Why We Need to Watch More Shows Like The Eternaut—and Less of the Same Old

I first met Dark (2017-2020) during the pandemic lockdown and got hooked fast.

While other people were learning to bake bread, I was busy being a full-on plantito, shaping tiny bonsai trees like I was training them for a karate tournament. But once the watering cans were set aside for the night, I was in Winden—trapped in a loop of timelines, family trees, and Reddit theories that got weirder the later it was. I wasn’t just watching the German series; I was dissecting it, obsessing over it, connecting dots that probably weren’t meant to be connected. And when it ended, there was a hole in my watchlist the size of Winden’s cave.

I spent years looking for something to give me that same mental workout.

Mark Waschke and Daan Lennard Liebrenz in 'Dark' (2017)

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The Post-Dark Drought

I thought 1899 (2022) might be it—same creators, same ominous vibe—but it got canceled before it could land.

Then came Archive 81 (2022), with its cursed tapes and creeping dread. I loved it, but Netflix killed it after one season.

Manifest (2018) had a great hook—a missing plane returning years later—but leaned too much into soap-level drama for my taste.

And the 3 Body Problem (2024)? Gorgeous visuals, epic scale, but it didn’t give me that same close-up, in-your-head feeling I had with Dark.

Meanwhile, the algorithm kept shoving me the usual suspects: big U.S. thrillers, popular K-dramas. Good, sure. But not it.

Snow, Masks, and a Strange Name

Then one evening, I saw a Netflix poster that made me pause: a man in the middle of a snowy street, wearing a full-face mask. No context. No explosions. Just… snow and a mask.

And the title: The Eternaut.

I stared at it. Eternaut? Was that like “astronaut” but for eternity? Eternal astronaut? Weird. Weird enough that I clicked.

I didn’t know it was based on a famous Argentine graphic novel. I didn’t realize it was set in Buenos Aires. I just pressed play.

What I Found: The Eternaut

The first thing that struck me was the quiet. The snow wasn’t pretty; it was deadly. People collapsed mid-step, with no dramatic slow-motion or hero speeches—just sudden endings.

Then there was the look of the show. The cinematography was stunning—crisp, atmospheric shots that made every snowflake feel heavy, dangerous. The streets were buried in snow, littered with abandoned cars, and carried a chilling sense of emptiness. You could almost feel the cold sinking into your bones just by looking at them. Interiors felt lived-in and claustrophobic, a safe warmth framed against the frozen desolation outside.

Spoiler alert: And the effects? Absolutely Hollywood-level. The collapsing cityscapes, the way the snow interacted with the environment, the alien creatures that emerge later, and the seamless blending of practical and digital elements.

Andrea Pietra, César Troncoso, and Orianna Cárdenas in 'The Eternaut'

The survivors—led by Ricardo Darín’s calm but heavy presence as Juan Salvo—weren’t action heroes. They were ordinary people who happened to be stuck together, figuring things out one cautious step at a time.

I started noticing little details: how they drank mate (a traditional Paraguayan, Uruguayan, Argentin,  and South Brazilian caffeine-rich infused herbal drink), the card games, the casual neighborly talk—all while the world outside turned into a frozen graveyard.

The science is pure speculative fiction, and that’s part of the fun. The lethal snowfall is explained through a chain reaction of cosmic disruptions: alien interference, a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field, and radioactive particles from the Van Allen belts turning snow into a silent killer. It’s wild, implausible, and completely gripping.

Ricardo Darín as Juan Salvo in 'The Eternaut'

Why It Stuck

The Eternaut doesn’t rely on big spectacles to hook you. It’s about people, trust, and survival—not in the lone-wolf, “I’ll save everyone” kind of way, but in the collective, “We survive together or not at all” way.

There’s something powerful about that. Watching them ration food, debate whether to open a door or play a card game to keep their sanity—it all felt… human.

And Buenos Aires became its character, even though I didn’t realize that’s where we were at first. The streets, the buildings, the way the snow swallowed familiar spaces — it all added weight to the story.

Watching Beyond the Algorithm

Here’s the thing: The Eternaut wasn’t front and center on my Netflix homepage. It wasn’t trending in the Philippines. It didn’t have TikTok edits plastered everywhere. I found it because I scrolled further than usual and got curious about a weird name.

That’s the joy of digging past the algorithm. You find shows that aren’t formulaic, come from different storytelling traditions, and bring new flavors to familiar genres.

I’ve had this happen a few times—like when I found Money Heist (2017) before it blew up, or Kingdom (2019) before people started calling it “the zombie K-drama.” But The Eternaut feels special because it’s not just thrilling—it’s textured. You can almost taste the mate, feel the cold seeping in, hear the silence between snowflakes.

Ariel Staltari and Orianna Cárdenas in 'The Eternaut'

The High We Keep Chasing

I don’t think anything will replace Dark for me, and maybe it shouldn’t. That was my pandemic obsession. But The Eternaut reminded me that there are still shows out there that can pull me deep like Dark once did.

I don’t picture cozy holiday movies when I think of snow in fiction. I picture that masked man in the street, the quiet dread of stepping outside, and the way a city kept moving—cautiously, together—under a blanket of death.

So here’s my advice: scroll past the obvious. Click on the weird name. Watch the show you’ve never heard of from a country you’ve never visited. It might just be your next obsession. And when it is, own it. Diagram it—lurk on the Reddit threads. Get a little nerdy about it.

Because that’s when you know you’ve found something worth watching.

The Eternaut, released in April 2025, was created by Bruno Stagnaro, based on the comic of the same name by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. The six-episode first season is available on Netflix.