7 Shows Like Netflix's Dark That You Should Watch if You Like Dark

The final season of the German series Dark has come and gone and left in its wake a deep void. The brilliant sci-fi series, which ran for three seasons on Netflix, told the story of four interconnected families caught up in a mind-boggling time-travel mystery involving the apocalypse. The final eight episodes further complicated the already complex drama by introducing two more worlds, revealing different versions of the show's characters after an alternate version of Martha (Lisa Vicari) saved Jonas (Louis Hofmann) from the apocalypse at the end of Season 2. 

If you've finished the show and are looking for more great sci-fi series with engrossing questions about human existence and good and evil, especially ones featuring time travel and/or the multiverse, this is the perfect list for you. Everything below features intricate plotting and/or mind-bending storytelling that will make your head hurt in a good way. If you like Dark, these are the shows you should watch next.

Dark Season 3 Ending Explained

Looking for more recommendations of what to watch next? We have a ton of them! And if you're looking for more hand-picked recommendations based on shows you love, we have those too.

Counterpart

Watch it on: Amazon Prime

Dark is upping its game by introducing a second reality, and if you're interested in exploring another series about multiple worlds, check out the unfortunately short-lived Starz drama Counterpart, which ran for two seasons and pulls from the sci-fi and espionage genres to tell a story about two worlds that mirror one another and are connected by a secret crossing in Berlin. The series features an existential multiverse narrative that explores, via two versions of the same characters, the complexity of human nature and how our lives can be changed by a series of choices. The underrated show features fascinating dual performances by J.K. Simmons, Olivia Williams, and Harry Lloyd, among others.

Fringe

Watch it on: IMDb TV

Like Dark, Fringefeatures a parallel world, alternate versions of various characters, and deals with the complicated mechanics of time travel. Created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, the five-season Fox drama follows FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), kooky scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble), and his son Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) as they use obscure, "fringe" science to investigate unexplained phenomena around the country. Although the series starts out with an episodic structure, it eventually gives way to more serialized narratives as the show digs deeper into the existence of the parallel universe.

Stranger Things

Watch it on: Netflix

When Dark premiered in late 2017, there were a number of comparisons to Netflix's popular '80s-set supernatural series Stranger Things because the show was also kick-started by a child going missing. Dark ended up being a lot deeper and more complex than Stranger Things, which follows a group of pre-teens and teenagers as they defeat monsters from an alternate dimension known as the Upside Down in a small Indiana town, but things are about to get more complex as the fourth season appears poised to introduce the possibility of time travel. 

12 Monkeys

Watch it on: Hulu

Fiction is full of stories of time travelers like Jonas who are trying to stop various bad things from occurring, and Syfy's 12 Monkeysis one of the best. A loose adaptation of the film of the same name, the series follows Aaron Stanford's Cole, who travels back in time from 2043 to 2015 and teams up with Amanda Schull's Dr. Cassandra Reilly, a virologist, to stop the release of a plague-causing virus that will lead to the destruction of humanity. Like Dark, it's another intricately plotted series featuring another forbidden romance that will leave you scratching your head because of its looping, non-linear narrative.

The Expanse

Watch it on: Amazon Prime

If you love the complex and intricate world-building of Dark but haven't yet checked out The Expanse, you are in for a treat. The sci-fi space drama, based on the acclaimed book series by James S.A. Corey, is set in a future in which humanity has colonized the solar system and the already tense relationships between the three leading factions – the ruling class Earth, the working class Belt, and the militarized Mars – are pushed to their breaking points after a powerful and deadly alien particle is discovered. Like Dark, The Expanse is an intricate, detail-oriented story about a group of people whose views on the universe are completely upended and the small legion of hopeful heroes who don't give up fighting for a better world.  –Sadie Gennis

Doctor Who

Watch it on: HBO Max (2005 revival); BritBox (classic series)

There is likely no better show about time travel than Doctor Who, the long-running British sci-fi show about the Doctor, an alien with the ability to regenerate who travels the universe in the TARDIS, aka a time machine and spaceship, with a human companion who helps the Doctor save humanity and more from all sorts of things on a regular basis. It's a great adventure show, largely episodic, and something you can watch with the whole family, though there are definitely some creepy episodes and even creepier monsters along the way. If you've ever heard someone talk about time being a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff," that explanation comes from the acclaimed episode "Blink," which features a non-linear narrative and is probably the closest you'll get to Dark's most confusing moments while watching the show.

Continuum

Watch it on: iTunes (for purchase)

If you're looking for another sci-fi show dealing with the complexities of good and evil and their shades of gray, the Canadian sci-fi series Continuum is an excellent option. Rachel Nichols stars as Kiera Cameron, a law enforcement officer in a future corporatocracy who travels through time from 2077 to 2012 when a group of terrorists known as Liber8 flee to the past to escape execution and she's involuntarily taken with them. In the past, she teams up with Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen), a young genius and the only person who knows she's from the future -- and who grows up to be the founder of a major corporation -- in order to stop Liber8 from changing the future and get back home to her husband and young son. Across four seasons, the series explores how changing the past affects the future, including creating different timelines and the possibility of "orphaning" lost time-travelers.