It’s true that television is an escapist medium for many audiences, who turn to the likes of sitcoms and light-hearted, low-stakes dramas to remove themselves from the struggles of their daily life or simply just relax. However, television can also highlight the difficulties of normal life, or explore the darker side of imagined worlds.
More and more frequently, tuning into the new and popularNetflixseries orHBOdrama will see viewers coming face to face with intense and gritty storylines and characters finding themselves in fiercely challenging situations. While it is important for creatives to handle such dark subjects with care and strength, many viewers find catharsis or identification when witnessing fictional characters fight to find the light at the end of the tunnel in their bleak circumstances.
10’The Shield' (2002-2008)
Created by Shawn Ryan
Television dramas surrounding law enforcement can often be incredibly dark, as they obviously deal with some pretty heinous and horrifying crimes. However,The Shieldis arguably worse as, for many viewers,the worst offender is protagonist Vik Mackey (Michael Chiklis), who is a Los Angeles Police Department detective himself.
ThroughoutThe Shield,the worsening police brutality from Mackey becomes more and more difficult to watch, as he commits terrible acts of murder and violence against his peers, as well as an array of other crimes, and attempts to justify his actions as doing what is required in the bigger picture of law enforcement and the strike team he leads.Witnessing those who are supposed to protect the general population instead cause harm, with little remorse, will never not be incredibly dark.
The Shield
9’The Leftovers' (2014-2017)
Created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta
If there is one word any viewer could use to describe HBO’s 2014 dramaThe Leftovers,it is undoubtedly ‘bleak’. Based on the novel byTom Perrotta,The Leftoversdepicts the continuation of society, three years after 2% of the world’s population unexplainably vanished from existence. While to many, 2% may not seem like a huge portion of the global population, it has truly tragic effects on the earth and the surviving 98% of people.
DespiteThe Leftoversbeing recognized by many as one ofthe most perfect TV dramas of all time, it is consistently picked up for its dark and helpless tone, with some viewers finding it too miserable to watch. As characters dissolve into depression, completely lose their sense of reality, or find they have lost all purpose in life without loved ones, it can be difficult for audiences to want to put themselves through witnessing that tragedy.
The Leftovers
8’The Wire' (2002-2008)
Created by David Simon
Inspired by writersDavid SimonandEd Burn’s experiences with and within Baltimore law enforcement,The Wireisone of the most celebrated crime dramas of the 21st century, and yet it is really an exploration of life in Baltimore, and how the individual is failed by the institutions and organizations that surround them.
Framed as a crime drama and focusing on a different topic each season, from government and bureaucracy to drugs and print news,The Wirehas been praised for its genuine depiction of many real-world problems including corruption within law enforcement, racism, and prejudice against the Black community, and poverty within the city. However, the show’s depiction of tragedy, and the cycle in which the city never finds its way out of,showersThe Wirewith an overwhelmingly bleak feeling.
7’True Detective' (2014-present)
Created by Nic Pizzolatto
The anthology seriesTrue Detectivehas divided audiences during its four-season run, with season one coming out on top for many viewers, and yet anyone who watches just an episode of the crime drama is instantly overcome by the overall hopelessness and pessimism of the narrative. While the bleakness and horrificness of each case is evident, it is the personal lives of the detectives that show just how much trauma a person can take home when they’re dealing with constant murder and death in their professional lives.
Specifically in season one (starringMatthew McConaugheyandWoody Harrelson), the detectives battle alcoholism, trauma from the death of family members, hallucinations, and the repercussions of their actions from many years prior,which only goes to show how little escape the characters have from misery, facing darkness in every aspect of their lives.
True Detective
6’Yellowjackets' (2021-present)
Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson
Set across two timelines in the 1990s and the present day, Showtime’sYellowjacketsmay just be one of the bleakest dramas of recent years. Following a girls' high school soccer team who are stranded in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash,Yellowjacketsexplores extreme circumstances and trauma, and how they never really leave as the rest of life continues around them.
