mental hospital that Henry Singleton confined his daughter in? He founded it in memory of his wife. Henry also blamed his children - Maura included - for his wife’s mental loss. The events that led to Tove’s pregnancy. Krester had an affair with another boy. The boy’s father discovered this and, out of vengeful (and homophobic) insanity, terrorized the family; grazing Krester’s face which gave him his scar; and knocking all of them out cold with the butt of a rifle including Tove… who he proceeded to rape afterwards. Thankfully, she gave the sick puppy what he deserved the moment she became conscious again. And the reason Lucien wants to go to America? To see a brain surgeon who could possibly save his life. Also, Sebastian is working with (who is presumed to be) Henry Singleton. Oh, and according to Daniel he is Maura’s husband.
  • Episode 7: The gravesite that has been constantly shown in Maura’s memory world contains a nursery that The Boy hides himself in. The Boy’s name is Elliot and he is Daniel’s and Maura’s son.
  • Episode 8: Henry is as much a prisoner of the looping simulations as the others are. Daniel and Maura are the Creators - meaning, they are the architects and designers of the neuro-powered simulations. Everyone is in a Sleeper Starship, and Maura’s brother is behind everything, apparently.
• Revealing Hug: After they're reunited in the boiler room, Clémence hugs Lucien in relief, but while Lucien leans into the hug, we see that Clémence is looking at Jérôme over his shoulder.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: After being rallied together by Franz and motivated by their anxieties and aggravation with Captain Eyk’s decisions, the lower deck passengers take the opportunity to antagonize and wrangle the upper-class passengers with firearms; no longer bothering to conceal their utter contempt towards them for looking down on them.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Landon,the stoker who believes in werewolves and functions as comic relief, dies just as things begin to get really grim.
• Sinister Silhouettes: Maura’s father is introduced as this in Episode 1 when he has her committed to an asylum.
• Spiteful Spit: Krester to Ángel as a form of rejection. He doesn’t really mean it as it was an act to prove his loyalty to his mother.
• Stealth Pun: The shiny green beetles that Daniel and Elliot use to open portals between various layers of the simulation. They are bugs (errors) in the code of the simulation.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Daniel and the Boy both have dark hair, pale skin, and somewhat similar facial features. As it turns out, they're father and son. Unlike Daniel, however, the Boy has striking blue eyes, just like his mother, Maura.
• Suddenly Voiced: The Boy halfway through Episode 5. He only ever talks to Maura and Daniel, however; even his grandfather, Henry, barely manages to get a few words out of him.
• Visual Pun: Multiple characters have copious amount of Ship Tease... on a literal ship. There are also several love triangles on a show where the Arc Symbol is a triangular alchemical symbol.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 2: A small but nonetheless notable wham: The scenes of the passengers zoom out and reveal a set of screens in surveillance room - completely out of place for the setting.
  • Episode 3: A mutiny consisting of the lower deck passengers and some of the crew members occurs to overthrow Captain Eyk. Meanwhile, Daniel pulls out a device that resembles a sliding puzzle and apparently functions as a remote control to power on the Prometheus’s coal burners; which causes the entire Kerberos to vanish from sight in an implosion of fog.
  • Episode 4: We learn how Lucien and Jerome knew each during what was presumably the French Conquest of Tunisia; the mutiny escalates into a riot; and Maura’s name is found on the Prometheus’s passenger list. And just when it appeared The Boy was thrown overboard. He emerges from one of the dining hall’s cabinets; with the visual implication that he teleported in there.
  • Episode 5: GOOD. FREAKING. GOD!
    • The small black pyramid has the power to stop time.
    • A chilling ticking sound emanates from an unknown source throughout the environment; inducing almost every passenger into a hypnosis that robotically compels them to march towards the ship’s railings and toss themselves overboard. Ling-Yi’s mother and Krester are among the victims.
    • Maura reveals herself as the daughter of Henry Singleton, the company owner who purchased the steamships, who is theorized by Maura to be the cause of every supernatural occurrence on the Prometheus and the Kerberos as an experiment. Captain Eyk was also listed as the captain of the Prometheus.
    • Daniel is revealed to have heroic intentions as he uses his otherworldly technology on the Kerberos’s coal burners to stop the hypnotic ticking noise. And it is solidified that he is affiliated with The Boy.
    • The sliding puzzle devices have the ability to shut people down as if they were drones. The mirror-tiled chutes in Maura’s and Eyk’s living quarters appear to be portals to the locations where each of their past traumas occurred.
    • Only the main protagonists and some of the supporting cast remain on the Kerberos while they receive a telegram with the instruction to sink the Kerberos.
    • It seems the ones controlling and monitoring the activity on the Kerberos are located in a retro-futurist complex situated on an alien landscape with a colossal version of the Black Pyramid as one of its landmarks.
  • Episode 7: The Boy is Maura’s and Daniel’s son. All of the protagonists are trapped in simulation loops with each one lasting only eight days.
• Wham Line:
  • Episode 1: Captain Eyk Larsen: “Someone destroyed the telegraph.” Followed by Maura Franklin: “How did they send the signal?”
  • Episode 2: The Kerberos’s high-ranking crew receive an instruction from their employers regarding the following investigation of the derelict ship, Prometheus: SINK SHIP
  • Episode 5: Captain Eyk: “I don’t know how any of this is possible. But I think I was the captain of the Prometheus.”
  • Episode 6: Daniel to Maura: “We got married twelve years ago.”
• Wham Shot:
  • Episode 2: After Captain Eyk experiences a hallucination of his dead family, he lands in what appears to be the burnt remains of his house’s interior. Then, he discovers an abstractly designed ladder in the fireplace and crawls out of it by removing a floor panel with the arc symbol (see example above), finding himself in his ship’s quarters. Later in the episode, Ramiro and Ángel yank off their clothes to make love to one another, and when Ángel removes his shirt, his back is revealed to be almost completely covered in scars. The final shot of the episode features a wall of analog television screens with a protagonist’s face projected on each one.
  • Episode 5: Captain Eyk and the other passengers have locked The Boy in one of the dining hall cabinets in an eerily similar manner as he was locked in on the Prometheus.
  • Episode 6: All of the documents and pages displaying the same phrase: “May your coffee kick in before reality does”.
    • The episode’s final shot: Captain Eyk being transported to a vast graveyard of derelict ships similar to the Prometheus.
• Womb Horror: Krester’s and Ada’s pregnant sister, Tove, is introduced screaming in agony because - according to Maura - her baby is tangled in the umbilical cord. Maura relieves Tove of the excruciating pain by “turning” the baby out of the tangle by applying pressure on her pregnant belly. There is a visual of a part of the baby protruding slightly from Tove’s rounded abdomen.
• You Should Have Died Instead: Krester’s mother tells him (to his face, no less) that he should have died instead of his little sister, Ada. She seems to regret saying these words the moment she hears news of Krester’s hypnosis-induced suicide.