Dark feels like a ripoff of Stranger Things - only w/out the charm

I know copyright law can be nuanced when it comes to purloined ideas, images, and general themes, but I think that The Duffer Brothers, creators of Stranger Things, could make a good case against the German team that developed the Netflix series Dark. Let's see: Part of the series set in the 80s? Check. Group of teenagers from a small town hike in the woods. Check. One goes missing, sending town into a search frenzy. Check. There's a nearby industrial plant sealed off for high security. Check. there may be some kind of chemical or poison leakage from the plant? Check. A police officer leading the search makes his way through a dark underground passage - stupidly, alone and poorly prepared - and comes upon doors that seem to lead to an underground entry to the mysterious plant. Check. Cut to the management of the plant, which we see is in some kind of collusion w/ local officials to keep things quiet. Check. The gang of friends includes a red-headed girl whose presence causes rivalries among the boys - check - and one member who disappeared for some time but has returned. Check. The search for the missing child leads the boys to find an obscure map that may help them find their way to the "crossing." Check. I could go on - but why bother? Dark is amazingly, suspiciously like Stranger Things, but with a shift to a slightly older generation (h.s. v middle school) and more focus on the adult relationships, some adulterous, pushing the story from PG to R. All OK I guess if Dark were ... any good. It was promising at first, despite the extremely complex plot that involves something like a warp in time, juxtaposing contemporary scenes w/ episodes from 33 years back. But instead of becoming more clear and focused as the season progresses, the series to my mind has become a tangle of plot lines, almost impossible to follow, and why bother anyway? None of the adult characters is interesting or even particularly likable, and the kids are basically blanks. What made ST work is the charm of the young kids finding their way in life - plus some very appealing adult characters as well. Dark has none of the charm of ST so we're left with the plot, which is not enough, or maybe too much.