Since I do loves me a chart, I thought I’d flag up this exciting bit of news. Dark, which is Netflix’s first German-language show and has already been renewed for a second season, seems to be Netflix’s biggest European hit so far:
The quick demise of Marseille isn’t a big surprise, particularly to anyone who tried watching it, since it wasn’t much cop, but the fact Dark is doing so well is surprising, albeit less so when you think that genre shows tend to get a certain level of built-in popularity.
More surprising is that Dark was more popular than cartoon Castlevania. That’s the kind of thing you expect to do well, don’t you think?
German TV is on something of a roll at the moment, thanks to the likes of Deutschland 83 and Babylon Berlin. With Amazon also already having aired its first German-language original, You Are Wanted, it’s no surprise that Netflix would want to get in on the act, too; it’s also unsurprising that being Netflix, Dark is substantially better than Amazon’s efforts.
What is surprising is that whether deliberately or not, Dark is probably the most German TV show imaginable.
Set in the small rural town of Winden (none of the real ones) in 2019, it opens with the suicide of a respected and loved father, who leaves a letter that must not be opened until a few months after his death.
Not that this is the first tragedy to strike the town. A child has already gone missing that year and just a few days short of the date on the letter, a third child disappears and a mutilated body is soon found. Except it’s a child who disappeared in 1986 and it’s as if not a day has passed for him. What’s going on?
So far, so not especially German, for sure, but by the end of the first season, this Groundhog Day meets Back to the Future 2 meets Saw has gone through a gamut of German concerns and interests, from myth and the power of the woods and nature, through atomic energy and acid rain, to Nietzsche’s nihilism and Goethe’s fatalism, all with just a hint of 80s nostalgia (not Ostalgie, though). It also tries to address that perennial German-related time travel morality question: if you could travel back in time to kill Hitler when he was just a child, would you? And if you did, would it change anything or would Time somehow still conspire to find a way for history to continue on the same course?
Yes, Dark is indeed dark. So, are you going to like it? Well, that’s another matter. A full review of the entire first season after this lovely trailer – some minor spoilers ahoy.
TMINE’s about to take its traditional Christmas and New Year break. Normal business will resume on January 2nd with the Daily News et al.
But as usual, I’ll leave you with a specific question to keep you occupied in my absence: what were your favourite new shows of the year? Let everyone know your choices and the reasons below or on your own blog – or even on the shiny new TMINE Facebook page.
For the record, after the jump are my Top 14 shows from all over the world, in no particular order. Obviously, I’ve not watched every TV programme broadcast or acquired in the UK this year and I barely watched any live TV, so there are almost certainly some good shows that that I’ve left off the list – this is just the top “would recommend to a friend” shows of the ones I watched in 2017. Continue reading “Question of the year: what were your favourite new shows of 2017? Here’s my Top 14!”
