The Polish Buddies of "1983"

I'm a sucker for those international tv series on Netflix.  Who wouldn't want to watch a tv show in Catalan, Basque, Romanian, or Polish?

And the premise of 1983 sounded promising: a terrorist attack in Poland in 1983 altered the course of history.  It's 2003 and Al Gore is president of the U.S. (well, that's a good thing).  But the Iron Curtain has never fallen, and Poland is a 1984-style dystopianpolice state.

There must be time-travel, paradoxes, trying to restore history's true timeline?  Cool.

Law school student Kajetan and police detective Anatol are drawn into a conspiracy that might lead to revolution.

Two guys together? Time travel and gay subtext! I'm in.

But I had to be caeful.  I've been burned before with heteronormative "boy and girl staring into each other's eyes forever" tripe. I researched the two leads.

 Robert Wieckiewicz, age 52, has a long list of credits in Poland.

 I picked All will be Well, because it showed two guys together, so I figured it would be gay-themed. Nope: A teenage boy, whose mother is terminally ill, and his alcohol-addicted sports teacher set out on a pilgrimage to Czestochowa.

Gulp.






Maciej Musial, age 24, alsohas a lot of film and tv credit.  A child star, he played Tomek in the long-running nuclear family sitcom Rodzinka.pl (2011-).








Apparently he became something of a teen idol, and fans demanded that his character appear nude on occasion.

I found a gay reference:

"Maciej Musiał advertises lipsticks by Baby Lips from Maybelline. 'A guy and a lipstick ... it's not so gay any more'"

Ok...






And this instagram photo, which sparked a furor of racist outrage.  news story.  Maciej explained:  "Yes,I am a patriot,but I am open to other cultures."

So it's...um...ok for him to be friends with a black guy?  Or to date him?

Maciej must be gay or bi.



So I watched 1 episode, then fast forwarded the others.

The bad news: No time travel.  No suggestion that this is the "wrong" timeline. Not even many interesting details about how things are different (unless you're intimately familiar with modern Polish history).  The guys get involved in a revolutionary movement.  Lots of long, boring political conversations.

The worse news: No beefcake, except for Katajan occasionally having sex with his girlfriend.  Otherwise everyone wears 1984-style uniforms all the time.  And for some reason it's always night-time.

The worst news: No buddy bonding, no last minute rescues, no "if it wasn't for you, I'd be." The guys rarely interact with each other. A couple of gazes, one hug, and otherwise they're hanging out with their girlfriends.

D-. But Maciej is cute.