Talk about television art: platitudes in series

Four people sit together and talk about series. That would not continue to be newsworthy, finally happens daily in various living rooms and pubs, who knows, maybe even in executive suites or in the Bundestag. If even the climate package is not able to clear the gloomy prospects - at least in terms of TV series, the times are golden.

But do you have to talk about television on TV?

You have to, at least if you sit in the new talk round "Serious - The Series Quartet". And you probably want to, too, because who sits here has something to say. Is at least hardcore binge watcher like

• the comedian Kurt Krömer, who gives the interviewer here,
• and presenter Annie Hoffmann ("Grill den Henssler").
• Or the same subject as screenwriter Annette Hess ("Kudamm 56 and 59")
• and her colleague Ralf Husmann ("Stromberg").

Naturally, in a round of talks recorded by cameras, people who are not only thematically up to date, but who are able to formulate something in a way that is the brightest. Marcel Reich-Ranicki was in the "Literary Quartet", the ancestor of this talk format, not least because of the star because he swung congenially the verbal battle ax ("I can not help it, I have to nag").

WDR

"Game of Thrones" is like the "Lindenstraße" only with dragons, "Babylon Berlin" as "TKKG": In "serious" is blasphemed, but rarely deepened

Ralf Husmann is in "Serious" Although much more restrained and friendly, but as a trained cabaret artist, he has just then the sets ready to hang. Especially this one, it's about "Game of Thrones": "That reminds me of the 'Lindenstraße', only with dragons".

There is a lot to say about that, not only because the sentence is just very funny, but maybe very true. But there's more of a general inhale and exhale, and then it goes on, there's a lot to talk about, "Succession" and "The Pass," "Derek" with Ricky Gervais and the Netflix serial killer teenie Tragic comedy "The End of the F *** ing World" with pans about "Babylon Berlin" and "The Black Forest Clinic".

"Do you have to look, is really good"

This is the main problem of "serious": Rarely is time to really deepen the conversation, it almost always remains with two-sentence judgments that hardly ever develop real argumentative stringency. In fact, the level of the round in its worst moments is reminiscent of private conversations that are conducted between the taps and do not go beyond a "must you have a look, is really good".

This is particularly disappointing when the insiders of the round could really tell something that you, as an interested audience, do not know yet. For example, when the unavoidable question comes, what about the boom in the US with the German series, can they keep up?

Husmann: "The pressure is increasing, are good hope." Hess: "gold digger mood." Arg of sub-complex rhetorical stanzas that sound like the pre-"4 blocks" era, as German series just opened up into the new streaming era. How they beat themselves there and what exactly hopes and strategies of German series producers are, to it hardly anything was to be heard.

After all, the two creatives in the round did not mince words when it came to criticizing colleagues - a hot porridge that people like to talk about in public. Right at the beginning, Annette Hess joked that German series and TV films were always running at double speed, then the density of events was right. On the other hand, some swipes smelled unpleasantly of a return coach, especially because at the same time the density of reasoning was palpably absent.

At last, it was really good to be impressed by this success-spoiled "Babylon Berlin" -maker. Hess: "The plot reminds me of 'TKKG'". Husmann: "Did not get it". Then maybe the "Lindenstraße", even without a kite?

"Serious - The Serial Quartet": Friday, 9 pm, ARD One