Dark

Dark is a very odd show.  The first two episodes are some of the most excruciating hours I've spent watching in my life. But it changes at the third episode. What began as a somber knockoff of Stranger Things turns into a unique show that, while its plot is predictable, becomes an interesting character study that uses time travel to speak about humanity in a way I hadn't have anticipated.

Let's get those two episodes out of the way. They're really slow and grating and the characters are very hard to like. I had no idea from those two episodes why the reviews I'd read raved about the show, so I decided to go to the third episode and I would quit after that. I'm really glad I did, but it certainly wasn't for the plot. Every cliche in the book is used here. If you've seen any time travel movie for more than five minutes you know what's coming up. I obviously don't want to speak more about it than that, but just know that you can probably see it coming a mile away.

So what in the world did I like about Dark? Somehow the sum is greater than the parts that make it up. As I progressed through the show I was given more and more information about the characters and find that, as horrible as some of these people could be, I started to care. The situations flip and flip and flip and all of a sudden you realize that you've lost track of the plot because you're keeping track of this huge cast of characters who have a gigantic amount of information about them. Eventually it all just gels together into this huge statement about humanity and how limited we are and how beautifully flawed we are and all of a sudden the first season is over and you're wondering how you got sucked in...

That's pretty much exactly how that worked for me. The first two hours crawled and the next eight flew right by. I don't want to say anything more than that cause I probably ruined most of the surprises in store, but honestly if you're going into this show for the plot you're probably going to be highly disappointed. Go for the wonderfully broken circus show that is humanity. Go for it. Maybe you can tell me how the heck I got sucked in.