With an average imdb rating of over 8.5, Dark is one of the top-recommend sci-fi shows on Netflix, next to Black Mirror, so does it live up to the hype? Kind of, but it has too many design flaws to fully recommend:
1) tedious repetition and depressing atmosphere: events and conversations are serially repeated with little variation, the settings never really change, and characters lack a sense of agency and free will, giving the series a very depressing and monotonous atmosphere. It's all by design, but this monotony reaches a psychological breaking point for the viewer at the start of season 3.
2) complicated web of relationships: imagine keeping track of the relationships between 4 generations of 3 separate yet biologically-related families, involving more than 20 people. Your social working memory will be overtaxed.
3) constantly shifting timelines: as the show progresses, the timelines are constantly shifting, every 5-10 minutes, making it tiresome for the viewer.
4) false messianic characters: we are told explicitly that certain characters are special and pre-ordained to save the world, which turns out to be a farce when you realize by the end that any other character could have done the same.
5) unconvincing sci-fi: good science fiction makes us imagine a world where technologies unknown to us could technically exist, respecting the laws of physics or at least most of them. The technological devices in this show are unconvincing as we don't really learn anything about their origin and how they work.
6) philosophically dull: the show graces us with philosophically ambiguous statements (and conversations) such as "everything and everyone is interconnected" and "the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning", which make sense by the end of the show, but they don't tell us anything interesting about our own world. The show does however makes us think about and question our free will.
If I had to rate the seasons separately it would be 8, 7, and 6, in that order.
My rating system: 10-classic (top 10 all time), 9-excellent (top 100), 8-very good, 7-good, 6-average, 5-mediocre, 4-1 unwatchable. 8-10 are "fully recommended", 7 is reserved recommendation.
1) tedious repetition and depressing atmosphere: events and conversations are serially repeated with little variation, the settings never really change, and characters lack a sense of agency and free will, giving the series a very depressing and monotonous atmosphere. It's all by design, but this monotony reaches a psychological breaking point for the viewer at the start of season 3.
2) complicated web of relationships: imagine keeping track of the relationships between 4 generations of 3 separate yet biologically-related families, involving more than 20 people. Your social working memory will be overtaxed.
3) constantly shifting timelines: as the show progresses, the timelines are constantly shifting, every 5-10 minutes, making it tiresome for the viewer.
4) false messianic characters: we are told explicitly that certain characters are special and pre-ordained to save the world, which turns out to be a farce when you realize by the end that any other character could have done the same.
5) unconvincing sci-fi: good science fiction makes us imagine a world where technologies unknown to us could technically exist, respecting the laws of physics or at least most of them. The technological devices in this show are unconvincing as we don't really learn anything about their origin and how they work.
6) philosophically dull: the show graces us with philosophically ambiguous statements (and conversations) such as "everything and everyone is interconnected" and "the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning", which make sense by the end of the show, but they don't tell us anything interesting about our own world. The show does however makes us think about and question our free will.
If I had to rate the seasons separately it would be 8, 7, and 6, in that order.
My rating system: 10-classic (top 10 all time), 9-excellent (top 100), 8-very good, 7-good, 6-average, 5-mediocre, 4-1 unwatchable. 8-10 are "fully recommended", 7 is reserved recommendation.
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