‘Dark’ Is The Show I Wanted ‘Stranger Things’ To Be

It’s good to be a sci-fi fan right now. While Marvel and Star Wars dominate box office numbers, the biggest shows of the past few years have been a fantasy epic that revolves around dragons (Game of Thrones), a dystopian horror series (The Handmaid’s Tale), and a Stephen King and Steven Spielberg-inspired sci-fi mashup (Stranger Things). But as indisputably fun as the Duffer brothers’ adventure series is, Stranger Things has always felt a little lackluster to me. It was a reaction I could never quite put into words. However, the premiere of Dark brought all of my conflicted feelings about Stranger Things into sharp focus.

This isn’t to say Stranger Things is a bad show. Both seasons have been praised by critics and embraced by mainstream audiences for a reason. Stranger Things isn’t even a show the world loves and I personally consider bad. I happily binged all of Season 2 and celebrated Steve’s (Joe Keery) perfect hair just like the rest of you. But I’ve always wanted more from Stranger Things than the series has been willing to give me. Bluntly put, Stranger Things is too positive and hopeful for my sci-fi drama preferences. It’s an observation that’s more of a criticism of my own deep love of brooding characters and intrinsically dark plots than it is of Stranger Things, but it’s still one that’s affected my enjoyment of the series as a whole.

Even when Stranger Things hits its darkest moments, like Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) disappearance and Will’s (Noah Schnapp) possession, I’ve never felt that the show had any real stakes. Not really. At the end of every episode, I’ve always been confident all five of the main kids (six if you include Season 2’s Max, played by Sadie Sink) as well as the teenagers and adults we’re supposed to care about would survive. Of course, there have been deaths in Stranger Things. But as much as Barb (Shannon Purser) and Bob (Sean Astin) were beloved, these great secondary characters were never as narratively important as Stranger Things‘ main cast. It’s a very Spielberg approach, which is probably partially why the series is so popular. No matter what happens to this select group of people or how many times they get hurt, they will all ultimately be OK. It’s also a sentiment that makes me tune out of whatever show I’m watching.

I wish I was someone who could genuinely and fully enjoy low-stakes dramas, but I can’t. Almost all of my favorite dramas — Legion, Narcos, Fargo, Mindhunter — involve main characters either dying or facing a reality so terrible death would be preferable. I don’t know why I am this way, but I am. That’s why Dark perfectly appeals to my morbid streaming streak.

On a surface level, there are a lot of similarities between Stranger Things and its German-language Netflix cousin, Dark. Both follow young male characters, Will and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) in Stranger Things‘ case and Jonas (Louis Hofmann) in Dark‘s. Both force their small communities to endure a sci-fi mystery of epic proportions. Both even have an expansive cast of important characters that range form children to middle-aged adults. However, I spent every minute of Dark slightly terrified that a character I loved would be killed or irreparably damaged by the complexities of time travel — a feeling that Stranger Things in all its joy and fun references has never given me.

If Stranger Things is a sci-fi mystery with a cozy family-friendly coating, then Dark is a horror series. Between its intensely haunting score and the creepy child’s room the series keeps glimpsing episode to episode, there’s a heaviness to the series that its constantly rain-soaked characters wear well. Bad things happen in Dark‘s universe, so much so that dead kids are possibly the least of this town’s many problems. That’s what I want out of my sci-fi dramas and why I love shows like Black Mirror, Legion, and even the recently-cancelled Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Optimism and hope are great things to experience and highlight in our stories, but there has to be a lot of darkness and a sense of earning that light before I can fully appreciate it.

Of course, one person’s warped opinion doesn’t matter too much. Stranger Things is a great, fun show that many people, myself included, enjoy. However, if you felt like Stranger Things came very close to scratching your “small town traumatized by supernatural forces” itch but didn’t quite get it, check out Dark. You’ll be yell-watching at your TV in no time.

Stream Dark on Netflix

Stream Stranger Things on Netflix