Netflix's 20-Episode Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Series Is the Perfect Weekend Binge

Published Sep 21, 2026, 11:14 AM EDT

Giovana Gelhoren is a High-Trending Topics Writer at Collider, covering the most-talked-about stars, movies, and TV shows. Before joining Collider, she was a Digital News Writer at People Magazine and served as Associate Editor at SheKnows, where she honed her expertise in celebrity coverage and entertainment journalism.

A proud Latina from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Giovana graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and International Studies. She has interviewed countless celebrities, including Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brenda Song, and is known for her encyclopedic knowledge of film, TV, and pop culture.

When looking for the perfect weekend binge, some viewers might press play on shows everyone has been talking about. From Hulu’s Furious, which leaves viewers at the edge of their seats with every twist and turn, to Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, which dominated the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards, tuning in to those series would never be a wrong choice. But, given how extensive some streaming catalogs are, the weekend could also be the perfect opportunity to dive into an all-encompassing, and perhaps underrated show.

That’s where Netflix’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi series The Rain comes in. First released on May 4, 2018, the series was an unexpected standout, winning over critics with an impressive 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as gaining traction with audiences, amassing approximately 11.2 million hours of viewership in just the last six months of 2025 alone, according to FlixPatrol. The series is certainly a must-watch on Netflix, and it shouldn’t remain under watched any longer.

Created by Danish filmmakers Jannik Tai Mosholt, Christian Potalivo, and** Esben Toft Jacobsen**, The Rain, which happens to be Netflix’s first original series from Denmark, kicks off by following a family in a hurry. Charging through the school halls, dad (Lars Simonsen) picks up his kids, teenager Simone (Alba August) and young Rasmus (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), without much explanation. Alongside their mom (Iben Hjejle), the family of four flee to the middle of the forest and into a high-tech bunker right when deadly rain droplets begin to fall around them.

They manage to get into the bunker safe and sound, but after mom runs into some bad luck and the dad reveals he’s leaving, insisting he’s the only one who can save the world, it’s just Simone and Rasmus left to fend for themselves. “No one can find Rasmus,” the dad tells Simone. “He’s the key to it all.” Six years later, Simone has managed to keep him safe. Protecting Rasmus inside the bunker, the pair of siblings create their new normal as the virus-infected rain wiped out most of Scandinavia. But when their food finally runs out, Simone and Rasmus venture out into the wilderness for the first time, and soon join a small group of young survivors, together facing danger from both the infected environment and the desperate people left behind. As they continue to fight for their survival each day, the group learns all about the new world, including running into the same old coming-of-age and teenage dilemmas that existed long before.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

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