Netflix Dark Dystopian Sci-Fi Thriller Series Is Perfect Binge Material

By Jason Collins | Published

Art, in its numerous forms, has a life of its own, and it’s always surprising to see various works gain the recognition they deserve. For some, that happens upon unveiling/release, but others might have to wait years before their worth is realized by the audiences. Netflix’s The Rain is one such release; six years after it premiered on Netflix, The Rain has become the perfect binge material.

The Rain On Netflix

Netflix’s The Rain is a 2018 Danish post-apocalyptic series created by Jannik Tai Mosholt, Esben Toft Jacobsen, and Christian Potalivo.

The series follows a small group of survivors in Denmark several years after a deadly rain-borne virus has wiped out almost all the humans in Scandinavia. Admittedly, the premise of being killed by the weather might not sound as exciting, but we have to point out the fact that it’s actually a very clever way of building tension.

It’s just like with sunsets in vampire films but with dodgy weather.

The World Has Changed

The first season opens with siblings Simone and Rasmus coming out of their bunker to find that the world has changed. People now live in fear and fight over food and shelter.

They soon run into another group of survivors—Martin, Patrick, Lea, and Jean—who join them on their journey outside of the quarantine zone. Netflix’s The Rain is a fantastic show that keeps on dangling hope for a potential future in front of its protagonist and does some things rather differently compared to, for example, The Walking Dead.

A Different Kind Of Series

the rain netflix

Too many post-apocalyptic and survival shows focus too much on the fear of everything and everyone unfamiliar, including fellow humans who aren’t part of your existing group. It is actually quite reasonable, but many narratives exaggerate this.

Netflix’s The Rain doesn’t; the characters are often too quick to trust others, which actually lends a human quality that’s often mission from other, similar, dystopian narratives. It is, after all, a character-driven story, so there’s plenty of interaction between the main characters.

Emotionally Relevant Characters

the rain netflix

Of course, this also implies plenty of romance and friendship, which keeps all the characters emotionally relevant throughout Netflix’s The Rain.

The series stars Alba August, Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen, Mikkel Folsgaard, Lukas Lokken, Jessica Dinnage, Sonny Lindberg, and Angela Bundalovic, with Lars Simonsen, Bertil De Lorenhmad, Evin Ahmad, and Johannes Bah Kuhnke in recurring roles.

The latter two become the main characters in the second season, which has set the tone for the rest of the narrative.

Series Through The Years

the rain netflix

The first season of Netflix’s The Rain isn’t its most popular; the second season drives a bit harder into the sci-fi genre, making the rain-borne virus into a monstrosity for the characters to fight against instead of an unseen danger.

However, that isn’t as noticeable since the main focus of the show is actually its characters.

The Rain Streaming On Netflix

the rain netflix

The Rain concluded its run with its third season, which premiered in August 2020; all three seasons of the show are currently available on Netflix, and they’ve risen to the top as the perfect binge-series right around the time when society had to deal with a virus of its own.