I simply love Dark.

It is, without a doubt, my favourite television series of the year. It is also quickly becoming my favourite television series, period. When people mention how well the medium has developed over the last decade, I hardly believed them. But Dark presents a very compelling argument for how services like Netflix allow a maturation of content for television that would never have been realized otherwise.

I recall now that I have not done my “favourite things” series for this year. I had plans to do so. As I always do, however, I became busy over the months where I generally list things that I love. So, let’s count Dark as a much belated entry to that list. Though, Dark would argue that it is not late – it arrived exactly when it needed to.

I’ve been trying to consider how to write a review for this series’ first season for the last couple of days and, overall, have miserably failed. It’s hard to talk about the show in any great depth without spoiling it. It’s also hard to talk about the show without rambling because there’s so much to discuss and organizing one’s thoughts on Dark requires the attention normally reserved for a paper than a quick blog review.

So let’s address the easier portion. What is Dark?

Dark is a German language Netflix original series. It is set during 2019 in the small, fictional village of Winden. It ostensibly follows the young Jonas Kahnwald whose father has recently committed suicide after writing a letter that is not meant to be opened until months later and on a specific day at a specific time.

I say ostensibly because Dark is an ensemble piece that truly follows what feels like the entire village of Winden. You are quickly introduced to a whole host of characters – all of whom are important and have their own entwining relationships and character arcs. Part of the brilliance of Dark is how it both navigates these numerous threads but also utilizes them to maintain its perfect pacing. This ensemble, however, is probably my only complaint. You’re thrown so many faces and names that it is hard keeping track of them all. It’s made even more complicated because their relationships – both familial and romantic – are important to their motivations and behaviours so it’s a constant exercise of trying to remember one round German face from another and why who hates who for what reason.

Dark is hardly an easy show to follow. But it is also a show fully aware of its difficulty. It introduces its various twists, turns and drama deliberately. It affords enough time for you to become familiar with the current issue before layering on another. Then another. And then another.

For Dark has multiple layers. Its story spans over three generations of these families in this sick town. And once the series starts showing you scenes from different generations, you’re left floundering while relearning the faces to names you’ve become intimately familiar with. However, Dark also uses your familiarity with these families to reveal further secrets and revelations as you understand that the issues facing these characters have quite deep roots.

But there is a greater mystery to Winden than Jonas’ father’s death. In fact, very few people seem rather affected by his suicide outside of his son. No, the crux of the show revolves around another family – the Nielsen’s. Jonas has a tie to them, naturally, as their daughter Martha and Jonas are friends/brief lovers. Things are made overly dramatic when Jonas returns from a brief therapeutic break from school to learn that his best friend Bartosz has moved in on Martha in his absence and the two are evidently dating. While trying to adjust to this unspoken betrayal, the three teenagers decide to go out into the woods surrounding Winden in search of a hidden stash of drugs rumoured to belong to a missing contemporary of theirs (Erik Obendorf) whose disappearance has gone unsolved for the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, the Nielsen parents leave Mikkel, the youngest of the Nielsen brood, in the care of Magnus, the eldest, and Martha while they have a townhall about Erik’s disappearance. The gaggle of teenagers’ misguided midnight adventure is interrupted when they arrive at Erik’s secret wooden hideout and find Franziska (I told you there were a lot of people) had already beaten them to the drug stash and claimed it as their own. There is a brief conflict over the weed before the children get startled by a noise in the caves behind them.

Frightened, they run for the safety of the village. In their fright, they get separated and only once they convene on the bridge beneath the streetlights do they realize that young Mikkel is missing. Frantic, they retrace their steps hoping to find him.

When that proves futile, they contact their parents – interrupting the townhall. Worried, the adults of Winden hurry out to the woods but are unable to locate the young Nielsen child. Katharina and Ulrich Nielsen are inconsolable, partly because Ulrich’s younger brother disappeared under similar circumstances thirty-three years earlier. Strange things begin to happen around the town of Winden and, chief of police Charlotte Doppel, warns Ulrich that things are “happening again.”

Phew. That should give enough of a tangled overview of how complicated the story of Dark is. Fortunately, the weave is even more knotted but I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the delightful twists and turns. The great thing about Dark is both its predictability and ability to keep me guessing where it’s going. It balances perfectly its mystery with audience expectations. Each element is a struggle to understand and just as you begin to wrap your head around the disparate elements and get a grasp of the situation, Dark throws several more twists your way. But these never feel contrived or forced. In fact, a number of them are hinted earlier in prior incongruities that largely get lost in the cavalcade of issues facing the families of Winden. It perfectly replicates the confusion and building dread of its residence in the audience.

And given its premise, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between Dark and Stranger Things. For me, personally, Dark exceeded Stranger Things on all fronts. I can see where others may prefer the latter. Stranger Things is like comfort food. It’s so steeped in nostalgia and genre cliches that you pretty much know its plot and pacing from the start. It almost never strays far from expectations since, largely, Stranger Things is an homage to the horror genre of the eighties and the influential authors and creators of that time.

Dark, to my knowledge, stands on its own. If it is a pastiche of anything then its of works unfamiliar to me. Thus, I am more enthralled with its mystery. I also found the characters a lot more compelling. For one, they are interwoven more tightly to the narrative even as Dark has a larger ensemble than Stranger Things. However, the characters of Dark are more complicated than Stranger Things. I can understand if people struggle to identify with them since they don’t represent stock personalities or generic roles like those in the American thriller show. I would think the number of people who could, say, identify with Ulrich who as a child had his brother go missing then, as an adult, had his youngest son face the same fate. That’s a pretty niche slice of the audience population that can probably understand his turmoil on a personal level. Contrasted with Jim Hopper whose child died and wife left him leaving him to spiral into an alcoholic depression and you have a more standard individual who, even if his personal circumstances aren’t relatable, has certainly been seen in various other forms of media to at least be familiar.

Course, outside of some superficial similarities, Dark never truly invites comparisons between itself and Stranger Things. It doesn’t take long into the series for it to be apparent that the show is striving for a different tone and effect. It stands on its own merits. Its plot keeps you guessing and riveted for the next revelation. If I had any other criticism of it, it would be that its premise makes it rather difficult to account for flaws in the plot. I can’t tell if some things are clues for further reveals or plot gaffes which, surely, must crop up with something as complex as Dark’s theme and narrative. Certainly, the show has already taken some elements that didn’t seem to fit with its story and later reveal that they were done purposefully. Which makes it hard to review at this junction as there are two more seasons of the show left to address all the little foibles and quirks. Course, the premise of the show always gives an easy explanation for anything that isn’t directly covered. But whether that’s a flaw or clever arrangement by its creator I suppose is up for debate. Either way, it makes for compelling television. And why I am absolutely glued to this series.

I simply love Dark.

It is, without a doubt, my favourite television series of the year. It is also quickly becoming my favourite television series, period…