Critical response Dark received critical acclaim and has been listed by many publications as one of the best TV shows of the years 2017, 2019, and 2020, as well as of the 2010s, 21st century, and of all time.
Vulture included the series in its article
A Guide to TV Shows in the 2010s as one of the most notable shows of the decade. The
BBC ranked it the
58th best TV series of the 21st century.
Season 1 The first season of
Dark received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many noting its similarities to the TV series
Twin Peaks and another Netflix series
Stranger Things. The
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes gave the first season an approval rating of 90%, with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10, based on 48 critics. The website's critical consensus is "
Darks central mystery unfolds slowly, both tense and terrifying, culminating in a creepy, cinematic triumph of
sci-fi noir."
Metacritic, which assigns a
weighted average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream publications, gave it a score of 61, based on ten reviews. Writing for
The Guardian, Lanre Bakare gave
Dark a rating of four out of five and praised the series for its tone, the complexity of its narrative, and its pacing. Grading the series with a "B", Steve Greene of
IndieWire wrote, "Even when
Dark is clinical in its set-up of these interweaving story threads, there's still an incredible amount of energy coursing through the show." From
Vox,
Emily St. James gave it a score of three and a half out of five and said, "
Dark is fun to try to solve — it's a treat to tease out the many connections running among the three eras. It's just that at a certain point, it becomes difficult to care about what's happening, beyond simply wanting to figure out how everything is connected." Ariana Romero of
Refinery29 noted that the series was darker and more in-depth than
Stranger Things. However, there was some criticism by
Reason Glenn Garvin for a heavy-handed approach to its message, a lack of sympathetic characters, and unoriginality of certain aspects of the series.
Los Angeles Times listed
Dark as one of the best TV series of 2017, while
Thrillist named it the 18th best TV show of the year.
Season 2 The second season received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it received a score of 82 out of 100, based on four reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes, season two of the series holds an approval rating of 100% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1 out of 10. Critics referred to season two as ominous and much more bizarre than season one, and that the series managed to subvert several tropes regarding the concepts of time travel. The season received a rating of four out of five from Jack Seale of
The Guardian and Boyd Hilton of
Empire, a B+ grade from Hanh Nguyen of
IndieWire, and an "amazing" score of 9 out of 10 from David Griffin of
IGN. The latter wrote in his verdict: "
Dark Season 2 can hurt your brain at times, trying to piece all the time-traveling narratives together, but in the end, creators
Baran bo Odar and
Jantje Friese reward your patience with some stellar WTF moments. At eight episodes in length, [it] is a tightly-woven tapestry of compelling stories and memorable performances from the entire ensemble." The season was included in many critics' year-end lists of 2019. It was ranked as the ninth and tenth best TV show of the year by Maggie Fremont of
ScreenCrush and John Sellers of
Thrillist, respectively. Outside the top ten,
TV Guide and
Complex named it the 12th and 26th best TV show of the year in their respective list. In addition,
CNET and
Vogue also listed it on each unranked list.
Season 3 The third and final season received critical acclaim, with the series finale receiving particular praise for being a satisfying conclusion to the story. It received a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 97% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10. At Metacritic, the season received an average score of 92, based on four reviews. The season received a rating of five out of five from
Radio Times Patrick Cremona and four out of five from
The Guardian Jack Seale, an A− grade from
IndieWire's Steve Greene, and an "amazing" nine out of ten from
IGN David Griffin. Cremona deemed it as "science fiction at its most mesmerising, its most confounding and its most exhilarating - and it all makes for a truly irresistible piece of television" and further praised the writing, cinematography, casting, and acting (particularly that of
Louis Hoffman,
Maja Schöne, and
Lisa Vicari). The season was listed by many publications as one of the best TV shows of 2020.
Radio Times named it the eighth best TV show of the year, with one of the website's writers Patrick Cremona saying, "The final series was another irresistible piece of sci-fi television, equal parts mesmerising and confounding, with a sweeping scope that gave it the sense of a true epic. With its exhilarating finale,
Dark has earned its place among the list of the very best original series made for the streamer."
Exclaim! ranked it the tenth best TV series of the year. The website's Allie Gregory wrote, "With stunning performances from Louis Hoffman,
Oliver Masucci and
Karoline Eichhorn (and an incredible score to boot), the apocalyptic time travel sci-fi series deftly concludes its mind-bending journey in its darkest (and
Dark-est) instalment yet. [...] [It] manages to neatly tie up all of its loose ends to finally find the one true "origin," so, at last, the town of Winden can free itself from the trappings of time and fate."
GameSpot listed it as one of the year's ten best TV shows, with one of its writers Mike Rougeau stating, "what really impressed us about Season 3 is how it wrapped things up, even while continuing the tradition of adding yet another new dimension (so to speak) to the show's tangled timelines. It managed to weave one of the most complex, but somehow still cohesive, sci-fi stories we've ever seen." Outside the top ten,
Den of Geek named it the 17th best TV show of 2020. Meanwhile,
Thrillist ranked it at number 19 on its "40 Best TV Shows of 2020" list, with one of its writers Emma Stefansky calling the series finale "one of the most shocking and emotional conclusions to a TV show you'll see this year."
Awards and nominations The series was nominated for the
Goldene Kamera TV awards 2018 in three categories: best series; best actress for
Karoline Eichhorn as Charlotte Doppler; and best actor for
Oliver Masucci as Ulrich Nielsen. None of these nominations resulted in awards, but
Louis Hofmann received the "Best Newcomer" award in recognition of his lead role in
Dark as well as his performances in several films. The series was awarded the 2018
Grimme-Preis award in the category "Fiction", which singled out the following cast and crew for awards: •
Jantje Friese (screenplay) •
Baran bo Odar (director) • Udo Kramer (production design) • Simone Bär (casting) •
Angela Winkler (actress) • Louis Hofmann (actor) • Oliver Masucci (actor) The actors named are awarded as "representatives for the full cast". == See also ==