Top 10 Reasons You Should Watch Dark

“Dark” is set in the fictional German town of Winden, in the present day - at least for the first few episodes. Though it seems unremarkable and sleepy on the surface, the town’s secrets run deep - with a mysterious cave system to match! As we learn more about the town’s residents and how local families intertwine, it becomes clear that there’s a lot of bad blood, and a history of unexplained occurrences. The plot opens with a local boy, Mikkel, going missing near the caves. Time travel eventually has us jumping between different decades, revealing a deadly conspiracy that grows ever more complex.

In addition to the 2019 setting, the first season of “Dark” takes viewers to both 1953 and 1986 - at intervals of 33 years. Though the majority of the action does feel rooted in the present day, there’s enough time spent in the mid-1980s to make any nostalgia fans feel right at home. As we become familiar with the adolescent characters of this era in Winden’s history, we get a heavy dose of bright colors, big hair, quintessentially ‘80s pop, and new wave and punk sounds and aesthetics. In many ways, the show feels like a more grown-up “Stranger Things”, and the scenes set in the ‘80s are a big reason why.

Sound and music are a crucial part of a great TV series. But compared to film, television soundtracks tend to receive far less attention from the general public or casual viewers. There are definitely exceptions to this rule - “Big Little Lies,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and “Taboo” being a few recent memorable examples - and “Dark” deserves a place amongst the best of them. Atmospheric, tense, foreboding and appropriately dark, the show’s score knows its place and occupies it perfectly. The music, composed by experimental Australian producer Ben Frost is often simple, but never fails to make an impact.

We’re living in an era in which critics and home viewers often clash. “Dark” however, has managed to gartner near-universal acclaim from both camps. The first season scored a very respectable 88% on Rotten Tomatoes - the second now sits at 100%, with critics praising its originality and intelligence, and how it improves on its already very strong first season. The site concludes that the second season “descends deeper into the show's meticulously-crafted mythos and cements the series as one of streaming's strongest and strangest science fiction stories.” High praise indeed!

Whereas “Stranger Things” leans heavily into it’s high contrast, neon-tinged ‘80s setting, “Dark” has an overall more somber aesthetic. It feels very representative of the more reserved color-palette and tone for which German cinema is known. When the characters take to the woods or explore the caves, it almost feels like we’re wandering into the contemporized setting of a dark fairytale courtesy of the Brothers Grimm. The world is dimly-lit and seemingly overcast at all times - so much so that the tone can, at times, feel bleak. But… it’s also undeniably beautiful, and the cinematography is executed in such a way that it makes you feel entirely immersed in the show’s world, where something sinister is always lurking just beneath the surface.

“Dark” isn’t satisfied with being just another sci-fi, conspiracy-thriller, or murder mystery series. In a world in which time travel is possible, those who partake in it, young and old alike, are forced to face the sort of moral dilemmas that rarely exist outside the realm of the hypothetical. As viewers, we’re given the opportunity to see the even bigger interconnected picture that the show’s characters can only see parts of. And as we draw lines between actions in various timelines and their cascading consequences, we’re similarly made to question the nature of free will, destiny, nature vs nurture, the burden of knowledge, and other big philosophical preoccupations.

Big concepts, a tightly-written plot, and compelling themes are all well and good, but they’re for naught without relatable characters to connect with. Interestingly enough, one of the issues that some critics had with the first season was that Winden’s personalities were difficult to sympathize with. While we can appreciate that criticism, it could be argued that the characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, are simply more realistically flawed and self-interested than the characters we’ve grown accustomed to in North American shows. Spread across various time periods, we get to know over 20 characters and their respective struggles. Though they might be hard to love, they’re easy to relate to, and their respective development makes for extremely compelling interpersonal drama.

The implications and apparent paradoxes of time travel are enough to boggle the mind. And, looking back over the history of time travel plots in popular media, more often than not, it’s easy to poke holes in how they were executed. Establishing the rules of time travel within your universe is easy enough - but sticking to them is another story. Even when you have a character spell it out, a single plot point can result in substantial confusion (not to mention online debate). Thankfully, “Dark” creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese clearly aren’t willing to compromise logic for plot. “Dark” is hard to keep up with, but if you sketch it all out, the various moving parts all line up. And that’s no small feat.

As previously mentioned, probably the most commonly-made and obvious comparison is “Stranger Things”. And for anyone who needs some quality sci-fi to fill the void after binging the most recent season, “Dark” is a great option. That being said, it could equally be compared to another Netflix original, “The OA”. The tone feels similar in tone to “The Killing”, while the convoluted plot and small town secrets are reminiscent of David Lynch’s hugely influential series “Twin Peaks”. This puts “Dark” in excellent company to be sure, but at the end of the day, it’s more than the sum of its influences; what makes “Dark” stand out is the fact that it also feels fresh and inspired. It stands on its own two feet.

“Dark” embraces its serialized format, taking its time to establish crucial relationships - both between individuals and across the various time periods. While this might at first feel a bit slow, once the twists and turns start landing, you’ll be grateful that it’s not moving any faster. In fact, you might even find yourself pausing and rewinding to keep up. For people who like a good mystery or time travel plot, “Dark” is sure to satisfy; it’s masterfully planned out and impeccably executed. And somehow, despite such a feat seeming impossible, the second season ups the ante in pretty much every regard, refining the formula while also taking the story to bigger places.