My husband and I just finished watching Into the Night, the Belgian sci-fi series which recently came out on Netflix. I want to say we were rage watching it, although once it finished I realized that it's very similar to 10 Cloverfield Lane in that I loved the story and want to watch it again, but some of the execution left me enraged.
I would have completely changed the ending, however. Warning, spoilers past here:
We pick up near the end. The second group, having scaled the fence, finds Sylvie, and they rush down to the shelter. Cut to Terenzio, struggling to free himself from the handcuffs. Back to the second group, meeting the guards, "Where's the Italian soldier?" and all that tension. Back to Terenzio, making peace with his fate, standing and staring at the brightening sky, screaming at the fates. But here, we cut back to the second group, they get let in, "you have to help us" and all that.
We fade to outdoors, down low near the ground, the Sun is up. A small rodent scurries across the frame, we follow it up a hill, until we come behind Terenzio, lit from the front, sitting on the ground, still. Then we hear him laughing. The Sun is up, he's still alive, fade to black and roll credits.
Let me explain. I think this opens up a second season I'd want to watch. The Sun going crazy could have been a transient thing, and no one would know until Terenzio was left to die outside — everyone who survived would be convinced it's still going to kill them and would be careful only to go out out night, and when would they find out. Dominik saw the rodent in the bag in the hospital in the next-to-last episode, we might have been led to believe it didn't affect creatures below a certain size, but remember the fuel started going bad, it apparently affects all organic-based things, so that could have been a distraction. Or, at least, it fits into plausability with the new ending. In the first episode of the second season we find some of the plane survivors going out to find Terenzio's body to bury it the next night, instead they find him alive. So now they know it might not be permanent. One faction could believe it's over, but another faction led by Horst believes it could be transient and the Sun death could come back — tension in the first episode.
Second episode, some of the "it's over" faction could be heading out to forage for supplies first thing in the morning, someone opens the shelter door and boom, dies. So now we know Horst is right. Now there's the tension, they have to stay underground to stay safe, at least during the day, but for how long, and how can they test that it's safe, or come up with a warning system. Some of the airline group realize that there's a chance Gabrielle, who they left behind in Canada, could be alive and they want to go find and rescue her — other's think it's futile. There's still plenty of opportunity for twists with the transient nature of the Sun death to add flavor to the standard post-apocalyptic, how do we rebuild, etc. etc — the power and internet and utilities aren't going to magically stay working forever. Plus, there's still the soldier in the shelter in Bulgaria, who told Sylvie that the problem with the Sun can be fixed with her help — what does that mean?
And there's how I'd set up the second season.