German soaps: GZSZ, UU & AWZ

[Huntress]

None of the soaps has ever brought a character back from the dead – only if their deaths weren't seen on-screen, but that hasn't been done much, either. One rare example would be Jenny on AWZ who went missing after a plane crash in Russia in the summer of 2010. Then in December 2011 she suddenly turned out to be alive. Two other examples would be Tanja and Clarissa on VL who were also presumed dead after a plane crash in 2001 – the audience never saw the actual crash – and who returned in 2004 and 2011, respectively. I can't think of anyone else right now... because apart from AWZ, the other soaps rarely bring back characters from the past. GZSZ is the worst offender in this regard.

[Huntress]

Preview pictures for November 2013:

Unter uns

01: Britta (Tabea Heynig) is run over by Irene 02: Ringo (Timothy Boldt) and Yannick (Eric Stehfest) continue their affair 03: John (Elvis Clausen) blackmails Leonie (Sarah Stork) 04: Irene (Petra Blossey) and Britta 05: Sina (Valea Scalabrino) and Bambi (Benjamin Heinrich) 06: Britta and Henning (Benjamin Kiss) for Moritz's (Marvin Linke) life 07: Irene and her children Anna (Marylu Saskia Poolman) and Till (Ben Ruedinger) 08: Irene meets Florian (Stephan Käfer) 09: Yannick says goodbye to Kira (Barbara Prakopenka) 10: Sina meets Joe (new series regular Sarah Hannemann), Bambi's best friend, for the first time

Verbotene Liebe

01: Alexa (Henrike Fehrs) and Tristan (Jens Hartwig) 02: Jessica (Jana Julie Kilka) and Sascha (Sascha Pederiva) 03: Elisabeth (Martina Servatius) steals data from a cell phone 04: Tristan and Alexa 05: Alexa 06: Sebastian (Sebastian Schlemmer), Rebecca (Tatjana Kästel) and Tristan 07: Ricardo (Daniel Sellier) and Dana (Diane Willems) 08: Juri (Kristian Kiehling) wants to kill Sascha 09: Alexa 10: Ansgar (Wolfram Grandezka) and Sebastian

Alles was zählt

01: Letizia (Jennifer Dessin-Brasching) wants to show that she still is the star of the "Dance Academy" 02: Joscha (Carlo Degen) and a male stripper 03: Can (Volkan Isbert) has trouble buying condoms in Croatia 04: Isabelle (Ania Niedieck) celebrates her triumph over the Steinkamps 05: Simone (Tatjana Clasing) thinks she is too old and considers having cosmetic surgery 06: Raquel (Yara Hassan) and Joscha get married 07: Raquel spends her wedding night alone 08: Isabelle 09: Joscha and Kai (Alexander Gier) have sex in the changing room 10: Raquel plans a strip routine with Marian (Sam Eisenstein), Ingo (André Dietz), Can, Deniz (Igor Dolgatschew) and Ben (Jörg Rohde)

Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten

01: Zac (Jascha Rust) has trouble with his father Lars (Sebastian Hölz) 02: Leon (Daniel Fehlow) threatens Mieze (Franziska van der Heide) 03: Tayfun (Tayfun Baydar) and Emily (Anne Menden) try to be good parents for Baby Kate 04: Jasmin (Janina Uhse) doesn't recognize that Anni (Linda Marlen Runge) is in love with her 05: Anni seduces Nele's best friend Didi (day player) 06: Nele (Ramona Dempsey) figures out that Anni loves Jasmin 07: Ayla (Sila Sahin) wants Baby Kate for herself; Philip (Jörn Schlönvoigt) comforts her 08: Vince (Vincent Krüger) cheers up a distressed Lilly (Iris Mareike Steen) 09: Emily is freaked out when Baby Kate has disappeared 10: Mesut (Mustafa Alin) tries to talk Ayla, who has kidnapped Baby Kate, out of fleeing to Turkey

[DRW50]

Anni and Didi sounds like a sitcom.

What do you think of Anni?

Who is that Alexa woman? Was she frozen in 1989 and just woke up?

[Huntress]

Anni (whose full name is Andrea) is probably one of the best additions to the GZSZ cast in recent years. She does come across like a real person - unlike the other two newcomers Nele and Mieze, who look like cartoon characters.

Alexa has appeared on screen month last month. She's the daughter of the wealthy businessman Vincent Berg. Ansgar von Lahnstein owes Vincent 90 million euros and therefore he agreed to hire Alexa as a designer for "Ligne Clarisse". Initially, she came across as being naive and dumb, but in reality she's manipulative and egoistic. She wants to push her own fashion line and sleeps with Ansgar's cousin Tristan who's the co-owner of "Ligne Clarisse". Gradually Alexa infuriates the whole Lahnstein family (Ansgar, Tanja, Rebecca, Sebastian, Elisabeth). Alexa's father is also up to no good, that's why Elisabeth steals his cell phone data. I think he's illegaly dealing with fur.

[Huntress]

When it was announced that Felix von Jascheroff will depart GZSZ in February 2014 after being on contract for more than 12 consecutive years, his fans were clearly disappointed. In an interview von Jascheroff revealed that his character John Bachmann, who arrived on-screen in July 2001, will receive a happy ending. Fans began to wonder what that would mean, since John recently got together with this ex-girlfriend Pia Koch, played by Isabell Horn.

