Coming-of-Age Shows Overtake Netflix and the German Ones Win!

If you have a Netflix subscription, chances are that you have already seen Stranger Things. The show paved the way for several other similar coming-of-age shows that instantly won the hearts of millions of teen comedy and drama lovers.

Netflix has undoubtedly taken its game to the next level. Their shows, such as Sex Education, are not only hilarious but painfully true as well.

Germany, on the other hand, has long struggled to create a high-quality television program. The country that was one of the cradles of modern-day cinema has been in a sort of television vacuum for a very long time, producing low-quality repetitive shows for older audiences.

Deep down, we all knew that Deutschland had what it takes and it was a matter of time when they would make a great show. Their time has come, and Netflix has stepped in to help. We got two great coming-of-age shows: Dark and How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).

Dark
Dark is everything but a teenage comedy. The teenage part is definitely there, as some of the main characters are teenagers trying to figure themselves out (literally — read on!). In the weirdest sense possible, Dark IS a coming-of-age show. The only question is — what age?

The topic of time travel is nothing new, yet none of the movies or shows managed to pay attention to every single detail, creating various plotholes that couldn’t be stitched and spoiling the illusion moving pictures are meant to create. Yet, it seems that Dark has successfully created an ultimate time-travel family saga that took the world by storm.

Winden is a small industrial city at the heart of Germany, located next to a nuclear power plant. It is a quiet place where everyone minds their own business (mostly). However, things get weird when two young boys disappear, making a total confusion among the residents — especially the four families the show focuses on.

When Jonas Kahnwald, the teenage protagonist and a member of one of those families, discovers time travel, things start to get complicated and families discover that they are much closer to one another than they had thought. They get to meet future and past selves in a total state of confusion that requires viewers to hold a pen and a paper and take notes on who is who.

How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)
The contemporary world is divided into two realities — online and offline. We often make basic dichotomies in that regard about everything in our lives: eSports vs. sports, online movies vs. movie theaters, online blackjack vs. live blackjack, online shopping vs. going to a shopping mall, doing business online vs. meeting with business partners face-to-face.

Speaking of online business, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is about one such undertaking of a teenage genius who wanted to “climb up the social ladder” and win his old girlfriend back (who just happened to discover the magic of MDMA).

The show is witty, exciting, and true to the core, hitting the very essence of Gen Z’s way of life. Everything happens on the web, and the young protagonist is at the forefront of the Internet, utilizing his knowledge to access the dark web and create a drug empire.

The show is currently one season in, but it seems the second season is on its way at the moment, bringing new (online) adventures of young Moritz Zimmerman and his sidekick Lenny Sander.