Have you just finished season 4 of Stranger Things and need a good TV show to have fun? Why not watch the best Netflix show Dark.
A mind-blowing show that deftly combines internal family drama with time travel, Dark is the rarest of things: a show without a single drop in quality. All three seasons rule in every way imaginable.
The Stranger Things comparison makes sense, but Dark is a very different show.
Dark, at its core, is a mystery series. Much like Stranger Things – the show it’s most often compared to – Dark’s first season focuses almost exclusively on the search for a missing child. But in this show the child has not escaped to a parallel universe, but to a different time of 30 years in the past. Before long, Dark is a program that operates in many different time zones and dimensions.
Dark has it all. It does complex, intertwined twists on a level that makes Westworld feel like a clever pretend play for kids. It earns these twists by also being a delicately written study of broken family interrelationships and small-town claustrophobia.
It’s a show that handles the risks that come with time travel narratives with ease. Dark’s plot is complex to the point that I make a sport of waiting for it to completely fall apart. I spent three entire seasons waiting for Dark to drop the ball and pass out under his own weight, but he didn’t.
Probably the worst thing you could say about Dark is that it’s pretentious. Unlike other time-travel shows like, say, Outlander – which revels in camp and kind of begs you to ironically watch it – Dark takes itself completely seriously. It’s almost relentless.
Dark asks you to sincerely care about what is happening on screen. He infuses his plot with several explicit references to Ariadne and the Bible. In most sci-fi, that would be enough to make my eyes pop out of their sockets and roll back in my brain, but Dark earns his delusions of grandeur by actually being good enough to sustain them.
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Perhaps the best part of Dark is that, unlike other so-called “prestige shows”, there is no drop in quality. No “wild” seasons like Lost. Or skippable episodes like Stranger Things. Dark doesn’t rush towards its conclusion like Game of Thrones, or betray years of character building to serve the plot. No, calmly and accurately it remains extremely good from start to finish. I can’t think of another show like this. At least not on Netflix.
So why the hell is no one talking about this? Why isn’t a show of the sustained quality of Dark trending on Twitter? Why aren’t people getting mad at spoilers or getting into end-of-friendship debates on Facebook? Dark literally just released its stellar final season on Netflix and it seems like no one – not even Netflix itself – has noticed?
Is it because it’s “complicated”? It might be. Dark can be difficult to follow and 100% expects its audience to remember intricate details from an extensive family tree that unfolds across many different timelines.
The darkness is spread across many different times (and dimensions).
Is Dark underpromoted compared to other shows on Netflix? Possibly. I started watching Dark after the first season of Stranger Things. The program seems to operate in the shadow of the most popular programs in the recommendations.
Is it because it’s German? Despite Parasite’s Oscar win, I think subtitles are still a huge barrier. I can absolutely see a major US network buying the license to Dark and producing a (probably inferior) version of this show using English speaking actors.
Anyway, more people should watch Dark.
I mean, it’s right there. Three seasons of perfect television, available on a streaming service you’ve probably already subscribed to. Dark won’t let you down, or turn to shit like Game of Thrones. It won’t end up unfinished like Deadwood, or make zero sense like Westworld.
Darkness is right there. To be talked about, thought about. obsess. Do yourself a favor and watch.
