Hit Netflix series has Germany’s spy agency dreaming of a less gaffe-prone future

2026-03-13 - 07:03

Unfamiliar’s fictitious portrayal of hapless, rules-bound BND comes amid real-world calls to roll back postwar restraint In the new Netflix series Unfamiliar, two spies working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency are trying to gauge the intentions of a Russian agent who has recently arrived in Berlin. They come up with a creative solution: hacking into his taxi’s dashcam and seizing footage of the spook as he shakes hands with a well-known hitman. The six-part show revels in such flagrant disregard for red tape – the kind of brazen derring-do that Germany’s notoriously rule-bound Federal Intelligence Service (BND) can only dream of in real life. Continue reading...