Deutschland 83
 

Has anyone else been watching Deutschland 83?

It is a TV series on the Sundance Channel, set in Germany (East and West) in 1983 during the time leading up to the large Reforger exercise, the shooting down of KAL flight 007, and the deployment of the Pershing II missiles. More data here:

Deutschland 83 on Wikipedia

The story revolves around an East German who agrees to spy on the West German Army (he is undercover as a 1st Lt, aide to a General) so his mother can receive be bumped up on the list to receive a kidney transplant and advanced medical care - bleeding new technology at the time.

The series is produced by a German company, so of course, most of the dialog is in German, shown with subtitles.

The main character finds that he likes living in the west (but keeps working to try to save his mother), that the West Germans are as afraid and disinterested in having to fight as the East Germans, but both sides feel pushed by Soviets (Andropov) and the US (Reagan) toward a war.

I find the show well done, and I find the period comfortable and familiar, aged as I am.

At one point, the main character delivers a computer disk containing the exercise plan to his East German handlers. There's this lovely scene with three East German security technicians staring at the disk and having to admit they have no way of reading it. Their Russian associate makes a phone call and say he can get them a PC in a couple days. In a later scene, they have the same look staring at an early IBM PC...

Anyway, dramatic TV series using the cold war as a backdrop are rare, so it caught my attention, and I thought i would bring it to yours...

Uncle Ted

Absolutely! There's probably any number of shows & movies made in Europe that because they aren't English language, we never hear of and this would have been another missed opportunity (for me at least - we don't have the Sundance Channel here in Australia). :(
So many thanks for the info, it's now on my "to watch" list. :)

Hoping that this comes over to the UK. We've had a large number of foreign-language shows come over here in the last few years following the big hits of Engrenages ("Spiral", a French cop show) and Forbrydelsen (you know The Killing on AMC - this was the show it was a remake of).

This is coming to the UK as the launch show of Channel 4's on demand Walter Presents service.

I would echo Unkated's recommendation if you get a chance to watch this programme. I just watched the first episode on Channel 4 in the UK and thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the opening scenes where the lead character is still in East Germany. The music was also good, including a quick burst of 99 Luftballons.

I'd particularly recommend it to anyone playing a German pc in a T2k game (especially East Germans - I really enjoyed some of the interactions between the various East German characters).

(For anyone in the UK who does want to watch and missed it, it's airing on Channel 4 on Sunday nights at 9pm and the first episode is available 4's On Demand service now).

I watched it as well; very good. I couldn't help but notice the American general was fluent in German; was/is that common for those stationed in the Bundesrepublik?

I do not know, but have worked with about four or five guys who served in Germany. Everyone of them speak Germany, and talking with them they learned it there. I am guessing, that as German is not that far from English and the troops could go out on the town most would learn some if not becoming fully fluent.

I binge watched this over the weekend and very much enjoyed it; great music, a nice sense of paranoia and they avoided the more obvious choices to cast as the villain.

Not being German, I wouldn't know who the obvious choices were... but very good nonetheless.

This was in fact the most watched non-English drama in the UK to date.

Anyone know if it's available in the U.S. and on what media platform?

It aired on Sundance, but not sure about home video at all.

That's one of those channels on Time Warner in San Antonio that are in the nether regions, and therefore easily forgotten about when channel surfing.