Dark Net

Watched the whole first season. This show is more of a left-wing political message than having much to do with the dark net. Only one or two episodes even talked about the dark net. Wouldn't recommend to anyone. So tired of misleading titles. Talks about defunding the police, and lack of access to mental health services... how does this have anything to do with the Dark Net? Sure, people seek things out on social media because of lack of access. That isn't the Dark Net. Change the title to something that expresses how the internet is bad, but that is different from what is known as the dark net.

By the title of the documentary, I expected something more focused on issues such as cybercrime, hackers, deep web. Contents and scenarios unknown to us, who don't inhabit the most bizarre and dangerous corners of the internet. The documentary presents a mix of episodes that range from subjects to obscure, bizarre, problematic issues, and how technology will evolve and grow in the next years. Nothing too deep, but enough to show us how much the internet is a double-edged sword, in the hands of those who use it. The problem is not the internet itself, but rather how people in the world use it.

I'll keep this short and sweet. Some episodes are pretty good and some touch on a problem on a surface level and are condescending piles of trash. Honestly, I was expecting more quality from a network like Showtime. Sometimes it feels like a board of middle aged exec's sat down and went "hmm how do we make a cool and hip show about the internet, for the kids to watch?" And this is what they came up with. A half baked, sorta out of touch take on the dangers and wonders of the Net.

My biggest problem with this show is the fact it isn't uniform in it's quality. Some episodes are good, great even; some lose focus, or worse, fail as a documentary by not supplying all the information you need to decide for your self. By overly dramatizing a personal story and not asking some much needed questions, some episodes (specifically episode 4, 'CTRL') left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth.

I will say, however, that the show surprised me at times - especially in the first and last episodes. Good choices of human stories and an ambiguous message about the goods and evils of the internet is, for me, what does make this show stand out. So yeah, I recommend it.

Also should probably mention - contains a lot of explicit sexual content.

"Dark Net" (2 seasons (2016-17) of 8 episodes, each running about 25 min.) is a TV documentary series about the less obvious sides of the internet and technology. Season 2, which aired in 2017, opens with Episode 1 "My Mind", where we get to know an army vet in Orange County, CA who returned from multiples tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. "He was horrible to be around", his wife comments. Then some doctor in California comes up with a Virtual Reality tool that allows the army vet to relive the hell he went through and address whatever issues he has, "to retrain the brain".

In Episode 2 "My Justice", a grandma is on the Websleuths message board, trying to solve a cold case of a 22 yr. old woman's death, supposedly at the hands of a stalker. As the frenzy works up, a neighborhood guy is identified as the leading suspect. But what if he is not the one? In Episode 3 "My Money" we are introduce to bitcoin miners in China and the US, and we get a crash course in all things bitcoin, and how a sex worker in Texas uses bitcoin to grow her business in supposedly safer ways that say PayPal or credit cards...

Couple of comments: this series definitely goes to areas of the internet and of technology that I am not familiar with. Take the bitcoins business or crypto coins business for example. I'm sorry but I simple don't "get it" how a fictional/digital currently can take on a life of its own and spur all of this activity around the world. It works to the series benefit that episodes are fairly short and hence compact. We are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and am looking for things to watch that I missed back in the day. This originally aired on Showtime and I recently binge-watched Season 2. If you are interested in getting a glimpse of things that you may not even be aware of exist, I'd readily suggest you check this out on VOD and draw your own conclusion.