In present-day Russia a car accident mysteriously sends a detective back to the 1970s Soviet Union. A remake of the BBC series.
Inspired by "Life on Mars", this Russian adaptation (which translates as "The Dark Side of the Moon) follows the story of police officer Mikhail Soloviev Jr. After being hit by a car- Soloviev embodies the firm of his father in 1979 and attempts to find a way home.
After a car accident with the criminal he was chasing, Mikhail Mikhailovitch Solovyov finds himself in 1979, in the body of his late father Mikhail Ivanovitch Solovyov. He meets his own mother and himself as a boy, and he meets the young nurse Katya, who in 2011 is a physician in the hospital where Mikhail is being treated. He is amused by the surreal aspects of Soviet era, such as queuing for a car taking forever. As a member of his father's militia team, Mikhail excels at solving crimes by using modern methods. He is less successful in chasing "Red", the serial killer who caused the crash in 2011. Mikhail does everything he can to protect the women and the little Mikhail Mikhailowitch from "Red". On TV sets and various other devices, he keeps hearing discussions and sometimes even seeing familiar faces around the 2011 hospital bed that he is bound to.
In the opening of the second season, Mikhail wakes up in 2011, and doesn't hear any discussions of his medical state anymore. But Mikhail soon realizes that Dimitri Medvedev is not the president. Instead, the KGB agent Mikhail advised in 1979 is now General Secretary of the Communist Party and the leader of USSR. Americans are defecting to USSR, which is a happy place, with great scientific achievements and crappy products. People are queuing for rejuvenation, not cars, as everybody can borrow a taxi and drive it for free. Mikhail is not as amused anymore, and desperately wants to get back to his real 2011's Moscow. Meanwhile, crimes still happen, and Mikhail again provides valuable insights to his militia team, and even teaches them rough maneuvers, which they are not used to. "Red" is there too and keeps killing people, and Mikhail again has to protect his women: a wife and a daughter, and two Katya's, one the daughter of the other.
The first season released 2012, was produced during Dimitri Medvedev's tenure as president, and has a touch of "ostalgia" about it. The second season, released in 2016, is a chilling depiction the Putin Era, dressed in the false bliss of Soviet life that you can only find in Russian propaganda.
