just watch it!

Film Perfection

An action-packed slog

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The story centers around a 24 year old East German Soldier in the 80's and all can say is that everything about the show, the characters, the sound, the look, the feel is just as it was. Having spent the entirety of my 20's stationed in Europe, as an Airman/Sergeant with the United States Air Force, flying in and out of Berlin, all I can say that they nailed it. I hope there is a Deutschland 84 and a Deutschland 85 and a Deutschland 86. I must not be the only person who thinks that is great, I just learned that Deutschland 83 just won the Peabody Award, so my guess is that this outstanding, and now award winning show will hopefully continue.

My feelings about this TV series are ambiguous. It's fun to watch and has a nice, grubby look to it, as well as a great, dishy cast. It also serves as a platform for great 1980ies music -- let me just tell you, kids, that not all Eighties music was that cool, a lot of it was terribly naff.The series is however in no way realistic. Quite often it's verging on insulting the intelligence of the viewer, such as when our babyfaced 007 contacts his handlers by phoning them ("Hello, I'm at their party as a top undercover agent and they don't suspect a thing! Oh no, I think someone has overheard me, creating further complications throughout the storyline!") or meeting them at a gas station -- of course, slipping back into the car just a microsecond before the general gets back in.Also, a sexy Asian assassin slash bit of fluff appears, gets thrown off a balcony onto a flight of marble stairs and just vanishes from the plot without a further trace. Fine by me!And I liked the persona of the main character, he's not your usual butch superhero nor an ingenu. He looks like he's been thrown into things.In brief, action and suspense in an unsual setting with a nice vibe to it. But nothing more.

D83 is the story of an East German mole in the West German Army in Berlin at the height of the Pershing II crisis, when apparently the Germans were feeling much like the Americans did when the Soviets had missiles in Cuba. It seems that West Germany was riddled with East German moles, too, if D83 is to be believed. The recreation SEEMS authentic, which is good enough for me. Lots of action, thrills and suspense in the first seven episodes anyway. Episode 8 is a clunker, I'm afraid.'Deutschland 83' has a lot going for it (I used to own a Mercedes 230E of the period so all that was fun). There's also a lot for people who rightfully expect female and/or gay characters to be fully realized. The only dodgy characters for me were the bigshot American general Jackson who would scare nobody, and the neurotic Alex (whose name is hard to remember, a sure sign of flawed characterization). He's way too flakey to be holding the senior military position he does for very long, especially as his general Dad wants him to have no 'special treatment'.What begins to eat away at the suspense of wondering whether Moritz Stamm (the mole) will be discovered is the extremely far-fetched character arrangements and the way they take over the actual plot, which is simply Stamm's infiltration of West German high command and the fact that only he (and us, the viewers) knows whether the ep8 exercise is an actual attack or not. Let's see (spoilers): Stamm's father is (unbeknownst to him) the chief of the East German intelligence operation and his aunt's boss. He carries a torch for Stamm's mother. Stamm's pal Alex's father is the chief of the army base. Alex and his father don't get on either. Nor do his mother or sister. Shades of Luke Skywalker twice over.Stamm's Rosa Klebb-style aunt is the chief of the Stasi operations department in Berlin. She ruthlessly plants him in the West, then at the end runs away to Mozambique for no apparent reason.Stamm has a fling with both the secretary of Mayer, the head of West German Intelligence (or something) AND the daughter of the senior general on the army base whose aide-de-camp he is. Nobody mentions this much, perhaps because the operations director on the base is an East German mole too. Still with me? Said West German general's son Alex turns out to be a closeted raving pacifist, who then has an AIDS-tainted fling with the university professor who's running the anti-Pershing campaign. Oh wait, the professor's an East German mole as well.Said West German General's daughter, that Stamm hooks up with after helping to murder the girl he cheated on his girlfriend with, is a leading light of the peace movement and lives in a Buddhist commune. For no apparent reason, she becomes a backing singer with a rock band that happens to be playing in the East on the very night that the US security operation kicks off. This is so Stamm's actual girlfriend, who's working for the Stasi, can hold her hostage so that Stamm can rush to her rescue. I have no idea at all why this matters.Stamm's Stasi father breaks Stamm's finger so he won't be asked to play the piano like the man he has taken the place of. Once his hand is healed, the West German general forgets about the piano skills he so keenly wanted to hear demonstrated. His house doesn't appear to contain a piano anyway.In the middle of all this intrigue Stamm has time to donate a kidney to his mother - who (unbeknownst to him) runs a forbidden literature network in Bonn.This is 'Dynasty' territory and completely unnecessary to keep your interest - and it isn't all of it, with drunk sisters and marriage breakdowns going on. The writers must have got through about ten million Post-Its and several large walls keeping track of all these dynamics.While the suspense is maintained it doesn't matter, but the trouble is that the Wingers (the writers) do a big loose-end tie-up in the last episode that means our hero Stamm does has nothing to do but run home from West Berlin to Bonn while the side dramas crash around anywhere he isn't. Vince Gilligan totally nailed the six-season tie-up in Breaking Bad. The Wingers totally screw it after eight episodes. They tried to cram way too much in.

One of the best TV show I've seen in a long time! It's exciting,never predictable and amusing,you want more and more of it! I really hope they'll make a sequel 'cause 8 episodes aren't enough! I wasn't born in 1983,so I kept asking my dad for details,but I think they nailed it because everything feels so 80s and so credible.The ensemble cast is tightly directed to deliver credibility in what was an unbelievable time in world history. Costuming and locations are spot-on, and the series encapsulates the terror and the excitement of that year perfectly. The realism particularly of the atmosphere, offices, technology and mindset of the East German security agency bureaucrats of that era is so very well done. Highest praise. I'd be surprised if producers aren't eyeing an American re-make. Brilliant.