When the Sleeper Wakes

If lighthearted shows such as Adaptation were an odd fit for increasingly bellicose times, the 2017-2018 series Sleepers was ahead of the curve.  Its paranoid, antiliberal, jingoistic tone now looks like a preview of the rhetoric that would define Russia during its "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine.  If ever there were a scripted television show made to convince its audience that Russia was under siege from enemies foreign and domestic, it would be Sleepers.

Yet Sleepers the show did exactly what sleeper agents are supposed to do: it took its viewers by surprise.  The show had a complicated pedigree. It was created by the author, TV host and Internet personality Sergei Minaev, whose work had long combined a glossy, contemporary feel with an unwavering support of Putin and his policies (culminating in his approval of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine). That Minaev would write Putinist pabulum is not particularly surprising, but Yuri Bykov's decision to direct the first season took the liberal intelligentsia by surprise.

Before Sleepers, Bykov had directed several acclaimed films, including The Fool (2014), To Live (2010), and The Major (2015). This last film, about a police officer who tries to cover up his accidentally killing of a boy in a hit-and-run, was a hit and Cannes, and was eventually adapted as the series Seven Seconds on Netflix (2018). He was an avowed socialist who participated in the 2017 Bolotnaya Square protest that was a turning point in the regime's handling of opposition rallies. Bykov directing Sleepers was only slight less thinkable than Michael Moore directing 24.

Initially, Bykov pushed back against allegations that he had sold out:  “The U.S. is our geopolitical rival and acts brazenly, like imperialists" (Yegorov). But just a month later, he repented his involvement and even announced that he was leaving the film industry:

I can't say that I didn't understand where I was going, but, clearly, I didn't completely realize how unforgivable it was to be insufficiently accurate, honest, and clear about teh themes of Sleepers... People must always protest and demand justice, otherwise there will be no changes, while I betrayed the entire progressive generation that wants to change something in this country.

Emotions were running much higher than one might reasonably expect from yet another eight-episode serial, especially one with such low ratings.  At times it seemed more people were writing and arguing about Sleepers than actually watching it.  Nonetheless, a truncated second season was rushed into production, aired before the 2018 elections, and viewed by an even smaller audience than that of the first season.  The mismatch of low ratings and aggressive release schedule on Channel One (a channel whose importance is indicated in its very name) would seem to confirm what critics had suspected:  Sleepers was a state-ordered propaganda confection intended to reinforce the already familiar narrative of Russia under siege.

Definitely a bad dream

Sleepers was widely viewed as a response to the hit FX series The Americans, which had just finished its fifth (and penultimate season) four months before the Channel One drama premiered. The creators of The Americans took their premise from the 2010 arrest of ten "illegal" Russian spies living in the United States under false identities, something that could have resulted in a a paranoid thriller about dangerous post-Soviet agents undercutting American freedoms. Instead, they took the more daring move of making the Soviet spies not just the show's protagonists, but their heroes.  What might have looked almost treasonous during the Cold War became inevitable with the casting of Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as the main characters:  American viewers found themselves sympathizing with Soviet agents whose mission was to undermine the American way of life. Adaptation accomplished something similar, but in a lower-stakes semi-comedy.

But Sleepers was an entirely different short of show, set in the present day and operating with the unshakable belief that American and NATO were Russia's implacable and current enemies.   There was no room for confusion about the heroes and villains, or for any of The Americans' moral gray areas.  

Next: Sleeping Dogs Lying