One of the most exciting comic book films of the year has started on Netflix. Bodies is based on a graphic novel from DC and was previously considered an ideal dark replacement due to the crime story spanning several time levels.
The 8-episode miniseries has been streaming on Netflix since October 19th. In this short first impression of Bodies, I’ll tell you whether the mystery series keeps what it promises and whether it can keep up with the masterful time loop Enigma Dark.
Murder series with a sci-fi twist: That’s what Bodies is about
In the present day of 2023, police officer Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) pursues a suspect into a back alley amid the chaos of a racially motivated demonstration in London’s Whitechapel district. Here she discovers the naked corpse of a man. What initially starts out like a typical modern crime thriller soon turns out to be something much bigger. Because: This is just one of four time levels.
Watch the trailer for the Netflix series Bodies here:
Bodies – S01 Trailer (German) HD
Even in Victorian London in 1890, in the hail of bombs in 1941 and in the seemingly utopian future of 2053, investigators come across a man’s corpse in that same Longharvest Lane. What they don’t know, however, is that they are all looking at the same dead person have to solve the exact same murder case.
Alfred Hillingshead (Kyle Soller), Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), Shahara Hasan and Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) are separated by over 150 years. Isolated by time, their investigations all lead towards a conspiracy – and Answers that are beyond your imagination.
Is the Netflix series Bodies worth it?
Do you love intricate puzzles and mystery box series such as Dark, its successor 1899, Manifest or Westworld? Then Bodies is just the thing for you. Here, too, you can expect a fascinating series puzzle full of secrets that will captivate you and allow you to spin ever more crazy theories with every new WTF twist.
Bodies takes things away from the sci-fi puzzles with the four time levels visual and narrative variety. Each timeline impresses with its own style and represents a different area of the crime genre – from the classic dark detective case to the modern conspiracy crime thriller.
Netflix
Four timelines, one murder case
The genre potpourri is garnished by a playful production, when characters move through the same spaces separated by time and split-screen transitions divide the image into moving comic panels. But before the series’ brain-twisting sci-fi elements break into the series, the focus at the beginning is on the four exciting individual stories, which at first glance could hardly be more different.
In the 19th century we have an inspector tormented by shame who falls in love with a journalist and is at the same time on the trail of a sinister secret society. In stark contrast to this is a peace police officer from the sci-fi future who can only walk thanks to a cybernetic implant and who has to protect a quantum physicist from great harm.
How are these stories related? What era does the murder victim actually come from? And who is the murderer? Bodies develops a dense tension with its numerous questions, which only increase with each further revelation. Connections and parallels between the four investigations, as well as elements repeated over time – such as the ominous phrase “Know that you are loved” – to recognize and discover, Bodies closes a lot of puzzle fun.
Bodies is the perfect replacement for Dark fans
Bodies is inevitably reminiscent of the German Netflix hit Dark, which left the minds of millions of fans spinning. To reveal more about specific similarities to Dark at this point would be venturing too far into spoiler territory. But when one of the main characters is already wearing a yellow raincoat, it becomes clear that the makers were consciously inspired by the German Netflix masterpiece.
Netflix
Bodies
Completely spoiler-free: In fact, Bodies feels like a compact and more accessible variation on the puzzle experience that Dark once created. In contrast to the oppressive severity of the Winden time travel incest, Bodies develops a more pleasant pace. After all, all of the mysteries in this miniseries must (hopefully) be solved within a few episodes.
Whether the series is actually that clever and complex cannot be finally assessed after the first four episodes. The dark mystery atmosphere, the crazy twists and the core question of whether fate can be changed make Bodies a success after just a few episodes ideal replacement to fill the gaping sci-fi void left by Dark on Netflix.
Bodies premieres on Netflix with all eight episodes on October 19th. The first four episodes were available to us in advance for this first impression.