News

The TV series that reimagines Angela Merkel as a small-town detective has found a U.S. home.

Kino Lorber’s MHz Choice streamer has picked up Miss Merkel from Fremantle, two 90-minute tongue-in-cheek mysteries, with a third planned.

Starring vet German actress Katharina Thalbach (The Tin Drum), the Rtl series, which has sold to a number of European networks, is based on the books by writer, humorist and actor David Safier. It imagines the former German chancellor moving to a small town with her husband and her pug, Helmut, as she discovers a new calling as an amateur detective. Safier pens the adaptations with Stefan Cantz, with Christoph Schnee directing.

Lance Schwulst, EVP Content Strategy, MHz Choice, said he had “committed to the series before my sales agent had finished her pitch.”

“It’s such an idiosyncratic premise that I knew it had to be right,...

Offering a glimpse of its highly anticipated new series “Krank Berlin,” Beta Film has bowed the first trailer for the gritty and fast-paced medical drama, revealing a bold and modern take on the genre.

The trailer drops as Beta Film unveils its MipTV line-up.

The eight-part series follows a team of young doctors who are underpaid, poorly equipped, chronically overtired and beset with an increasingly callous healthcare system.

Created by British writer Samuel Jefferson, himself a former emergency-room doctor, “Krank Berlin” is set in the toughest and most overcrowded hospital in the German capital.

Haley Louise Jones (“Dear Child”) stars as Zanna Parker, the new head of the chaotic emergency room, who has her work cut out for her as she struggles with her own personal dilemmas. When she tries to implement new reform measures, she is met with resistance from the staff, particularly rebellious emergency doctor Ben, played by...

Caroline Peters as Sophie, Meike Droste as Barbel and Bjarne Mädel as Dietmar, in “Homicide Hills” on MHz Choice. Courtesy of MHz Choice

The German TV crime-solving comedy series “Homicide Hills” debuts its third season on streaming service MHzChoice on June 27. Previously, I’ve reviewed the first two seasons of this German crime comedy series on this site, and in the previous seasons, Sophie Haas (Caroline Peters), a tough, brash cop from Cologne, was shipped off to become the police chief of a sleepy German village named Hengasch. Season 3 opens with Sophie’s wedding to Hengasch’s local vet. True to form, things go wildly awry, resulting in “marriage interruptus,” then morphing into another crime to solve in the series’ light-hearted fashion. Her charming father (Hans Peter Hallwachs) moves with his “nurse” to Poland, removing one of the reliable cast members from the equation. That’s a loss.

Sophie continues...

Sophie Haas and Bärbel Schmied found hash in Schönfelder’s car, in an episode of the German TV show “Homicide Hills” Season 2, © Ard/Frank Dicks. Courtesy of MHzChoice

“Homicide Hills” comes to the U.S. as a novel treat – a light-hearted TV police series from Germany! A country not exactly renowned for humor (Google Robin Williams on that point) gives us its equivalent of charming shows like England’s “New Tricks,” France’s “Sharif” (previously reviewed here) or Canada’s “Nurdoch Mysteries.” In this case, Sophie Haas (Caroline Peters) is a tough, brash cop in Cologne who thinks she’s up for promotion. She’s right… in a way. The brass doesn’t approve of her bold tactics, seemingly irked by her gender and unmatched success rate. So they ship her off to become the chief of a sleepy German village’s force far from their turf.

Upon arrival in quaint,...