From creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar of the show Dark, which starred Louis Hofmann and Oliver Masucci, comes the new Netflix show 1899. The series is an immigrant drama reminiscent of steampunk meets occult aesthetic and seems to revolve as much around complex and disturbing psychological phenomena as dark magic.

In the real world, the turn of the century saw the old Victorian world collide Earth-shatteringly with the technological and social innovations ushered in by the industrial revolution. Storytellers have long drawn inspiration from this confusing, visceral, and mystical time. It was a moment when unlikely, unknown, strange, and powerful men and women seized new materials and scientific discoveries that were little understood and almost otherworldly.

These people came into untouchable power lasting, for many families, to this very day, ultimately delivering, no matter the cost and often no matter the means, unprecedented change than ran down to the molecular level of everyday life. The violence with which these events transpired forged a wholly ideologically new nation that would redefine, for better or worse, the entire world order: the United States. It was cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, as miraculous as it was merciless, and unimaginably so even compared to today.

The trailer for 1899 is literally dark, both visually and contextually, sporting the interpersonal violence, engineering gadgetry, and hint of the supernatural that…