The shadow of Stranger Things hangs heavy over Dark, a new Netflix series about wide-eyed kids sucked into a supernatural conspiracy in a sleepy small town. The shows even share an obsession with naff Eighties ephemera – in Dark’s case these include such existential horrors as Eurovision winner Nena and the music of Stock Aitken Waterman. Viewers of a certain vintage may already be reaching for a cushion behind which to quiver.

Where it matters, though, Dark is utterly different. Stranger Things, Netflix's biggest sci-fi hit to date, was the work of perky American millennials raised on Steven Spielberg and Dungeons and Dragons. Dark, by contrast, is the streaming giant’s first German language collaboration (with director Baran bo Odar and writer Jantje Friese). More Goethe than Ghostbusters, the 10-part drama arrives suffused in Mitteleuropa gloom. The bared buttocks which appear in the five minutes serve as a warning we’re not in Hawkins, Indiana any more.

Dark’s storyline manages to be at once simple and mind-bending. Jonas (Louis Hofmann) is an angsty teen reeling from the suicide of his father several months previously, and the unexplained disappearance of a school friend in the vicinity of the local nuclear power plant. As if life weren't rubbish enough, his school crush is dating his best friend, and his mother (Maja Schöne) is conducting an affair with local police chief Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) – who takes time from his morning jog to gamely climb into her boudoir.