There’s something very enthralling about missing-person suspense thrillers—especially when the missing person is a child. Everyone in town becomes a suspect. The police pick people apart and when they do, shameful secrets are revealed. The picture-perfect façade of the town and its families is shattered. No one trusts anyone anymore. If a show with such elements is your cup of tea, you should watch — or should have already watched — Dark, Netflix’s first German-language show. The eight-part Dark 2 was launched just yesterday.
About the Show
Dark was created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese. It premiered in December 2017. It features an extensive cast and takes place across different timelines in a gothic setting. It focuses on four families: the Dopplers, the Nielsens, the Tiedemanns and the Kahnwalds, all of whom are connected through acquaintance, marriage or affairs. What is unique about this show is that it does not limit itself to the crime procedural genre. It goes one step further and incorporates a sci-fi angle.
Due to the intersectional time jumps and the complex ties between characters, the show is better watched — from the beginning — than explained.
How Dark 2 is Faring
IndieWire called it “defiantly bizarre, twisty and more addictive than ever”. The Guardian said it is “willfully confusing and deliciously creepy”. Fans are eager to see where — and when — the characters will land up, what with the endless secrets, deaths, abuse of science and time shifts.
Jonas Kahnwald (Louis Hofmann and Andreas Pietschmann) propels Helge (Tom Philipp) from 1953 to 1986 while he is transported to the year 2052. He is in a dystopian version of Winden and must puzzle out the histories of the four families and try to arrive at a way to stop the time-jumping effects of the scientific experiments.
Catch both seasons of Dark on Netflix.