Deutschland 83

Call it ‘the inverse law of international telly’: the better the state of the country, the worse what’s on the box. Take Germany: a model of efficiency and modern engineering, for decades they’ve hardly bothered with the trivial matter of broadcasting, subsisting mostly on the hackneyed, 1970s-style detective dramas known as ‘krimis’. But now, in our brave new world of foreignlanguage hits from surprising places – a trend that started with Denmark’s The Killing – here’s Deutschland 83 (Sunday, Channel 4, 9pm). Against a soundtrack of 1980s rock (of course including Nena’s 99 Red Balloons), we’re plunged into the fog of Cold War espionage, as an East German soldier, Martin, goes to Bonn to live undercover as the aide to a Nato general and steal the west’s nuclear secrets. Before that, we get a picture of life in the old DDR rosy enough to make Jeremy Corbyn dewy-eyed with nostalgia, although the idyll is undercut by the way Martin’s Stasi officer aunt blackmails him into becoming a spy by promising that his mother – her own sister – will only get her kidney transplant if he goes along with the plan.

There are nerve-wracking moments as Martin’s cover is nearly blown, silly plot twists and a gleeful relish for the details of a not-so-distant age that seems so much simpler than now. It’s all watchable enough without the quality being so high as to give us reason to worry about Germany’s future according to the inverse law.

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NOT TO BE MISSED

Sherlock Friday, BBC1, 9pm
Benedict Cumberbatch dons a deerstalker as the great detective and his loyal companion Dr Watson (Martin Freeman) are restored to Victorian London, in the case of The Abominable Bride.

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm
Choreographer Jack Murphy is on a mission to get the good folk of Bolton onto the dance floor.

The Joy Of Rachmaninoff Friday, BBC4, 9pm
Tom Service journeys through Russia and meets leading pianists to celebrate the life of the great composer.