Several of the Krimi shows that we’ve been watching lately have been around almost as long as Tatort. However, unlike Tatort, most of the actors and characters in each episode of these shows are the same — and have been the same for decades.

Now, to put this in perspective, let’s take one of my favorite police procedural shows from when I was young, Starsky and Hutch, as an example. That show was on in the mid 1970s. Now, imagine that the two original actors — in their 30s when the show first aired — were still playing those same characters, 30 years later. And imagine that the formula for the show hadn’t changed:

• 2 cops who have decidedly different personalities and tastes, and yet are best friends and partners
• who ride around in a cool car and
• in every episode have at least one action/fight /car chase scene, maybe more than one, with
• a mystery plot that can be solved in an hour.
• Plus, there’s inevitably a final tag that has little to do with the rest of that episode’s plot, ending the episode on a slightly comic note.

Nothing wrong with that formula, but it’s hard to imagine seeing the same characters do it week in and week out for 30 years wouldn’t start to seem as old as the actors.

Now, as you may know, Starsky and Hutch didn’t last that long –  in fact, I think it was only for 4 years, when the actors wanted to go on to bigger and better things (well, that was what they wanted, I ‘m not in their case that actually happened). However, we’ve found a series here, Ein Fall für Zwei, “A Case for Two”, which to me is the Starsky and Hutch formula kind of show.

Although, actually, this German show is not about two cops, it’s about a defense attorney and a private detective who works on his cases. Think Perry Mason and Paul Drake, perhaps, except both people get equal billing on this German variation, and the denouement rarely takes place in the courtroom at the end, opting instead for a big action sequence. The private detective character also is noted for always engaging in one big fight scene per episode with a bad guy. So, I guess we can think of it sort of like Perry Mason and Paul Drake are merged with Starsky and Hutch, somehow.

But my main point here is the actor who plays the private detective is the same actor who originated the role in 1981. Yes, over 30 years ago. The defense attorney character has changed as actors have come and gone from the show, but what’s intriguing is that it’s basically the same formula type of show that it was back in 1981. This link to the English language entry for the show does say that the last episode — the 300th — may have been back in August 2012, but according to the German Wikipedia entry, there are new episodes planned for 2013.

Of course, the English Wikipedia entry for this show also has this to say, which should have indicated it isn’t necessary accurate:

In late 2006 through early 2007, most episodes included scenes of Matula visiting a strip club, to interrogate the owner or one of the customers, with very brief footage of topless female dancers. Very few, if any, other German detective shows feature similar scenes. Current episodes no longer show such scenes.

Really? Well, perhaps they dropped those kinds of scenes from Ein Fall Für Zwei, but I’d actually argue that most German detective shows we’ve watched have feature topless females, either dancers or — in the case of one show — a seemingly obligatory shot of the hero in bed with his topless lover (he’s always fully clothed, she’s always naked). Chris points out, though, that perhaps the episodes I’m thinking of were all reruns of shows made before 2007.

Perhaps.

In any case, Ein Fall für Zwei has been fun for us to watch, as the formula approach makes it rather easy to follow. And also because there’s a little bit of humor worked in to it – I always liked those “buddy” shows (I-Spy, Wild, Wild West, Starsky and Hutch, etc.) where they didn’t take themselves too seriously.  Plus, these formulaic shows aren’t too deep, and will often make use of flashbacks as characters either explain what happened, or as characters have sudden insights into the importance of a particular clue. For example, in a recent episode, the detective saw a photo of a man and a woman, and in photo the man was wearing a watch. The detective immediately had a flashback to the watch being on the ground next to the murder victim at the beginning of the episode, thus clearly revealing the true identity of the killer. Hokey, but effective.

Actually, from trying to watch these German Krimis I have a new appreciation for the use of “flashbacks” in detective shows I’ve always considered it kind of gimmicky in the past. But now I view it as a language-learner’s lifeline, helping to clarify the understanding of mystery show that’s in a language I don’t always understand.

Anyway, contrast that show with another show that we enjoy watching here called Stohlberg. Detective Stohlberg is a lone-wolf kind of police detective: he’s dark and brooding, a man who seemingly  never smiles.  He’s got a pair of people working with him but he rarely interacts with them in a casual way outside of work. And there’s always a downer ending twist of some sort to the plot. For example, if the private detective from Ein Fall für Zwei meets a kind-hearted prostitute in the course of the investigation, she’s likely to still be alive at the end of the episode. If the same woman were to meet Stohlberg, you know she’s not long for this world.

But Stohlberg seems like it’s very well-written, and very-well acted, as the plots are never simple, and you can’t always predict what the characters will do.  But there are no flashbacks. So, at the end of a recent episode, I turned to Chris and said, so, was the wife actually involved with the attack on her husband or not? Was she tricked at the end by the murderer into helping him or not? What the heck happened? Even with the German subtitles, I hadn’t been able to figure it out.

But given the longevity of  these German Krimis —Ein Fall für Zwei is but one example of ones that have been around for 30 years of more), Stohlberg, which only just started 5 years ago, is bound to be around a few years longer. Which should hopefully give me enough time to improve my German to the point when I can actually be sure I know at the end of the episode what really happened.

After all, it’s only sort of satisfying to watch a mystery show, and not be sure whodunnit.