After nearly a decade of nosebleeds, Demogorgons and psychic visions of an apocalyptic future, Stranger Things is finally over.
Whether or not you believe it ranks as one of the most disappointing TV finales ever, you now have a major sci-fi hole in your streaming schedule.
Thankfully, you don’t have to look too far for a satisfying replacement.
Way back in 2017, Netflix released Dark, a German sci-fi drama with similar Stranger Things vibes, like a missing kid angle and a 1980s setting.
But aside from those superficial aspects, Dark offers a much different and more satisfying experience.
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‘Dark’ Offers a More Mature and Complex Narrative
A missing child and ’80s fashions are kind of a Trojan Horse in getting audiences to watch Dark season one after the instant success of Stranger Things the previous year. In reality, though, the two shows are nothing alike. The premise initially revolves around a group of children in the small, fictional German town of Winden, who walk home through the woods one night and lose track of their friend Mikkel (Daan Lennard Liebrenz). Mikkel’s disappearance and the suicide of teenager Jonas’ (Louis Hofmann) father, Michael Kahnwald (Sebastian Rudolph), are the first dominoes to fall in the multi-generational unraveling of Winden, as the search for Mikkel unearths dark hidden secrets and a vast time travel conspiracy.
The structure of Dark is so intricate and meticulous that it’s not something you can just watch in the background while you scroll on your phone. The show is an intelligent exploration of fate, free will and the existential implications of time in a narrative that deftly alternates between three different time periods (1953, 1986 and 2019). Dark is a puzzle box that isn’t poorly executed or random; every detail of the show has a purpose. With its gripping mystery, elaborate family drama and coherent yet complex time travel logic, Dark accomplishes a masterful feat of storytelling.
The Eerie Atmosphere Is Absorbing and Immersive
A crucial part of what makes Dark so utterly captivating is its cinematography and production design, courtesy of Nikolaus Summerer and Udo Kramer, respectively. The productive values are akin to a feature film, with dark color palettes often drenched in cloudy skies and rain, foreboding forest locales and dimly lit interiors with deep shadows create evocative and immersive mood-setting. Additionally, extra care is taken in using color to distinguish time periods from one another, making it less strenuous for viewers to discern whether they are in the ’50s, ’80s or back in the present.
But it’s not just the filmmaking that lends Dark its unique, haunting atmosphere — the music does a lot of the heavy lifting, namely the perfectly-chosen needle drops. The gorgeous opening theme “Goodbye” by Apparat featuring Soap&Skin instantly sets a stirring yet ominous tone for the show, and songs like “Familiär” by Agnes Obel, “Me & the Devil” by Soap&Skin, “When I Was Done Dying” by Dan Deacon and “Industry” by Mire Kay are expertly deployed throughout the course of the series during pivotal moments that envelope the viewer like a musical blanket.
The Cast Is Excellent
There is perhaps no show or film out there that has done a better job at casting past and present versions of characters than the casting department of Dark. Not only are the performances from the entire cast pitch-perfect, but they also mirror each version of themselves across timelines. Do yourself a favor and look up characters like the Kahnwald, Nielsen and Doppler families — you’ll marvel at how the casting department of the show managed to find multiple individuals who capture the essence of their characters across different generations.
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And even if a character does not perfectly physically match both their past and present versions of themselves, the physicality through the actors’ performances still manages to evoke their shared character seamlessly. Still, some of the matchups are so striking that fans on Reddit have jokingly posited that the older actors’ younger selves must have traveled back in time to play themselves in the show.
Stream all three seasons of Dark on Netflix.
