4 out of 5

Created by: Anna Winger, Joerg Winger

These are pretty amazing times for TV.  A foreign language, foreign production series first airing in the US – on Sundance – before getting airtime in Germany.  When would that ever have happened before, even a few years back?  Precedents can be traced wherever, but the burgeoning TV landscape, with every channel starting its own original content and our easier exposure to over-seas shows (the BBC frequently airs foreign television) via Netflix or, y’know, the internet in general, are certainly a part of it.  So let’s acknowledge that landmark.

Deutschland 83 was a good bet for this First: communists, spies, 80s setting – The Americans is a good spiritual reference, but the show’s presentations vary greatly: whereas Americans’ setting could be said to be more of a method by which we can swallow the setting without being distracted by modern day limitations, D83 is fully enmeshed in its history, for better or worse.  As a dude who knows nothing about the Berlin wall and The Cold War and East and West Germany, there were times I felt at a bit of a loss to understand the context of the show’s actions, but it also made it easier to appreciate the hypocrisy the show highlights, and how, with the retrospect of years, we can see how odd and – perhaps I’m trivializing, but – foolish of a time it was.

Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) is enlisted from East Germany by State Security to fill a sudden undercover opportunity in the West, going under the name of Moritz Stamm and working as an assistant to an important general – Wolfgang Edel (Ulrich Noethen) – who’s working with the Americans on what to do with some missiles.  The idea, then, is to get intel on the possibilities of war.  Martin is reluctant to take the assignment but is “persuaded” by having a cure to his mum’s illness dangled before him; once engaged, he finds himself constantly pushed toward more and more outlandish objectives, beyond what was initially asked of him – from photos to bugging to seduction and much more.  The show plays well with the balance, here: Martin’s frustration over being unable to go home, and then his seeming acceptance of both some of the freedoms of the West as well as those his “spy” role allows.  In this latter regard Deutschland 83 is incredibly restrained in confronting the matter, almost to the point of wondering if the writers were purposefully setting up this dichotomy of Martin the dedicated boyfriend and son and Moritz the womanizing brawler or if it was just a plotting convenience… but my rating is certainly assuming it was intentional.  And if it is just a happy accident, that the show doesn’t rub any moralizing in your face lets you escape with your own feelings on the matter, which are important when we get to the final chapters of the season as consequences of the various character threads begin to stack up and play out.  It’s also possibly an affect of the show being more of a study of the temperaments during a particular time as opposed to a character’s journey; Martin is our point of view through this, and through him we get to see how this era took its toll on those directly and indirectly involved.

…Which is where Deutschland 83 starts to overreach a bit.  Most of the drama is focused and spot on, but there are some offshoots done, I imagine, to “date” the show properly, including a brief excursion into AIDS.  These offshoots are tied to characters we know, but I wouldn’t consider the plotlines as particularly adding anything to the main story.  These aspects of the series are short enough, and the overall production – writing, directing, acting – is so consistently solid it’s not a major detraction.

A fascinating and, as it amps up, absolutely thrilling series, even for those without any historical perspective.