A young boy goes missing from a rural town on the perimeter of a secretive industrial plant, in the midst of mysterious occurrences which suggest the existence of more than one reality? Stranger Things have happened.
But this is not Stranger Things. It's Stranger Things: German style. So you can kiss goodbye to your comic relief and say guten tag to a lot of serious people, talking at each other with serious faces, set to serious music, and sprinkled with very serious sound effects, so serious that at times it feels like a parody of itself. Expect lots of cowering violins, along with every kind of reversed and reverberated timpani, horn section, and hackneyed tool of modern cinematic sound design. No really, they can't have a bowl of cornflakes on this show without the darkest audio cue, as if the cornflakes are the very embers of Gomorrahs fiery rage. It's weird.
Perhaps that is the whole point of Dark, that it feels dark. And there are surely plenty of people out there with so much joy in their lives that watching this show might give them a bit of balance. But I'm getting ahead of myself, rather than start at the end, as if time as non-linear, let's look at an overview.
Jonas is a sixteen year old boy who is mourning the recent suicide of his father. His mom Hannah, is screwing the local cop, anyway. Said cop, Ulrich, happens to be the father of Jonas' ex-girlfriend Martha, who is now dating his best friend, Bartosz. Awkward! This is only a little corner of the tangled mess of dysfunctional relationships linking four families in the town of Winden. And that's before we talk about time travel.
I had to look up the names of all of those characters, and therein lies one of the problems with Dark. None of the characters are remotely relatable, or memorable. Sometimes they are barely distinguishable. They're all just very serious, and do nothing to dispel stereotypes of Germans being dull. The characters even have affairs in an orderly, punctual manner.
To its credit, Dark has some beautiful visuals, and nice opening credits. You can watch it with subtitles or English dubbing, neither of which are ideal, so pick your poison. Also, the similarities to Stranger Things are only thematic. Watching Dark feels less like watching Stranger Things, and much more like Twin Peaks or True Detective. It might float your boat. It doesn't float mine, though for some reason, I can't stop watching. If you find your Christmas being too merry, stick this on and bring everyone back down to Earth.
Trailer: