German soaps: GZSZ, UU & AWZ

[Matt]

I'm surprised that I've found out that you can actually watch current episodes of Verboten Liebe, Unter Uns, & Alles was zählt for free on their respective websites without country restriction. There's a per episode charge for GZSZ apparently. Also, if you translate the page into English (which I do in Chrome) and turn on the captions on the episode (VL offers this option) the translated page will actually translate the captions into English! Granted, they captions are quite literal and direct and sometimes they flash by REALLY quickly, but it goes a long way to figuring out exactly what's being said.

[TimWil]

The new opening for Big Brother 16 reminds me a lot of Marienhof's. I wish they did it exactly like that, show's though, camera zooming through the house and stopping at each house guest. One holding an apple, another doing yoga, etc.

[Huntress]

VL is on fire these days.

After months of build-up, Sascha and Olli have finally had sex. First Sascha witnessed Olli and his one-night-stand Jens having sex. He was curious and kept watching with Olli noticing it. The next day Olli demanded answers but Sascha avoided giving an explanation. Later that day, Olli, Sascha and Jessi filmed a promotion spot for Jens's fitness studio. They ended up in the whirlpool. After Jessi had left, Olli pestered Sascha again and he admitted that seeing Olli and Jens together turned him on. Eventually, Olli and Sascha kissed passionately.

http://youtu.be/l_8fK5b-Nes

http://youtu.be/ddUm_HT5Tto

The other storylines are great as well. Kim knows that Ansgar is alive, but the other von Lahnstein family members are still clueless and Tanja thinks that she has muredered Ansgar. Now Kim has moved to the castle where she kissed up to Elisabeth. Tanja and Sebastian plan to get rid of Kim.

Then there's also the drama surrounding Thore, Caro and Giselle. I also enjoy the Dana-Hagen-Ricardo triangle.

[Matt]

OMG! Kim going OFF on both Tanja & Sebastian ROCKED MY SOCKS! However, Thomas & Biggi (while really charming) are as dull as yesterday's dishwater. And Giselle really needs to get hit by a bus. Maybe douchbucket Thore can run her over with his chair. Of course, Thore falls out of his damn wheelchair so much I swear that Caro needs to have Ricardo install a seat belt for him. Sascha & Olli -- *swoon* Of course, Sascha has to be an asshat and tell Olli that even though they did the deed, it didn't mean anything because he was just "experimenting." Poor Olli. But I guess that's what you get when you're always falling head over heels for partially straight boys.

[Huntress]

Yeah, Thomas and Biggi are really boring together. Biggi was brought in as a new love interest for Thomas after his first wife Viktoria had died in a car crash last fall. They could have written out Thomas as well but he's sort of needed in his function as Dana and Marlene's father. I think Thomas would be a better fit with either Elisabeth or Charlie. The latter is however married to Frank (who is rarely seen these days).

Sascha is an ass, but a cute one. Too bad ...

I love the chemistry between most of the characters, they all play so well against each other. Compared to the RTL soaps, VL is so grounded and funny without trying too hard. Granted, there are a lot of sex scenes too, but it's done way more tastefully than on AWZ and GZSZ. Also, the vocabulary the characters use is not too colloquial and cheap. Especially on GZSZ you hear a lot swear words and it's very distracting.

By the way, these automatic subtitles on youtube don't make any sense at all. It's like random words put together and the grammar is awful as well.

For example, Sascha asks Olli "Wie geht's deiner Hand?" ("How is your hand doing?"). The subtitles say "Wie seine Hand" = "How his hand".

Another dialogue:

Dana: "Vielleicht habe ich mich auch geirrt und da nur ganz kurz drauf geguckt" (Maybe I was wrong and only looked at it for a second)

Subtitle says: "Ich habe es versucht aber fast aufgebraucht" (I tried but almost spent it)

Marlene: [says a long sentence]

Subtitle only says: "Hoffentlich warum" (Hopefully why)

Hagen: "Was ist denn mit der los?" (What's up with her?)

Subtitle says: "Was es mit der Industrieversicherung" (What it with the industry insurance)

Edited July 8, 2014 by Huntress

[Matt]

Yeah, I kinda gave up with the subtitles on the youtube eps. Thankfully, I figured out that if you open the Das Erste Mediathek page for VL in Chrome & then let Chrome translate the page into English, when you watch an episode of VL with the subtitles (in German) turned on (I believe this is the only one of the German soaps to post eps with subtitles), Chrome will actually translate the subtitles into English! Sometimes they fly by really fast & sometimes they're very literal in regards to German grammer, but it's MUCH easier to understand that youtube. Also, I'm very surprised that NONE of the German soaps are country restricted on their websites and all current episodes of VL, AWZ, & UU are free to watch (there's a per episode charge for GZSZ, oddly).

[Huntress]

Yes, that's because GZSZ is among the 5 highest-rated programs every day and of course RTL wants to make as much money from the show as possible.

UU and AWZ can be viewed for free, but only the 5 latest episodes. For older episodes you have to pay as well.

RTL is a commercial broadcaster, while ARD is one of our two national broadcasters. They are financed by the state and thus don't have strict rules about copyright etc. That's why people can post full episodes of VL on youtube.

Yesterday's ratings (Top 20):

As you can see, programs of only 3 broadcasters (there are more than 50) reached the top spots.

01. "Ziemlich beste Freunde" (romantic movie) | 8.15 pm | 8.24m | 27.9% | ARD

02. "Tagesschau" (news) | 8.00 pm | 4.84m | 19.0% | ARD

03. "Der Tote im Watt" (crime movie) | 8.15 pm | 3.72m | 12.6% | ZDF

04. "heute-journal" (news) | 9.45 pm | 3.47m | 12.2% | ZDF

05. "heute" (news) | 7 pm | 3.30m | 17.0% | ZDF

06. "Exclusiv im Ersten" (documentary) | 10 pm | 3.25m | 12.8% | ARD

07. "RTL aktuell" (news) | 6.45 pm | 3.18m | 17.8% | RTL

08. "SoKo 5113" (crime series) | 6 pm | 2.84m | 18.2% | ZDF

09. "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten" (daily soap) | 7.40 pm | 2.67 m | 11.2% | RTL

10. "Tagesthemen" (news) | 10.30 pm | 2.44 m | 12.1% | ARD

11. "Extra" (boulevard magazine) | 10.15 pm | 2.35 m | 11.8% | RTL

12. "WiSo" (economy magazine) | 7.30 pm | 2.33 m | 10.0% | ZDF

13. "Exclusiv" (boulevard magazine) | 6.30 pm | 2.28m | 14.1% | RTL

14. "Sturm der Liebe" (telenovela) | 3.10 pm | 2.20m | 23.3% | ARD

15. "Rach – Der Restauranttester" (reality show) | 8.15 pm | 2.07m | 7.2% | RTL

16. "Rach – Der Restauranttester" (reality show) | 9.15 pm | 2.05m | 6.9% | RTL

17. "Sherlock" (BBC series) | 10.15 pm | 1.99m | 12.3% | ZDF

18. "Alles was zählt" (daily soap) | 7.05 pm | 1.96m | 12.3% | RTL

19. "Brisant" (boulevard magazine) | 5.15 pm | 1.79m | 15.2% | ARD

20. "Großstadtrevier" (crime series) | 6.50 pm | 1.78m | 8.9% | ARD

We surely love our news, soaps, gossip magazines and crime shows.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Huntress

[Huntress]

Next month there is a double anniversary as GZSZ celebrates its 5555. episode on August 11th and AWZ its 2000. episode on August 21st.

AWZ's main set – the Steinkamp center – was completely overhauled and first aired in yesterday's episode. In the 2000th episode, Simone Steinkamp (Tatjana Clasing) and Isabelle Steinkamp (Ania Niedieck) will be involved in a car crash while Julia Meyer (Jenny Bach), who is in the process of signing a contract for a prestigious dance company, finds out that she is pregnant – by Ben Steinkamp (Jörg Rohde), the ex-husband of her sister Bea Meyer (Caroline Frier).

There are only two original cast members left on AWZ: Tatjana Clasing and Silvan-Pierre Leirich have portrayed Simone and Richard Steinkamp since day one. André Dietz (Ingo Zadek) and Sam Eisenstein (Marian Öztürk) started out as recurring characters and were placed on contract in the spring of 2007. Ben Steinkamp, an original character, has been portrayed as a recast by Jörg Rohde since 2009. The fifth-longest running cast member is Juliette Greco who has portrayed Lena von Altenburg since May 2007. In 2013, she was temporarily replaced for seven months during her pregnancy.

In the 5555th episode of GZSZ, David's (Philipp Christopher) life is threatened by the mafia. Meanwhile, Bommel (Merlin Leonhardt) finds out about Katrin's (Ulrike Frank) scheme against Sophie (Lea Marlen Woitack) and Alexander (Clemens Löhr) to regain control over "Metropolitan Trends". Leon (Daniel Fehlow) tries to comfort Sophie and the two of them grow closer.

GZSZ's longest running cast member is Wolfgang Bahro (Jo Gerner) who joined the cast in February 1993, ten months after the series' debut. He is followed by Daniel Fehlow (Leon Moreno), who first appeared in 1996. Ulrike Frank (Katrin Flemming-Gerner) first appeared in December 2002 and has been on contract since April 2004. Anne Menden and Jörn Schlönvoigt have portrayed twins Emily and Philip Höfer since December 2004.

The ladies of GZSZ and AWZ pose at AWZ's remodeled set:

From left to right: Janina Uhse (Jasmin Flemming, GZSZ), Ania Niedieck (Isabelle Steinkamp, AWZ), Tatjana Clasing (Simone Steinkamp, AWZ), Ulrike Frank (Katrin Flemming-Gerner, GZSZ), Anna-Katharina Samsel (Katja Bergmann, AWZ)

The two shows, which have been airing back to back on RTL since AWZ's first episode in September 2006, are filmed 400 km (~250 miles) away from each other.

[Huntress]

Today news broke out that Marienhof is in the process of being brought back to television.

The show debuted on ARD on October 1st, 1992. It was produced by Bavaria Film and filmed in Cologne. Initially, the series was shown twice a week and the first 52 episodes had a length of 50 minutes. After a summer break between April and September 1993, the show returned in a new timeslot at 6.25 pm and episodes were cut down to 22 minutes. In the meantime, RTL had successfully launched GZSZ and Unter Uns as daily soaps. Another soap opera, Verbotene Liebe, was developed by Grundy UFA in 1994, but RTL declined buying the rights, so the show was given to ARD. Because the network also wanted to have two soap operas, Marienhof was completely restructured and transformed into a daily format. Both Verbotene Liebe and the new Marienhof went on the air on January 2nd, 1995.

Both shows had stable ratings until the 2007/2008 season. However, horrible storylines, questionable casting decisions and too much competition from other channels saw Marienhof's audience dwindle. The show was given another chance with a major overhaul in the summer of 2009, but it was too late. On December 15th, 2010, ARD officially cancelled the soap. The last episode (#4053) was shown on June 11th, 2011.

According to a press article, the production company has already made plans to bring the show back to the screens. They are currently looking for a new broadcaster since ARD is not willing to take it back. The new Marienhof is also not supposed to be a daily soap, but a weekly series. 69-year old Actress Viktoria Brams, who portrayed Inge Busch and was the only cast member to be on contract from beginning to end, has stated that she would love to be part of the project.

[Ben]

What do you think the likelihood is of a network picking up Marienhof? And do you think it's a good idea?

[Huntress]

Well, a weekly series could be a success... there are quite a few long-running weekly drama series on German television. However, I think it will be hard to continue a show that's been off the air for more than 3 years – especially a show that was cancelled due to low ratings. I also don't know which channel would be interested in buying the rights.

While AWZ, UU and GZSZ have officially been renewed for another year by RTL, ARD has not renewed Verbotene Liebe yet.

Today former actress Jasmin Lord (ex-Rebecca von Lahnstein) tweeted that the show has been cancelled, but an official statement hasn't been released by the network. The tweet has been deleted.

RTL has released spoilers for the fall season including cast lists for all three soaps. According to these lists, there will be slight changes on every show:

• For UU, Barbara Prakopenka (Kira Beckmann) is not listed. The actress, who was born in Belarus, joined the cast in August 2012. Her on-screen parents Anne Apitzsch (Sonja Beckmann) and Paul Langner (Eric Langner) were killed off this past May. Her on-screen brother TImothy Boldt (Ringo Beckmann) remains part of the contract cast.
• In turn, Maja Lehrer who first appeared as Kimberly Pötter in June 2014 has been placed on contract.
• For AWZ, Anna Katharina Fecher (Melanie Wendt) and Hannes Sell (Felix Landeck) are not listed.
• 25-year old Fecher joined the cast in August 2011 and departed the show in July 2012 before returning to the canvas in June 2013. Her character Melanie is currently in a relationship with Deniz (Igor Dolgatschew). However, Deniz will soon fall for Letizia (Jennifer Dessin-Brasching) which would explain Melanie's exit.
• Sell only joined the cast in May 2014. His character Felix was a replacement for Marc Schöttner's Lukas Levin, but his romance with Raquel (Yara Hassan) has been rather dull.
• For GZSZ, Merlin Leonhardt (Till "Bommel" Kuhn) is not listed. Bommel, a care-free philosophy student, first aired in August 2012 and was originally conceived as a short-term role. The writers loved the character and kept him around as a sidekick to the teenage crowd. In January 2014, Leonhardt was placed on contract as Bommel fell in love with Katrin Flemming-Gerner (Ulrike Frank), a ruthless business woman almost twice his age. The romance was well-received by the audience and was among the top storylines this year, so Bommel's exit is rather disappointing. His last airdate is August 5th, 2014.
• Meanwhile, 18-year old actor Felix van Deventer has been cast in the contract role of Jonas Seefeld. He is the only son of Maren (Eva Mona Rodekirchen) and the younger brother of Lilly (Iris Mareike Steen). Van Deventer's first airdate is July 25th, 2014.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Huntress

[wingwalker]

Sad, but not surprised about VL being cancelled. Rumors of it's cancellation have been swirling for at least 3-4 years now and it's ratings have been declining. Do you know how much time they are going to be given to wrap things up or has production been immediately stopped? When US soaps are canceled they are usually given some time to wrap things up.

[Huntress]

Today several media oulets have reported that VL has indeed been cancelled after almost 20 years on the air.

The show will probably finish its network run in early 2015.

According to some sources, the production company plans to continue the show – maybe on a different channel or as a web series.

[Matt]

Oh, of course. Cancel it now that I've started watching it.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Matt

[Huntress]

This is a statement by the CEO of UFA Serial Drama, the production company of VL (and GZSZ, AWZ and UU):

Original:

Translation:

Edited July 18, 2014 by Huntress