Our Friday Pick: Netflix’s Dark Tourist is a Netflix Original series following journalist David Farrier as he visits bizarre and dangerous locations. Via the Atlantic:
The host of Dark Tourist, David Farrier, is likened in the final episode of the new Netflix travel series to a kind of budget Louis Theroux, which he considers a compliment. Like the legendary British documentarian, Farrier is lanky, awkward, frequently befuddled, and undeniably charming (he hails from New Zealand, and most recently co-directed the 2016 documentary Tickled). His signature outfit is a button-down shirt over a pair of pink, pineapple-patterned shorts. It’s hard to marry the conceit of Dark Tourist—which is that Farrier is pursuing his dangerous fascination with all things “mad, macabre, and morbid”—with the show itself, which often feels like the world’s most genial librarian has accidentally ended up on a day trip to an Elite Hunting Club hostel in Slovakia.
It’s a disconnect that Farrier plays up throughout the eight episodes of Dark Tourist, which see him seeking out some of the world’s most disconcerting travel experiences. In Mexico City, while reporting on a sinister-sounding cult that worships death, Farrier jokes about a noisy exorcism drawing complaints from the neighbors.