Dark Season 3 premiere recap: What’s new and different?

We breakdown the changes in the Dark Season 3 premiere.

Dark season 3 brings more genre-bending action to Netflix. Back for its final season, the showrunners kick off the premiere with an introduction into a new world and a new timeline.

When we’d left Jonas Kahnwald (Louis Hofmann), he was stunned by his older self – Adam – killing the love of his life Martha Nielsen (Lisa Vicari). But then another Martha arrived and whisked him away before his Earth was destroyed. Where did she take him?

Martha takes Jonas to her world and the show resets the timeline to begin again on November 4, 2019 on this different Earth. We breakdown the biggest changes and similarities between Jonas’ world and Martha’s.

Dark Season 3: A World Without Jonas

One of the biggest changes in the new world is that there is no Jonas because Mikkel Nielsen (Daan Lennard Liebrenz) never got lost in the caves and transported back in time to grow up and become Jonas’ father.

Instead, Mikkel, Martha and Magnus (Moritz Jahn) are closer in age and three squabbling siblings. Mikkel being aged up is a clever way for the showrunners to continue casting the same actor who has visibly grown since the first season.

The Nielsens live in the Kahnwald house from Earth-Prime. Their father Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) – who was having a secret affair with Jonas’ mother Hannah Kahnwald (Maja Schöne) on Earth-Prime – has left his wife Katharina (Jördis Triebel) and his children and is now married to Hannah. The two are expecting a child together.

Without Jonas, Martha has a different love interest – Killan Obendorf (Sammy Scheuritzel) is a fellow thespian and older brother to Erik, the boy who was first captured on the show. She is still friends with Bartosz Tiedemann (Paul Lux), but he’s far more reticent as his mother Regina has passed away on this Earth.

Another family affected by the absence of Michael Kahnwald is the Dopplers. Peter Doppler (Stephan Kampwirth) is now a priest and this time his wife Charlotte Doppler (Karoline Eichhorn) is the one having a clandestine liaison.

She’s still working with the police and is secretly with her colleague Ulrich. The Doppler girls Franziska (Gina Alice Stiebitz) and Elisabeth are also closer in age (again, this is because Carlotta von Falkenhayn looks older than her debut on the show). In the new world, Fransizka is hearing impaired instead of Elisabeth.

Dark Season 3: Some Thing’s Stay the Same

Aleksander Tiedemann (Peter Benedict) is still in charge of the nuclear plant and still a jerk. He’s hiding his knowledge of Erik’s disappearance and is evidently up to no good. Whatever experiments are being conducted in the town has an effect on everyone as the electricity fluctuates from everywhere near the caves, to Katharina’s school and the homes of the townspeople.

Unsurprisingly, most of the characters have the same jobs as on Earth-Prime, except for Hannah, who seems to be unemployed in both worlds.

Hannah appears to still be obsessed with Ulrich, but she’s on the wrong side of his philandering this time. The man seems to be a serial cheater, though it’s a surprise that Charlotte would fall for it! Old Helge Doppler (Hermann Beyer), Charlotte’s grandfather, is still mentally unstable, though he lives with his family and not a hospital. What caused his mental break on this Earth, or can it be his old age?

The disappearance of Erik echoes that of Mads Nielsen on Earth-Prime. And just as the bodies of the children fell through black holes in the original timeline, Martha and her friends discover Mads in the old Doppler bunker in this new world. But, did Ulrich have a brother who went missing on this Earth?

Dark Season 3: A New Timeline

On this Earth, Martha is the yellow jacket-wearing time-jumper. When Jonas finds her at school, she’s unaware of what her future holds. But later, near the caves, she’s the one left behind and briefly sees a vision of a woman calling out to her – is this her, or someone else?

As Jonas finds Mikkel safely sleeping instead of falling through time, he is met by an old woman. She explains that this is the world that Jonas wanted, one that didn’t have him in it, but it’s still going to be destroyed. The worlds are doomed because of Jonas and because of her. She is none other than Martha.

Meanwhile, alt-Martha who rescued Jonas goes back in time to 1888 to find the Stranger (Andreas Pietschmann) – older Jonas. Since he has no recollection of seeing Martha alive again, we can assume that the timeline has changed significantly.

Aside from the main characters we’re familiar with, there’s a new character thrown in the mix. Or rather, three versions of that new character.

This mysterious trio of child, adult and old man burn down Adam’s old mansion and then travel to 1987 in search of the master key to the nuclear plant. We don’t know why they are there but they are likely to play a significant role in Dark season 3.

What did you think of the premiere of Dark season 3? Do you like the new world and timeline?