Why Netflix’s Dark Outdoes Mindhunter

Mindhunter’s cancellation landed with fans in 2023 via a Reddit thread, where commenters cataloged the storylines they were grieving: the BTK Killer arc, Holden Ford’s deterioration and a planned Los Angeles season that director Andrew Dominik later described as exploring how criminal profiling entered the mainstream and intersected with filmmakers like Jonathan Demme and Michael Mann.

Netflix ultimately concluded the audience wasn’t large enough to justify the cost. Both Mindhunter and Dark share an uncommon confidence in their viewers. Fincher’s series stages long, contained conversations without flattening Holden Ford’s moral complexity. Dark drops the audience into Winden and lets its history fold across decades without pausing to explain itself.

Baran bo Odar directed all 26 episodes, Jantje Friese wrote every script, and they plotted a complete three-season arc before filming a frame of Season 1.

mindhunter, dark, netflix, btk killer, holden ford, los angeles, andrew dominik, criminal profiling, jonathan demme, jantje friese