Cassandra – Series Review | Netflix

CASSANDRA on Netflix is a new Sci-Fi Thriller series with six episodes. It gets better and darker as it progresses. Get ready for a wild origin story of a smart home robot. Towards the end, it’s pure sci-fi horror. Read our full Cassandra miniseries review here!

CASSANDRA is a new Netflix limited sci-fi thriller series from Germany. As anyone who has watched Dark can testify to the Germans have produced amazing sci-fi thriller stories for Netflix already. And if you haven’t watched the three-season time travel series Dark yet, then you have an amazing treat in store.

This new Netflix series is very different from Dark but also has a few similarities. For one, it also plays out in two time periods and is very much a work of science fiction. In other words, you can’t relate it directly to anything you know to be true in our world. I watched all six episodes for this review, which is why I can tell you that this gets darker and darker as it progresses.

Continue reading our Cassandra miniseries review below. Find all six episodes on Netflix from February 6, 2025.

Fear certain women – believe all women

Cassandra refers to a smart home robot built in the 1970s. The owners of this smart home died under very mysterious circumstances more than 50 years ago. Since then, the oldest smart home in Germany has stood abandoned.

Now, the sculptor Samira is moving in with her family – crime author husband, cute gay teen son, and sweet little daughter. They’re leaving behind a trauma of their own, which I won’t get into here as it’s fully covered in one of the later episodes – though hinted at several times before you get to the full story.

In any case, with the smart home comes the virtual assistant Cassandra. As she awakens from her decades-long slumber, she’s desperate to win over Samira’s family. Samira, on the other hand, she can do without as Cassandra prefers to be the woman of the house.

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Cassandra was developed in the 1970s with the goal of taking care of her family. She’s based on the mother of the family, who previously lived in the house more than five decades earlier, and now’s her second chance. Samira is quick to witness the dangers of Cassandra, while no one else listens to her.

Of course, Cassandra is betting on this as she sees and hears everything that happens. And uses it against Samira. It reminds me that there are always certain women, you should fear, and that you should also believe women, who tell you of dangers.

The husband in this family does not. In fact, he’s downright awful when it comes to his wife.

Every cast member is brilliant

The casting of the new Netflix series Cassandra is simply perfect. Not least Lavinia Wilson as the title character. She’s the human Cassandra back in the 1960s and 1970s, which is a wonderful (and also brutal) storyline that I loved more and more as the series progressed.

Also, she’s the face and voice of the smart home assistant in the present. In all versions of Cassandra, Lavinia Wilson is amazing! So is Mina Tander as Samira, who has gone through a lot and will have to go through so much more in the six episodes of the limited series. Good Lord, it gets really bad.

As Cassandra’s husband, Horst, more than 50 years earlier, we see Franz Hartwig (Dark). Samira’s present-day husband, David, is portrayed by Michael Klammer (The Teachers’ Lounge). What both women have in common are very incompetent husbands. In very different ways – not least due to the expectations of their time – but still.

As the kids in the present, we have Joshua Kantara (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) as the son, Fynn, and Mary Amber Oseremen Tölle as the daughter, Juno. As the son in the house fifty years earlier, Peter, we see Elias Grünthal. Also in a key role as a student is Filip Schnack.

All of these young talents deliver strong and believable performances, which is key to making it all come together.

This is a work of fiction. Science Fiction!

As you begin to watch this new Netflix series with just six episodes, you’ll do well to remind yourself that Cassandra is sci-fi. Perhaps it even takes place in an alternate universe. I’m not stating this as a fact, but simply pointing out the possibility. Not unlike any episode of Black Mirror, really.

After all, you’ll notice that the smart home and robot were built more than 50 years ago. This quickly made me think that it shouldn’t be able to do all that it can in the present day.

However, this is when I had to keep in mind that this is science fiction. Not inspired by any real story. As a work of fiction – and science fiction at that – there are no limitations to what was possible. Also, the man of the house was a scientist on the verge of being a mad scientist a little too sure of his own abilities.

You’ll see what I mean in the final half of the series, which does – at times – feel like an actual horror story!

Watch the Cassandra series on Netflix

Benjamin Gutsche is the writer and director of this limited Netflix series from Germany. I had some hope for this new German sci-fi series but tried not to get my hopes up too high. I mean, not everything can be at the level of Dark – and this wasn’t either, but it did get close at times.

When it first began, I wasn’t all that crazy about it. I mean, sure, it’s a gorgeous production and the storytelling worked for me, but I just didn’t get that “Wow!”-feeling. Until around the end of episode 2, and then I just binge-watched the entire limited series.

As already noted, Cassandra does get increasingly darker and more intense. While a somewhat cutesy sci-fi thriller at first, the story gets more brutal as we find out exactly what happened back in 1964 and 1971. Not least how it plays into the storyline happening in the present. Do not give up on this one.

Also, the ending of Cassandra is a treat in itself. I was angry during several episodes – as I’m sure it was intended – but felt almost completely vindicated by the end of it. Enjoy!

All six episodes of the Cassandra series are on Netflix from February 6, 2025.

Details

Director: Benjamin Gutsche
Screenplay: Benjamin Gutsche
Cast: Lavinia Wilson, Mina Tander, Michael Klammer, Franz Hartwig, Mary Tölle, Joshua Kantara, Elias Grünthal, Filip Schnack