“Don’t let Italy fool you” – the one motto that remains constant in my life. This motto, usually holding true, sometimes prevents me from watching some otherwise riveting film – and surprisingly television.

1992, a ten-part Italian TV series, tells a story of lives that intersect across several Italian cities in 1992. From perspectives that span the law, politics, corruption and scandalous outcomes of these intertwining areas, it’s a gripping story with deep, interesting characters, each with his or her own challenges, and quite a bit of insight. Modern stories that plumb the past not just to spin a tale of historical fiction but to shine a light on universal and enduring truths are common enough (we’re seeing echoes of this in the current TV dramatization of the OJ Simpson trial in American Crime Story: The People v. OJ Simpson), but are they always edge-of-your-seat TV? Not always. But in this case, I’ve been on a binge.

Admittedly though I’ve had this lined up to watch for more than six months. I kept putting it off because I don’t know Italian and did not really have time for reading subtitles. I got halfway through the first episode twice before finally getting through the whole thing in a third-time’s-a-charm result. Now that I devoted a whole day to gobbling this up, I can’t believe I didn’t watch it sooner.

Of note is the great soundtrack that is just so 1992 (“Nearly Lost You” by the Screaming Trees, for example). And also one character’s insistence that we have a leader in Silvio Berlusconi – and everyone else around him is discounting this vision as pure folly, scoffing at an opinion poll he’d done with youth. One man even laughed and told him the list of popular public figures he’d compiled, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the number three slot, was patently ridiculous because – guffaw, guffaw – who on earth would take the idea of old Arnie as a politician seriously!? Haha. We know what happened there. And look what happened for Berlusconi in 1994 (and a few times thereafter).