Which is a US/German co production in German that got broadcast in the US first and was just shown over here. Apparantly it was a great success overseas despite being in German, subtitled, and cast with German actors, not US actors playing Germans. Here, it got barely noticed in terms of viewing quotes. The premise sounded very similar to The Americans, and I thought, might as well support the home team, and bought the dvd that got released as soon as the last episode (in a miniseries of 8) was broadcast.

Overall conclusion: entertaining but not a must. Mostly good actors. Also a sometimes unintentionally hilarious mixture of German and US tv habits.


What it's about: After Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech, the East German secret service decides the US wants to blow everyone up to kingdom come and decides that (more) action is called for. Our hero, Martin Rauch, hitherto employed as a regular soldier working at the border (which implies he's very loyal), just happens to be a perfect doppelganger of a young West German soldier, Moritz Stamm, who is about to be deployed as the sidekick of a West German Nato general, so Martin is substituted for real Moritz, who gets killed and isn't heard of again. (He was an orphan, and while the show early on has a short suspense subplot when someone shows up who knew real Moritz, in doesn't otherwise use anyone from real Moritz's life.) He also has to do a crash course in spying and in West German vocabulary, and off he goes to work for General Edel.

( Nitpicks, observations and spoilers to follow )

Overall: between going "I remember that" or "nah, it wouldn't have happened this way", this was an 80s nostalgia fest with an entertaining spy plot. Not as good as The Americans, but definitely better than a certain show starting with H which shot its latest season in Germany, too was after its first season.