Sweet Tooth dropped its first season on Netflix and offered streaming fans a look at the wonderful world Jeff Lemire created in his groundbreaking comics. Based on the Vertigo series, an imprint of DC Comics, the fantasy drama tells the story of hybrid human/animal children born when a disease wiped out most of the world.
The themes include children surviving a world that refuses to accept them and adults fighting the threat of extinction. These are familiar themes in countless television series and movies. From post-apocalyptic fantasy dramas to those featuring outsiders in a fairytale land, there is a lot for Sweet Tooth fans to enjoy.
Into The Badlands – Stream on Netflix
Sweet Tooth is post-apocalyptic series about a young hybrid child who ends up rallying and working to save others like him from hunters who want them dead. Along the way, he finds allies who fight for him and protect him. Into the Badlands was an AMC post-apocalyptic series about a teenager with special powers who joins up with a mighty warrior. They set out across the Badlands, seeking their place in the world.
The Rain – Stream on Netflix
Many people believed the hybrid’s birth caused the disease that ravaged the world in Sweet Tooth. Gus, the hybrid child, left to find his mother and answers to life’s questions. In Netflix’s The Rain, it was much worse. Rain carried the disease and wiped out anyone it touched, also making most water deadly. The show focused on siblings who spent six years sheltering in a bunker. When they came out, they searched for their father and a hopeful cure.
Carnival Row – Stream on Prime Video
One of the key themes in Sweet Tooth surrounds the prejudice, hatred, and fear many in society have on anyone who is different. Hunters track hybrids to kill or experiment on. Survivors burn neighbors alive if they fear they have the sickness. Carnival Row is a fantasy drama about fae, who live amongst humans, fleeing their war-torn homeland. However, humans refuse to accept them and some unsolved murders lead many to point fingers at the fae, destroying the peace in the city.
Once Upon A Time – Stream on Disney+
The format of Sweet Tooth changes the atmosphere of the story from the one Jeff Lemire told in the comics. The books were dark and horrific, a horror tale, albeit with a hopeful and optimistic ending. Netflix framed the series as a fairytale, with a narrator (James Brolin).
Once Upon a Time is another fairytale-themed series. It is a little more obvious here. The characters are all from classic fairytales, but a dark and dangerous story lies under the surface.
His Dark Materials – Stream on HBO Max
Much like Sweet Tooth, the HBO Max Philip Pullman adaptation, His Dark Materials, also puts the soul of the story in the hands of children. His Dark Materials features twin worlds, separated by a secret door allowing some people to travel between them. The principal character is Lyra, a young girl raised at a college and her friends who live in a world ruled by superstition and fear. She finds herself in a battle between her father, Lord Asriel, and a deity known as The Authority.
Shadow And Bone – Stream on Netflix
Shadow and Bone is another new Netflix addition, a fantasy tale based on Leigh Bardugo’s novels. The story follows a young woman named Alina who discovers she possesses a special power (Sun Summoner) that could save her world from dark invaders. However, when she joins forces with a man with powers opposite of hers (Shadow Summoner). She learns she can’t trust everyone, and it will take everything she has to make it out alive to save her people.
The Mandalorian – Stream on Disney+
The Mandalorian is science fiction, but the story has fantasy elements as well. The series pulls as much influence from classic samurai tales and sword-and-sorcery fantasy epics as it does from the Star Wars space opera it followed.
A very strong comparison exists in the relationship between Mando and Grogu, the Baby Yoda. Much like Gus in Sweet Tooth, forces want the child for their own purposes. Much like Grogu and Mando, Gus has a warrior in Jepperd to protect him.
Raising Dion – Stream on Netflix
Netflix began releasing original superhero content after Marvel announced it was moving to Disney+. One of Netflix’s new original series was Raising Dion. This was a different superhero story, a seven-year-old boy possessing powers and an organization wanting to use him. Like Sweet Tooth, Dion’s parent will do anything to protect him from danger. Unlike Sweet Tooth, where Gus’s dad died, Dion’s mom survives, fighting for him throughout the first season.
The 100 – Stream on Netflix
The 100 is another science fiction series that became more fantasy-based once the characters arrived on Earth. The Earth ended up uninhabitable because of a nuclear apocalypse. After living in a spacecraft for 97 years, survivors sent teens to Earth to see if it was habitable. These teens were juvenile delinquents, arrested for different crimes, and therefore expendable. Those who survived the trip found not everyone on Earth died. Factions now ruled the planet, fighting for what remained.
Jeremiah – Stream on Prime Video
J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) created Jeremiah for Showtime in 2002. A plague killed almost everyone over the age of 13 and the show picked up 15 years later in the year 2021. Two young men (Luke Perry and Malcolm-Jamal Warner) work together to help rebuild society. However, they face opposition, first from the remaining government who want to start an authoritarian nation and then from a crusading army led by a mysterious figure known as Daniel.