Not only does the series depict some truly harrowing situations, from accidental death and murder to cannibalism and stillbirth, butall of this happens to teenage girls who are in no way equipped to deal with any of it.When their stories pick up twenty years later, it is awful to see how none of the women are able to escape the horrors of their past, and how their formative years and development were altered by their survival experiences.
Yellowjackets
5’The Handmaid’s Tale' (2017-present)
Created by Bruce Miller
Based on the groundbreaking and iconic novel by Margaret Atwood, but straying far beyond the original text,The Handmaid’s Taleis maybe one of the most famous and most terrifying pieces of dystopian fiction of all time. The series depicts the totalitarian society of Gilead, in which fertile women are kept as child-bearing machines in order to try and combat the overwhelmingly declining fertility rates. These ‘Handmaids’ have their identities and rights stripped from them, effectively becoming the property of the ruling classes.
Whilst the TV series builds upon the original narrative, it never strays from the severe oppression and horrific containment of these women, how the society affects every aspect of their lives, and also how it doesn’t really serve the people it claims to be helping.A truly harrowing watch,The Handmaid’s Talewas written with the idea that nothing depicted in the narrative is something that hasn’t happened in the real world, and the TV series only adds to that darkness.
The Handmaid’s Tale
4’Game of Thrones' (2011-2019)
Created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
Game of Thronesis unarguably themost successful fantasy television seriesof the 21st century and has spawned huge amounts of divisive discourse about the entire media franchise across social media and television criticism. However, something that almost every viewer can agree on is how dark and gritty the series is.
Set in the fictional kingdom of Westeros, and featuring fantastical creatures such as dragons and white walkers,Game of Throneswas always bound to include a large amount of fantasy violence and death. However, it is the more human moments and character motivations that make the series so nail-biting and intensely dark. From the first episode, where Jaime paralyzes a child to keep his incestuous affair a secret, to the entire Red Wedding or Stannis Baratheon burning his own daughter alive,much of what makesGame of Thronesso dark is the lengths that normal people will go for power or status.
Game Of Thrones
Created by Vince Gilligan
Heralded as one of the best TV dramas of all time, even just the premise of the beloved TV dramaBreaking Badmakes the show one of the most dark and gritty of the 21st century. Following Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher dealing with his stage three lung cancer diagnosis, who teams up with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to produce and sell meth,Breaking Badis nothing short of a harrowing descent into the depths of the criminal underworld in New Mexico.
While his story and his quest to secure his family’s financial future gain the viewer’s sympathies, Walter White becomes a hellishly toxic character and human being, who is increasingly difficult to watch on screen, as the bleakness and hopelessness of his situation consumes all sense of his humanity.
Breaking Bad
2’Twin Peaks' (1990-1991)
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Remembered for its surrealism, supernatural elements, and eccentricity,David Lynch’scult classic sci-fi dramaTwin Peaksis also incredibly dark and traumatic for both the characters and the viewer. Set in a fictional town in Washington,Twin Peaksfollows an FBI investigation into the death of teenage homecoming queen Laura Palmer.
The show tackles the case, dealing with serial killers and the murders of young women, but also focuses on the fallout within the town and the people who are affected by it. Tackling themes such as sexual abuse, mental illness, and drug trafficking,Twin Peakscan be incredibly hard to watch through a supernatural lens, as everything is heightened and, therefore, more intensely dark.
Twin Peaks
1’Black Mirror' (2011-present)
Created by Charlie Brooker
In our modern world, where the news is filled with constant information about the growth of technology, AI, and robotics, the science fiction dramaBlack Mirroris arguably the darkest series in all of television. The dystopian anthology depicts a variety of social and political issues, through the lens of technological development, which hits very close to home for many viewers.
Exploring everything from tamer subjects such as relationships, parenting, and celebrity to the more horrific racism, murder, and child pornography,Black Mirrorreflects the developments of our world back onto the audience as a potential warning for what could be our reality in the not-so-distant future.The connection to the life of the viewer is what makesBlack Mirrorso genuinely scary.
