Enlarge image
Thomas Gottschalk visiting Günther Jauch: "I thought you were at a hairdressing contest in Baden-Baden"
Photo: Stefan Gregorowius / RTL
The most surprising plot twist:
A review of the year that bitterly refuses to talk about the year in question - it's hard to decide whether that's defiant or ingenious, especially when it comes to multi-defective items like the year 2021.
It opened with images of the flood disaster in the Ahr valley that were somewhat too TV-event-like, but then it actually took two hours until the word "Corona" was reluctantly uttered on the program for the first time.
No studio guest was invited to this topic, which - we asked 1000 people - shaped the past year like no other.
You can find it relaxing, or almost ludicrously escapist.
And the slightly modified title "People, Images, Mutations" would have really been appropriate.
The typical sentence:
"Thomas, say hello to the horses." So said goodbye to Lukas Podolski, who in some parallel reality will definitely qualify as an undoubtedly relevant studio guest in the year that is coming to an end, from his kicking colleague Thomas Müller, who briefly romped through via video telephony.
In this, our variation of reality, the reason for his invitation remained dim, but in front of the television one feels as if it were a personal gap in knowledge, especially since the studio audience rises euphorically from their seats to the sounds of "Poldi Poldi Halleluja".
Did you miss anything relevant?
What what?
Please do not answer.
Of course, Günther Jauch did not speak to Podolski about his questionable remarks on the vaccination debate about Joshua Kimmich or his own corona infection in August, but, much more explosively, about kebab.
The Facetime Talk was then part of a thoroughly annoying concept of various "surprising" cell phone calls that ran through the show: greetings from people like Barbara Schöneberger and Gregor Gysi, which they offered Jauch to his last review of the year, then interrupted conversations inappropriate passages (for example about a child suffering from leukemia), only to be stalled by a puzzling timer after 60 seconds when they were just beginning to be funny.
The second most beautiful not-quite-sentence of the evening came from Jauch himself: “No!
No!
Wow!
Wow! «He said when Alexander Zverev gave him the tennis racket with which he won gold in Tokyo.
Was Thomas Gottschalk there?
Of course.
And before you breathlessly ask the next urgent question: Yes, of course he also joined his 2001 released and then decidedly boomerant song "What happened to Rock'n'Roll" at the first, tiniest fictitious occasion, this soundtrack of stubborn resilience.
Jauch commented Gottschalk's new, smart short hairstyle with the sentence "I imagined you were at a hairdressing contest in Baden-Baden," whereupon Jauch, in view of Jauch's strange mercury techno suit, asked: "Is that PVC?" Older men and their squabbles, they are simple delicious.
And who else came?
For example, the journalist Theresa Breuer, who flies people from Afghanistan with her private airlift initiative. And a man who, as a twelve-year-old, was a guest on the show to demonstrate his egg-boiling-and-topping machine made from Lego bricks. Now, at the age of 36, he returned to have an egg sawed open again with a big hello. Between these two poles of feeling and weight, the broadcast grunted itself into a lunge. On the one hand, there was this damned year that, at least for the appearance, had to be dealt with somehow. On the other hand, one would much rather fire off a currently forgotten retrospective, with a carpet of snippets of all the great guests who have already been guests at Jauch: Schumi! Schröder! Beckenbauer!This time Boris Becker and Bushido came. The latter thanked Jauch politely “for 25 years” when he left, and one can thus confidently regard his civilization as a consumer as complete.
Care Bear Factor:
Just before the meltdown.
Symptomatic shows the unconditional will to feel good cuddling on the snippet, which was dedicated to the British royals.
Prince Philips' death has been announced, and the birth of Lilibet, the daughter of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan.
"Archie now has a playmate and the Queen has another reason to be happy," the commenting yes voice from the off uncle with daring curtailment - and with a not so inconspicuous foot movement, pushes the Oprah interview, including the allegations of racism expressed in it, among the already suspiciously baggy carpet.
The most surprising parallel:
Angela Merkel's departure (like the general election) was disgraced in a collective review together with the comeback of Abba and the wrecked Evergiven, she got about as much airtime as the eight cute orphaned hedgehog babies that were raised by a cat this year.
In the end, when it came to »People, Images, Emotions«, things got really tough when Jauch was placed on a stool, and not a military band, but at least listened to a farewell souvenir from Eko Fresh.
In twenty years' time, when the fading memory has settled like gracious moss over this year, we will question in lively quiz programs in the category »Merkel or Jauch?« Which of the two said this sentence when we parted: »That me get such a number to the end! "
