Dark is not an easy show to follow. It doesn’t go out of its way to be deliberately confusing, like some shows, but the scope and complexity of its plot makes it a challenge to watch. The story spans the period 1888 to 2053 and involves many generations of characters in the small German town of Winden. A story covering so much time and so many characters would already be hard to follow, but Dark is a time travel story and approaches its plot in a non-linear way.
Dark is essentially a mystery show. The question at its heart is: “what is the strange thing that is happening in this small town?” The show’s three series slowly expose the answer. It’s not the first show to be based around a “what’s going on?” mystery – other examples that spring to mind are Lost and Twin Peaks – but what makes Dark exceptional in this sub-genre is that there is an explanation.
This fortnight, after a few weeks of teasing, Nick and Alastair make a full-on journey into the Dark, with the third and final season of Netflix’s epic German timetravel saga, followed by new comics-based action movie The Old Guard.
Lastly, as a palette cleanser, Nick and Alastair watch The Old Guard (43:15), once a comic they 
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair watch new Spike Lee movie Da 5 Bloods, then read the opening issues of madcap comic series The Ludocrats. Despite their best efforts, there isn’t much connection there – which is apt enough for the chaotic nature of the latter.
Finally, they’ve read the opening two issues of The Ludocrats (32:11), the new absurdist action comedy by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Jeff Stokely and co, and… well, it’s a hard one to describe in words, which might be a problem for this medium.
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair tackle the growth industry of TV series based on popular movies, with the new Snowpiercer show and the second season of What We Do In The Shadows.
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair take off with Space Force, then venture into the forest of Family Tree.
And then another big name – podcast favourite comic writer Jeff Lemire and artist Phil Hester bring us Family Tree (29:14), their new plant-horror book from Image Comics.
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair meet a pair of action heroes who are both having their hearts melted by cute kids in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Extraction. If only they’d planned this thematic cohesion.
Lastly, they go way old school with new Netflix one-man-army action orgy Extraction (
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair take a break from their dystopian-level Netflix immersion to watch Devs on iPlayer and read new crime comic Friday!
Lastly, our heroes read Friday (34:40) by Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente, one of the few new comics making it to readers at the moment. This, of course, is because it’s only available directly from 
Whole lotta Netflix this episode, as Nick and Alastair catch up on Warren Ellis-written vampire video game adaptation Castlevania and viral smash hit big cat/murder documentary Tiger King.
Lastly, in a belated and hopeless bid to get on trend, Nick and Alastair watch Tiger King (26:48) and ask: whodunnit? And when will he finally get round to dunning it?
Back to the normal fortnightly schedule, albeit with a new dual review format, Nick and Alastair continue their hiatus catch-up with the final season of The Good Place, then catch back up to reality with new movie The Platform.
And finally, a grimmer abstract vision with Netflix’s grisly horror-scifi-thriller movie The Platform (35:58), a film which may or may not contain political metaphor. And a review which also contains a few spoilers, by the way. (Including hard ending details from about 46:18.)
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