The cruise ship "MS Amadea" sails happily in the blazing sun on the sea; a drone films the pleasure boat from a bird's eye view. Deep under the sea you can see the U-612 diving in the dark blue. It is a moving image montage with which ZDF is currently advertising on subway monitors for two successive program highlights at the end of the old and beginning of the new year: "The Dream Ship" and "The Boat".
On the second day of Christmas, Schlager king Florian Silbereisen took over command of the television cruise ship with a briskly trimmed three-day beard, a week later the men around "Kaleu" Hoffmann with their motor-oil-smeared facial hair set to sea in their underwater fortress.
"First dream, then shiver"
Here is the Schmachtfest, there is the butcher's festival: For ZDF this is obviously all one. Something about water, relaxation and excitement on and under the sea. And so the television station celebrates the two productions, with which those responsible associate many hopes for quotas, on the subway's passenger TV together in one spot and assembles the two iconographically different watercraft in one and the same advertising film. The slogan: "First dream, then tremble".
On an iron cruise with the second? With all understanding that at the end of this difficult year for program designers shortly before the end-of-year end of year you want to go to the brim with advertising technology - an illusionary sparkler like "Das Traumschiff" has to be screwed together with an epic about the extermination campaigns of the Second World War more than disturbing.
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Classic remake: "Homeland" with depth sounderIt looks like an act of desperation: Because in the entertainment segment as well as in series production, the second is currently lagging a bit behind. When it comes to shows, ARD has a real crowd puller with Silbereisen, which ZDF has almost nothing to counter. The second was all the more proud when it was announced that Silbereisen had been hired as the new captain of the "dream ship". In terms of series, the station has so far only been able to score on a large scale with "Bad Banks" (second season in early February).
ZDF is currently preparing some large series projects; For example, the filming of Frank Schätzing's "The Swarm" in ten episodes, which is set to celebrate shooting next year, could become the most expensive German series project ever. Otherwise, beyond the conventional three-part event at Lerchenberg in Mainz, you are relatively bare in the field of serial storytelling.
German and French perspective combined
Like the crime series "Der Pass" previously shown on ZDF, "Das Boot" (production costs: 26.5 million euros) is now the first free TV broadcast of a production that was bought by private competition from the pay channel Sky. The eight-part series delivers a sovereign, up-to-date edition of Wolfgang Petersen's classic cinema and television series from 1981.
The original version of the struggle for survival in the belly of the submarine is expanded into a conspiracy scenario in the Sky version, which also tells of French resistance fighters; the German is thus supplemented by a French perspective. But right in the opening passage of the remake, the viewer is watching how an entire German submarine team miserably drowns after a water mine hit.
Nothing against a proper contrast program at the turn of the year - but collaging the escapistic good mood horror from the "dream ship" with the real war horror is really tasteless. First dream, then shiver? Really, ZDF?
"The dream ship", second day of Christmas, 8:15 p.m. "The boat", from January 3rd, 8:15 p.m.
