Dark - Complete Season 1 to 3 Review

I'd often swiped past Dark when facing options overload on various streaming platforms. I'd heard of the show, mentioned in articles and online communities, but it was my brother's enthusiastic recommendation that finally convinced me. Given our shared appreciation for formative media—from The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31 to the works of David Lynch, Twin Peaks and classic video games on the Master System and Megadrive (we were Sega kids growing up) —I knew that if he liked it, I probably would too.

Dark, with its three seasons and 26 episodes, begins with a familiar premise: a child vanishes in the small, quiet German town of Winden. But the show quickly pulls the rug out from under you. When a second child disappears and the mystery becomes entangled with the local nuclear power plant and a similar case from 33 years ago, the narrative explodes into something far more complex and compelling.

The series lives by the tagline, ‘The beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning,' as it delves into 'wibbly wobbly, timey wimey' stuff. It demands your full attention, weaving a complex web of time travel, paradoxes, Nietzsche's Recurrence, the Lunar-Solar Cycle and profound family secrets. Yet, despite its intricate nature, the story remains remarkably coherent. The pacing is fantastic, moving at a great clip without ever feeling rushed. It's a gripping narrative that explores not just the mystery of the disappearances but the deep, generational impact they have on the town and its inhabitants.

The acting is phenomenal all round with all the generations of actors bringing their A-game. I can't pinpoint the standout actor but there is one scene in season 1 that sent shivers down my spine; it was Martha's (Lisa Vicari's) Ariadne dialogue delivered in a school play whilst Jonas, her love interest, enters a labyrinth inside the cave:

"The old world came to haunt her like a ghost that whispered to her in a dream how to erect the new world, stone by stone. From then on, I knew that nothing changes. That all things remain as before.

The spinning wheel turns, round and round in a circle. One fate tied to the next. The thread, red like blood, that cleaves together all our deeds. One cannot unravel the knots.

But they can be severed. He severed ours, with the sharpest blade. Yet something remains behind that cannot be severed. An invisible bond."

When she breaks down, the resolve over her missing brother crumbling, it is a truly heartrending moment delivered with a chef's kiss moment as Jonas finds a mysterious door after following a red string through the tunnels.

The story is complex and, as well as amazing dialogue, is enhanced by the show's incredible visual and auditory elements. The cinematography by Nikolaus Summerer is moody and atmospheric, with a palette dominated by dark, earthy tones that perfectly capture the feeling of a town burdened by its secrets throughout the different time periods. The constant rain and the dark, looming forest create a sense of claustrophobia and foreboding—the best I've seen since the moody Pacific Northwest of Twin Peaks or Louisiana's oppressively hot and steamy bayou in True Detective season one.

Equally impressive is the series’ soundtrack by Ben Frost which is not just background noise but a vital part of the storytelling. The music, featuring a haunting mix of ambient tracks and perfectly placed licensed songs, underscores the show’s tone. From the unnerving score that builds tension to the surprising needle drops (Fever Ray's Keep the Streets Empty For Me being a particular favourite of mine), every soundscape feels deliberate and impactful. It's a soundtrack that stays with you long after the credits roll, a quality that surely cemented the show's cult status.

Dark is a testament to the power of a well-crafted mystery. It’s a show that trusts its audience, rewarding careful observation with a richly layered story that unravels like a puzzle box. The series masterfully weaves together time travel, family secrets, Determinism vs. Free Will and cosmic fatalism, creating a complex narrative that demands and rewards attention.

It gets you thinking (at least in my head) about heady concepts such as Tatarology, sin, the immortality of the soul, reincarnation, Michael Huemer's theory of the plausability of reincarnation, eternal recurrence, Pascal's Wager, Nietzsche, Pythagoreans, divine punishment and contrapasso, the Golden Rule, Lord Yama/ Anubis/ St. Peter, impercievable divinity, redemption and the River Lethe.

When comparing Dark to other media, TV-wise, it shares the eerie, atmospheric dread of the original French series The Returned, as well as the intricate, character-driven puzzles of The OA. But, unlike Lost, which often introduced more mysteries than it resolved and spun its wheels for chunks at a time, Dark is a much leaner, more coherent experience. It's a show with a clear destination, where every detail, no matter how small, eventually finds its place within the grand, interconnected timeline.

The show’s strange, unsettling tone and its focus on a small, insular town grappling with bizarre events evoke the surreal vibes of the video game Deadly Premonition, itself a love letter to Twin Peaks. Meanwhile, specific scenes, like the hauntingly poignant school play, have the emotional resonance and sense of fated tragedy found in Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. Additionally, the alternate timeline narrative and the threads that connect everyone and everything felt distinctly Alan Wake 2. For readers, the series echoes the labyrinthine narratives of Jorge Luis Borges's The Garden of Forking Paths, where multiple timelines and possibilities collide. It also shares the unsettling, meta-textual dread of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, where the setting itself is a puzzle house.

So, if you're a fan of cerebral sci-fi, intricate storytelling, and shows that stick with you long after you've finished them, do yourself a favour and give it a watch—you won't regret it!