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

Felix Kramer plays Simon Schäfer, one half of husband and wife team in Unfamiliar, which has attracted more than 20m view since its release in February. Photograph: Sasha Ostrov/Netflix

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.