1992 Season 1 Review – A poorly written mess

Episode Guide

Episode 1 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 5 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 6 -| Review Score – 2.5/5

When it comes to shows produced in Spain, Netflix certainly have some of the best available to stream. Between the deliciously dark teen drama Elite and historical drama Cable Girls, there is, of course, Money Heist which took the world by storm several years ago.

That’s all before mentioning murder mystery High Seas, Criminal: Spain and the criminally underrated Ministry of Time. All of these shows put any sort of Spanish production coming out at an immediate buzzy high. After all, if those shows can break through and deliver quality entertainment, surely everything else can, right? Well, as 1992 proves, no. No it cannot.

Netflix’s latest thriller is split across six-parts and attempts to juggle a cat and mouse chase, mixed in with some political tension and a sympathetic villain to boot. The ensuing result is an absolute catastrophe that somehow gets worse the longer it goes on. Honestly, it’s hard to know where to start with this one.

The story is cliched and incredibly predictable, and you’ll have figured out most of the plot beats by the end of episode 1. The gist of the story though, goes like this. One night, Amparo ends up in an argument with her husband outside his workplace, when a sudden explosion rocks the building and kills him outright. Amparo races in to check on her husband, only to find a strange toy called a Curro in his hand. This happens to be the iconic mascot for the ’92 Expo in Sevilla. Could this be the mark left behind by the killer?

Amparo’s husband, Alvaro, is not alone in being killed, as it turns out inside the office he’s joined by another dead businessman, Roberto Valcarcel. However, this guy has been burnt to a crisp. It soon becomes clear that there’s more going on here than first meets the eye.

Needing help, Amparo turns to Ricardo Zurita, or Richi for short, who was kicked off the force for his alcoholism. He now works as a security guard and, as fate would have it, happens to have been working with Alvaro. As a result, this alcoholic and grieving wife team up together to try and suss out what happened and get to the bottom of the mystery.

Along the way, 1992 throws every tired cliché you can think of into the mix, and adds in some melodrama that genuinely borders on comical at times. It doesn’t help that the CGI is terrible. I mean, I’m talking Scorpion King levels of bad here. Alongside physic-defying bodies rag dolling from explosive impacts, we also have a bizarrely fake-looking windscreen smash and late on, there’s even a laughable scene on a train where the emergency brake is pulled and everybody goes flying.

In fact, the biggest problems with 1992 are actually reserved for the second half of this story. At face value, the first 3 episodes aren’t too bad but it’s almost impressive how the show holds back on the more incredulous elements until then.

Each of the characters have their own little arcs, with defined explanations for why Richi is doing what he’s doing, and why Amparo wants to find out the truth. The pair have okay chemistry together, and there’s a weak attempt at a subplot by trying to get Richi sober, but it’s not handled particularly well.

On top of that, we also get some really poorly defined characters that never step out their one-note archetypes. There are two cops that are thrown into this, Robledo and Carmen, and neither of them have enough about them to feel like anything but paper-thin NPCs. That’s before mentioning Richi’s old partner Manchado, who’s basically here to serve as mission guidance and a light deus ex machina device to drive the plot forward.

While the explanation for why the killer is targeting certain individuals is good, the show tries to add in some sympathy for them by showing them at work, going about their day to day life. Some of this is absolutely bizarre, including latex baths, fixing up toys and somehow waltzing around Spain in a full jumpsuit without eliciting any suspicions, despite the initial bombings. In fact, the one scene where people do notice them – inside a supermarket loading up a trolley full of hardware for their next killing – is never followed up on again. 

These cracks in the plot’s logic soon turns into full-scale chasms. At one point, a character survives a fatal fall from a very high building and after hitting the ground, is not only still alive but casually gets his phone out and makes a call. Another time our killer manages to single-handedly take out an entire villa surrounded by guards in the middle of the day (off-screen) who somehow miss him completely despite all holding guns. And that’s before mentioning all the CCTV footage of this suspicious person dressed in a big jumpsuit and – at times – wielding a flamethrower that nobody seems to notice anywhere.

The only thing going for 1992 is the comedy factor. Honestly, the effects and the way the story plays out are both so bad you’ll actually find yourself laughing at parts of this. It’s obviously not intended, given how the story plays out, but that’s the only positive that can be taken from this one.

Ultimately though, 1992 is not a good show and a difficult one to recommend. It’s an overlong, poorly plotted series that goes completely off the rails and then tumbles off a cliff into the smouldering graveyard of bad TV before it. Unless you fancy a laugh or two, this one should be avoided at all costs.

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