Series that have conquered the world
From a creation that just narrowly escaped eternal darkness and oblivion, through the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel, to the German depression pulled apart in multiverses, here we present to you three gems from Netflix, Hulu and the BBC.
MONEY HEIST Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) was on the brink of collapse before being proclaimed one of the most watched series on Netflix last year, with 44 million viewers. After debuting on Spanish channel “Antena 3”, this robbery action drama failed to hold the attention of viewers in its home country. It was sold to Netflix a year later for the price of just two dollars. The makers weren’t even aware that they’d sold a project worth 44 million people. The utopian idea of this series about breaking down norms and systems was, according to creator Álex Pina, the main reason why Money Heist managed to capture the attention of millions of viewers. The symbols of the series and fantasies in the form of the modernising of the legend of Robin Hood led to the masks that are worn by the group of rebels in the series becoming a symbol of resistance in modern civilisation. NORMAL PEOPLE While Money Heist is a work of rebellious television poetry, the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People has become another kind of symbol for millennials worldwide. The love story of Marianne and Connell, which primarily explores the interpersonal dynamics of human relationships, is precisely what the title suggests – a story about normal people, or rather ordinary people. The writer of the novel, but also the series, addresses the dominant problems among young people caught in the clutches of modern society, i.e. an inability to handle emotions, and lack of social and emotional intelligence. DARK The last, but by no means least, part of the puzzle is the phenomenon of the German serial Dark. The authorial work of Baran bo Odar and his life partner Jantje Friese, it is the most challenging and most intelligent work of contemporary television. A seemingly simple story of the mysterious disappearances of children 33 years apart in the small town of Winden turns into a puzzle of time and space that resulted in viewers having to watch certain episodes several times over and the first two seasons, before the final third season. As one journalist of The Guardian wrote jokingly: “Dark is like a physics test and you want an A, but you don’t know how to solve the last and most difficult task”. As the most complex series of the modern streaming scene, due to its complexity and perplexity, Dark became a worldwide phenomenon.
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Money Heist brings the system into question
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Normal People brings emotions into question
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Dark brings science into question
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