and also Adaptatsiya (Adapation)
The Next Must-Watch TV Show Is Russia’s Version of ‘The Americans’
If you really want to understand how Moscow sees U.S. intelligence, turn off the congressional hearings and start watching “Adaptation.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/23/the-next-must-watch-tv-show-is-russias-version-of-the-americans/
MOSCOW — It’s 2017, and the new Cold War is in full swing. The West is winning, for now. U.S. sanctions have impoverished Russia. But the two sides are poised at a critical juncture. The Russians have come up with new technology to drill for gas that could send their economy skyrocketing again, putting the West on the back foot. And so, the CIA sends President Donald Trump a letter detailing a cunning plan. A spy — one of their most wily — must be dispatched from Washington immediately to sniff out the details.
What follows is Adaptation, the story of the blundering Oleg Menshov, an American spy with impeccable Russian (played by the well-known Russian actor Leonid Bichevin), who is sent to embed in state gas giant Gazprom. But he understands little about how Russia works, so he must be taught the ways of the country and its rampant corruption, much to the amusement of his supposed compatriots.
The TV show, coinciding with a spike in tension between Russia and the West, and talk of a new Cold War, has become a runaway hit in Russia. The first season finished this month, to rave reviews and nationwide enthusiasm. According to the show’s network, TNT, one out of seven Russians watched it. Russians call Adaptation their answer to The Americans — if The Americans was a combination of slapstick, satire, and stereotypes, Russian and American alike. (Each episode opens with the James Bond theme music, a gun-wielding Oleg climbing Mount Rushmore, and a shot of the White House morphing into a triple-domed Russian Orthodox Church, which then cuts to the bald eagle on the CIA’s logo mutating into the double-headed eagle that is the official emblem of Russia.)
The plotline, in which Russians triumph over well-meaning but shortsighted Americans, has struck a chord with a Russian public gloating over the military gains in Syria and the struggles of the Trump administration, which has been plagued by Russia-related scandals. The first two episodes of Adaptation outperformed its competitors on other networks for the coveted 8 to 9 p.m. weekday slot, according to TNT’s head of public relations, Yulia Talapanova.
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the episodes (all in Russian, no subs, but does have some (little) English spoken from what I could tell
http://tnt-online.ru/adaptaciya/s01e01
A Russian Take on 'The Americans' Scares Moscow Liberals
The political conversation in Putin's Russia increasingly revolves around cinematic versions of reality.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-20/a-russian-take-on-the-americans-scares-moscow-liberals
While the U.S. gets accustomed to Russia's potential to make or break its presidential candidates, Russia is living in a dreamlike haze of its own. A good way to understand it is through a television series about U.S. meddling in Russia that recently hit the country's main state-owned channel.
The series (now available on YouTube, but only in Russian) is called "The Sleepers." The eight-part first season is addictive viewing to anyone who has watched Moscow elites up close during the Vladimir Putin era. It has characters based on Putin's top political opponent Alexei Navalny, "system liberals" in the government, muckracking journalists, a troll factory owner, even former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul (who managed to express delight at the portrayal). The recognition effect is uncanny -- and almost everyone in this Moscow society who doesn't work for Russia's domestic intelligence service, known as the FSB, is either corrupted by U.S. influence or is a Central Intelligence Agency agent recruited and left to await "activation." Even some of the FSB operatives -- the more pro-Western ones -- actually work for the CIA.
Unlike the U.S. sleeper agent series "The Americans," which is set in the Reagan era, "The Sleepers" is very much about the present. With a series of murders (liberals die one after another, and the Navalny character is kidnapped) and a terror attack at an anti-FSB rally, the CIA attempts to destabilize Russia and disrupt a gas deal with China. A real-life agreement signed in 2014, soon after Russia was hit with sanctions for annexing part of Ukraine, seems to be the inspiration. The attempt is ultimately thwarted, though a U.S. agent succeeds in blowing up the entire Chinese delegation, and the U.S. intelligence officer in charge of the operation moves on to Ukraine. So does the protagonist, a patriotic, soulful FSB officer.
In the world of "The Sleepers," liberal convictions and a pro-Western orientation are symptoms of a treasonous bent. They only accuse the state of being oppressive because they are Russia's enemies, a fifth column. "We are those, who, just three years ago, thought there was freedom of speech in this country," rants the series' main antagonist, a prominent journalist and, of course, a CIA asset. "We thought civilization would be here in just a short while. We are those who thought Russia could be turned into a normal country." The protagonist replies: "So do it, who's stopping you?"
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I have looked all over for an English subtitled version of either, and no luck so far, sorry. I also do not speak Russian, so I cannot tell you anymore than I can find in English articles.
= new reply since forum marked as read