A few days later, the show released another press statement: Isabell Horn is also on her way out! While the press release stated that Horn did not renew her contract because she's looking forward to playing other roles after portraying Pia for five years, a Facebook message written by the actress made it clear how disappointed she is that she's being written off the show.

Some media outlets acted as if this was the first time a cast member was fired. In reality, 90 percent of past cast members did not leave voluntarily.

Speaking of which: VL has decided to replace its main couple once more. This past May, Julia Sontag and Kristian Kiehling were introduced as Martha Wolf, a clumsy ugly duckling, and Juri Adam, a wild and mysterious fashion designer. Their love story unfolded during the summer months, but ultimately did not catch on with the audience. Their finale airdate is today (November 18th, 2013).

The show has already hired replacements: Katja Sieder and Philipp Oehme have been cast as Caroline Schulze and Thore Hellström. Their story is basically a redux of Martha and Juri, since Caroline is a new assistant at "LCL" while Thore is the new creative director and therefore her boss. Both appear for the first time on December 27th, 2013.

Episode still of Katja Sieder and Philipp Oehme

[Huntress]

And the weirdness continues: Two days ago, Unter Uns announced in a press release that five characters might be on their way out. Four of them could die in a shocking cliffhanger. According to the release, the producers are currently evaluating which of these characters are still needed and which are disposable. The affected cast members are Lars Steinhöfel (Easy Winter, 2005-), Marylu Saskia Poolman (Anna Weigel #3, 2010-), Eric Langner (Paul Beckmann, 2012-), Anne Apitzsch (Sonja Beckmann, 2012-) – and newcomer Sarah Hannemann (Josephine Johlke) who hasn't even started airing yet!

Lars Steinhöfel, Marylu Saskia Poolman, Eric Langner, Anne Apitzsch and Sarah Hannemann

Again, all important media outlets reported on this story.

RTL surely knows how to promote their shows... AWZ is probably next to fire some cast members, considering they want to revamp the show once more in 2014.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Huntress

[DRW50]

THat first guy looks like one of those mashups of a male and female celebrity. What do you think of those characters who are going or might be going?

[Huntress]

UU has confirmed that Marylu Saskia Poolman is one of the cast members to be let go. Fortunately her character Anna Weigel won't die, though. That would have been too much of a shock because Anna has been on the show since the very first episode and the audience saw her grow up from a 10-year old girl to a woman in her late 20s. Poolman is the third actress in the role and took over from Kathleen Fiedler who played the part from 2006 to 2010. The first actress, Janis Rattenni, was on the show from 1994 to 2004.

Strangely enough, Poolman will film her last scenes in April 2014, which means that she'll air at least until June. Why the show confirmed her exit so early is beyond me.

I don't mind Anna, but they haven't written her well after her face got burned in a deep fryer explosion and once they paired her up with her cousin Paco. They eventually got married, but Anna was desperate to become pregnant. She lost her baby and got depressed. Anna and Paco's marriage fell apart and now Anna is in a relationship with Rufus, who's 20 years older than her. However, Anna already had an affair with a much older man as a teenager (with her teacher), so that isn't totally out of character. At least Anna can play mommy to Rufus's daughter Lotta. Poor Lotta already had two "moms" who died. Her birth-mom Heidi was killed off in 2011, and her step-mom Rebecca, Rufus's wife, was murdered in 2012.

[Huntress]

The year is almost over... so let's take a look at who has been on contract this year on all 4 soaps.

Green exclamation mark = has joined this year

Red cross = has left this year

Alles was zählt

Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten

Unter uns

Verbotene Liebe

[Huntress]

Coming up this winter on "Verbotene Liebe":

http://youtu.be/OR1iubaWTEs

[DRW50]

I guess Good Times Bad Times was the one with the least cast turnover.

I read that Axel will be back on AWZ for a brief run.

[Huntress]

Yes, Daniel Aichinger (Axel) is back in January and will appear for ca. 2 months.

Also back is Sabine Fernandez whose character Constanze Hipp was killed off during the fire this past fall. Fernandez will portray Constanze's twin sister Corinna Hipp starting January 30th, 2014. Like Constanze, Corinna will be a recurring character and she is set to appear for at least 3 months. Apparently she is part of Axel's plan to get revenge on the Steinkamp family.

On VL, Olli (Jo Weil) will get a new love interest since Christian (Thore Schölermann) is off the show again. Olli, who feels alone, sets his sights on Sascha (Sascha Pederiva), who becomes Olli's roommate and is of course straight (for now).

VL also released promo pics for its upcoming 4444th episode. The pictures feature Tanja (Miriam Lahnstein), Sebastian (Sebastian Schlemmer), Eva (Franziska Kruse) and Ansgar (Wolfram Grandezka).

[DRW50]

That look doesn't suit the poor woman on the left, although the other woman looks great.

At first I thought Sascha would be a woman. I forget that's also a man's name.

[wingwalker]

So Ollie's new love interest starts out as his straight (for now) roommate, well if that's doesn't familiar to how Chrolli first met and got together. Is he a boxer too? lol Yeah that was a great story and I'm glad it sounds like Ollie's finally getting a new love interest, but come up with something new and original!

[difficultdiva]

I'm just glad that somebody is final letting Olli have some "forbidden love" again on the soap. It's become tiresome to have somebody as nice, attractive, sane and hot as Olli, just standing around supporting the other characters messy lives, while he stays the ever faithful husband to a serial cheater character who's off screen for 10 months out of the year.