There are many, many lists of what is or is not Netflix’s best show, which is the case because well, that’s rather subjective. But there are series that are brought up more than most, and right alongside series like Mindhunters and The Haunting of Hill House stands Dark, the German time-travel drama. Many consider it Netflix’s best series, and it very well may be one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. This week, it celebrated its eighth anniversary.
Dark is a maze. A series of loops and twists and turns and borderline needing a flowchart to keep track of timelines and aging or de-aging characters, but I’ve always said it’s one of the only time-travel series that actually makes sense. The genre is filled with plot holes and paradoxes, and often doesn’t bother resolving any of them. Dark is the rare series that goes to great lengths to make sure it all works. Some may nitpick plot points even still, but compared to the rest of the genre, it is a stellar exercise in sci-fi. There just isn’t anything else like it in the subgenre. Here’s the official synopsis:
“When two children go missing in a small German town, its sinful past is exposed along with the double lives and fractured relationships that exist among four families as they search for the kids. The mystery-drama series introduces an intricate puzzle filled with twists that includes a web of curious characters, all of whom have a connection to the town’s troubled history — whether they know it or not. The story includes supernatural elements that tie back to the same town in 1986.
Netflix has dived headfirst into international content over the last decade, but this was actually the very first German series produced for Netflix, and many more have been made since. Dark, expectedly, has high critic and audience scores with a 95% and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. It has no episode rated below an eight on IMDB, and most are over 9/10, with its final episodes being its highest rated. That may clue you in to the fact that they very much stick the landing, yet another thing that is so hard to come by in this genre. The show spans three seasons and 26 episodes, quite a lot for a foreign series where seasons are often closer to 6 episodes.
Sometimes I quantify show recommendations as “not for everyone,” and obviously this is a pretty niche sci-fi project, but I don’t care. I would recommend Dark to everyone because it’s simply that good. If you don’t want to read subtitles, I don’t want to hear about it. It really is one of Netflix’s best series ever, and I understand why some put it at #1. At the very least, it’s in my top 3.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
