.png){kind=logo}
Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
Before Screen Rant, he was a Senior Writer for The Cinemaholic, covering everything from anime to television, from reality TV to movies.
After high school, he was on his way to become a Civil Engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took a leap and never looked back.
A time travel masterpiece on Netflix sadly ended its run after three seasons, but Apple TV's sci-fi book adaptation seems to perfectly fill the void it left behind.
Nearly eight years ago, Netflix released an incredible sci-fi masterpiece that initially took its time to find its audience. However, once it did, it was hailed as one of the most complex and compelling time travel TV shows that have glazed our screens in a long time. Fortunately, the show also got to end on a high note with a satisfying, natural conclusion.
Although the show left a void in the sci-fi genre and is still missed by many, one overlooked Apple TV sci-fi show fills the void it left behind.
Like Netflix’s Dark, Apple TV’s Dark Matter Is A Twisted Love Story In Disguise
Both Apple TV's Dark Matter and Netflix's Dark are mind-bending sci-fi shows that adopt complex concepts as narrative devices. While Dark is packed with bootstrap paradoxes and causality loops, Dark brings a fantastical spin to quantum physics. Yet, at their core, both feature nothing but twisted love stories that highlight how obsession, regret, and choices can reshape our entire realities.
While Dark shows how two souls fated to be together can destroy the whole world, Dark Matter is about a man realizing that he might have missed many an opportunity in life, but his true calling lies in his original reality with his loving wife.
In both sci-fi shows, the characters go to extreme lengths to preserve or reclaim love, even if it means defying time, creating new timelines, and accepting the devastating consequences of their choices. When it comes to the overarching storytelling, Dark Matter is more linear, at least in its first season. Netflix's Dark, in contrast, takes you to disorienting places where it intentionally heads towards chaos to highlight its existentialist themes.
Dark Matter, too, gets fairly complex towards its final moments, but it remains grounded and relatively more predictable. Although both shows adopt distinct sci-fi narrative devices, they primarily unfold stories about the cost of love, the weight of choice, and the irreversible consequences of refusing to let go.
Dark Can Never Be Replaced, But Dark Matter Fills The Void It Left Behind
Dark almost ruined time travel storytelling with how brilliantly it wove together causality, paradoxes, and generational trauma into a single, complete narrative. Owing to this, it would be unfair to call the Apple TV show a worthy replacement for Netflix's Dark. Dark Matter is also only one season into its story, so it is yet to explore the full scope of its ideas.
Dark Matter has been renewed for season 2 on Apple TV.
Despite this, Apple TV's Dark Matter comes off as a worthy sci-fi series that fans of Netflix's Dark will appreciate. It seems unlikely that any sci-fi show in the future will even come close to matching Dark's genius, but Dark Matter seems to fill the void it left behind.
-
Dark
Release Date 2017 - 2020
Network Netflix
-
Louis Hofmann
Jonas Kahnwald
-
Lisa Vicari
Martha Nielsen
-
-
Dark Matter
9/10
Release Date May 7, 2024
Network Apple TV+
Directors Jakob Verbruggen, Alik Sakharov, Roxann Dawson, Logan George
Writers Blake Crouch
-
-
Joel Edgerton
Jason Dessen / Jason2
-
English (US) ·