Most critics like Dark, and nearly all of them reach for Stranger Things before setting it aside: this is the gloomier, more grown-up cousin, a German time-travel mystery running across three eras. Praise gathers around the atmosphere: the autumnal, near-monochrome look, the electronic score, the slow-burn dread, and a puzzle plot that most find dense but rewarding once it settles. Several single out the way families and timelines knot together.
The spread is wide. The dissenters do not dispute the craft; they dispute whether anything sits beneath it. The Hollywood Reporter finds the show portentous and short on characters worth caring about, and Collider calls it one-note, technically proficient but thin on emotional insight. Even admirers concede a grim, plodding opening and an exposition-heavy first episode, and IndieWire wonders whether ten episodes can hold everything the series is attempting.