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Philipp Fussenegger, cologne
Better than movies?!
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Better than movies?!
I wanna see something I haven’t seen before!
Every year we put millions of euros into the public TV network and it still doesn’t get better.
What is the problem? And why are we not producing witty series?
Let’s take a look at America. When NBC was in a crisis, they hired 10 people to create something totally new! In Germany, where the public service broadcasters are in a permanent crisis, they look at what has worked well in the last years and say: “Lets do this again!”
Not all the “Tatort” episodes are like this parodic example here but some I would say follow similar structures. I often have the feeling that they just change the scene where it is located and some variations of the detectives. But there is not much of a development taking place in that field. But to be fair I found some exceptions: “Das Dorf” from Justus von Dohnányi and „Nacht ohne Morgen“ from Andreas Kleinert. Both tell more than just a crime story. Nevertheless Every episode of a “Tatort” is in itself closed and this is the biggest difference to American series where they tell a big story over the course of a season. And I think following a complex story is something that is reasonable for the German audience too. For me that is one of the reasons why people running away from TV. Our system in Germany and Austria is ailing.
public service broadcasters are no service providers. I believe that they have a responsibility towards the society.
American TV stations tell very interesting stories about the varied american culture. Germany & Austria have got diverse cultures as well. Yeah we also can be Sexy! We should stop adopting things from them! We can show our own reality we are living in. I think it’s the little cultural identification what young people are missing, when they turn on the TV. There is literally nothing original happening in Germany & Austria compared to the series from America!
There is only one exception: “Im Angesicht des Verbrechens” from Dominik Graf & Rolf Basedow.I really can recommend this mini- series. The series has several storylines which are all interlinked and finally they come all together in a great climax. Dominik Graf the director tells the story written by Rolf Basedow in a very modern and thrilling way. It is he only exception you can find in Germany where the story is told in an epic way over the course of ten episodes. But as I heard from TV broadcasters: “The Quote(viewing figures) was not so good…”
But we have got a great system of public service broadcasters where we “should be” almost independent from the quote (viewing figures). But of course it doesn’t work without feedback. The Quote(viewing figures) shows us only apart of the hole picture. Most of the people watching the episodes over the internet or on DVD… where get these people count? So if we don’t start reshaping the structure of the TV-stations and their programs we will be sitting here in 10 years watching endless episodes of the “Tatort” over and over again.
Is cable TV the new home of the great american novel?
“Television allows you a long storytelling process and that is a wonderful thing. If Breaking Bad would be a movie, it would never be getting financed” – Vince Gilligan
Cinema lost a bit of it’s artistic leadership. Innovative fictional TV- series stepped to this spot with their epic way of storytelling. For example: “Lost” or “Breaking Bad” in which the transformation of the characters goes on and on for over hundreds of hours. They are totally radical, and 10 years back from now this wouldn’t have been possible. But American TV series have developed in the last 15-20 years to more narrative storytelling. A great credit goes to the television series “Sopranos”. Which centered around a very unlikable anti hero character. That was for that time something very innovative for a main character.
“I don’t know the history about television but I watched a lot of it.
And I think the evolution of the antiheros in American TV is probably coming from the desire of American TV networks who forced their show directors to tell stories of heros and villains and a crossover between that two. We all know now in the real world most people are not all good or only bad. And I think television has started in recent years to reflect that.” – Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan created a negative character and sadistically he gets him down and tortures him to get him even further down. And I just can’t wait to see him injecting crystal meth into soft body parts.
We should start injecting crystal meth into our public broadcasting service.
We should risk more in German public broadcasting service, we have a lot to catch up on!
– and yes I think it can be better than Movies!
Click here to go to the Interview with Vince Gilligan the creator of Breaking Bad ->