This Ruthless 3-Season Sci-Fi Drama With Major ‘Last of Us’ Energy Has Already Clocked 10.9 Million Hours on Netflix

Since 2023, The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, has been one of the biggest shows on TV. With compelling, Emmy-winning performances from the cast, the series follows a hardened smuggler as he protects a teenager through a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a fungal pandemic. The series is action-packed, bubbling with suspense, and powerful enough to provoke some major questions about life, death and humanity as a whole. But as Season 3 of The Last of Us remains a while away, with a projected release date for 2027, there’s another sci-fi drama that gives off all the same vibes. Starting in 2018, Netflix released the Danish TV series The Rain, and it’s a true must-watch for sci-fi lovers.

What Is ‘The Rain’ About?

Set six years after a virus-infected rain wiped out most of Scandinavia, The Rain follows siblings Simone (Alba August) and Rasmus (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) who emerge from their bunker in an attempt to find their father, a scientist who’s potentially behind it all. Shortly after venturing into the wilderness, the two of them 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 the same old coming-of-age and teenage dilemmas as before.

Also important to the series is the mystery surrounding Rasmus himself, who’s seemingly connected to the creation of the virus itself. “No one can find Rasmus,” Simone and Rasmus’ dad (Lars Simonsen) says in the trailer. “He’s the key to it all.” Through it all, the series, much like The Last of Us, balances sci-fi with heart, tender emotional moments with danger. After all, while The Rain is a story of two siblings facing life-threatening moments, it’s essentially a human story about hope, love and family.

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Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen walks in the woods in The RainImage via Netflix

While The Rain hasn’t gotten close to reaching the same popularity as The Last of Us over the years, the three-season series, created by Jannik Tai Mosholt, has continued to be one of Netflix’s biggest hidden gems. In Season 1, for instance, the series earned an impressive 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, with them praising the series’ unique story, layered narrative and impressive acting. Collider’s very own Haleigh Foutch raved over the series’ “exciting, unpredictable and genuinely likable characters.”

With such telling stamps of approval, The Rain, which came to an end in 2020, has steadily won over viewers over the years, including 2025. According to Flixpatrol, the series has amassed approximately 10.9 million hours of viewership in just the first six months of 2025 and is the 26th most-seen science fiction series of the first half of the year. Seasons 2 and 3 also made the list, with Season 2 reaching 5.8 million hours viewed, and Season 3 following closely behind with 5.1 million.

With that said, while The Rain is a singular TV show about a group of teens fighting for their survival in the Scandinavian, post-apocalyptic wilderness, the series is a must-watch for sci-fi and The Last of Us fans out there. By bringing elements of classic survivalist shows like The Walking Dead, or infection-ridden movies like Contagion, the series tells the eerie story of two siblings caught in their worst nightmare, with the desire to find the truth and protect each other throughout it. It’s nail-biting, heartwarming and endlessly entertaining all at the same time.

Release Date

2018 – 2020-00-00

• Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen