German television programming

I like watching Großstadtrevier. I also like Dirk Bach, he's very funny. :$

I used to watch großstadtrevier. Was good in the old days - just like "Der Fahnder"

heard that new "Folgen"? (some german speaking native english speaker help me please) of "two pints of lager and a packet of crisps" will be on soon? Is this true??? I forgot to admit, that I like that one :$ , it was just boring to see the same "Folgen" over and over again

Folgen: Episodes
Staffel: Season

Yes a new series of TPOLAAPOC will be on BBC3 very soon ...
I like that one too !!!

I think that in ENGLISH it is "series", in American is is "season"
Episode is the same in GB and US ...

is is really?

Well if I only ask the Brits, Ami might feel left out :$

Say, now that you mention it I think you're right. I can remember Clarkson saying 'That's all for this series of Top Gear.' But sitting on my shelf at home I have 'Seasons 1-3' of Seinfeld.

Funny, that.

Maybe because it's american ... ??

Well no shit. That was my point, wasn't it?

Korinthenkacker

I recommend you get yourselves sorted out with Sky via Astrosat (they sometimes advertise on this site). Standard UK sub costs (about £30 a month to include "Sports" and £40 if you want "Movies" as well) + annual admin charge which I think's £150.
Good value for money I reckon, especially if you are a sucker like me who wants to watch the Rangers game tonight.

Failing that, watch the excellent Kommisar Rex - easily the top programme on German telly.
You don't even have to speak good German as the plot's more or less the same every episode.
(For those of you not familiar with the programme, KR is a big German Shepherd dog.)

Typical example:
"I'm sure ze body iss around here somewhere in zis lake. Let's go out in zis handy boat mit Rex...his keen sense of smell will soon lead us to it".
They get in the boat.
"Voof!" (well he is a German dog after all).
"Rex iss saying Links a bit..."
"Voof, voof!"
"Geradeaus now, Hans"
"Growl..."
"Rechts a bit now he says"
Etc etc

Final scene:

"Vee haf zem (the baddies) surrounded...Rex, stay here in ze car. I vill leave ze vindow wide open so you can haf some nice fresh air".
Cops head off.
Chief baddie tries to sneak out the back of the factory.
Astonishment as Rex jumps through open window, chases baddie, grabs the gun out his back pocket with his substantial row of teeth, growls at baddie who stays put til cops get back.
The end.

Ah... top entertainment indeed.

And for that you cough up 30 Pounds a month?!!

Never watched it. Nor that other programme that features an animal as its star, "Unser Charlie" - a chimpanzee no less. In Britain such a show would surely just be considered pain daft, but here in Germany its serious viewing (I assume)!

Sad!!

I used to like this one ... BJ and the Bear...
Or a classic: MONKEY !!

Let's see, 40 pounds a month plus 150 pounds a year admin charge comes out to 630 pounds a year.

You're right, Kommisar Rex does sound pretty good.

I heard the other day that they've re-made Monkey and it's going down a storm across Asia. Just a matter of time 'til it gets here (bit like the Bird flu was)...

At that price it would surely be cheaper to get your own alsation! (or chimpanzee)

oops

I hardly watched tv much but in Germany I love it. I used to hate Steven Segal until I heard "him" speak in German.

It's entertaining but not in the way its suppost to be. Entertaining cause its so bloody daft!.

The quiz channels where they ask you to fill in a word and its so easy even I can figure it out and I'm a total beginner in the German language. The hosts are the best actors I have ever seen, especially a guy on at night with red hair on channel... um (let me find the remote). 7? Live. I never knew there were so many exasperated expressions possible. Then when you change the channel and watch some woman breast feeding a puppy dog and come back to the quiz 20mins later and no one still has got the answer and the red head looks like he's about to blow his head off in anguish.

Also there is the local Freiburg channel that has on all night "tramcam". This is continuous footage of a tram from a drivers view as it goes round the streets of the town. Picking up and dropping off the shoppers and students. Thrilling stuff accompanied with orchestrated music. Perfect for those insomniacs out there to while away the hours.

I haven't watched "Wer wird Millionäre" for ages now because this "we'll drag it out until we can't drag it out anymore" style of moderating was driving me nuts!

Believe it or not, the now defunct Brandenburger Rundfunk which covered the region around Berlin in the 90s used to transmit footage of the inside of a tropical fish tank during the small hours! (actually that was better than their usual programming)

The stuff I really cant stand is that "Volksmusik" crap. Its just so bad its laughable. I suppose you have to be german - and a particular kind of german - middle-aged/elderly, from the countryside or small towns, and of below average IQ to be able to appreciate it.

I've seen a German channel on Astra broadcasting a fireplace in the early hours.

But for real nail-biting tv you can't beat the early UK channel 5 program one June 21st which used one camera looking vertically at a patch of sky through a hole in a ceiling from sunset till sunrise. Easily the most entertaining program on the channel that year.

That'll be cricket!

I dont understand why German tele very rarely has any arts documentaries about the great painters or such like. For a nation that has (and still has) made a great impact in 20th Century art its very poor.

Create your own German TV show:

Simply choose a word at random. Any word. Could be 'Haustier'. Could be 'Ersthilfe'. Any word whatsoever.

Now insert that word in this title:

'Der Große _____________ Show/Test.'

Get yourself a studio audience (doesn't seem to be too hard) and a few 'promis' (also not difficult), and away you go!

Hi

A hell of a lot less adverts. OK i know English TV has a lot, but German TV is just way tooooo many adverts.

A couple of years or back i watched the German TV premier of one of the last 3 star wars films. and they made a 2 hour movie last just over 3 hours
F1 on RTL is crap as well, how can you have a 5 min ad break in a live event every 15 Min's or so, you end up missing approx 20 laps of the race, just crazy in my view.

Tony

not all German tv is crap .. what about arte ? I steer clear of all the commercial stations, except VOX which is the best of a bad lot. I detest the contrived televised stage spectacles of ARD & ZDF, they really make me cringe. and I don't much care for the news on the state channels either - too much panic mongering & no-news opinion. ever watched breakfast tv on ard/zdf? what a way to start the day - bloody depressing!! but arte ... that is quality television :-)

Ok. so 99.5% is crap then!

Your statement is only half true, because Arte is Franco-German...

has anyone noticed lately that some of the TV stations here are really bad quality, especially RTL.
It looks like they are transmitting digital tv even though alot of poeple don´t have it.
Its really annoying to watch some programms, especially Formula 1 when there are always big pixels on the screen after sudden and slow movements.
anyone else experience this or is it just our building?

Stating the obvious here but hey, I need to get this out of my system.

Couldn't sleep yesterday so I thought I watch some tv. Having gone up and down through the channels I realized something I already knew for a long time living here. German tv is crap!
Thx for listening.

Somehwere in the chain of events which brings the picture to your screen there is sure to be one or more digital transmission paths, so if you are getting picture pixellation then there is a problem in this chain. Taking your Formula1 as an example, then the live feed is transmitted digitally to an online edit which then sends pictures onto an uplink to your broadcaster who re-transmits them, probably over satellite to his service provider which sends them onto you. It's quite possible your building, for example has a digital reception platform distributing pictures onto an analogue cable distribution to your TV outlet, or that the cable provider downlinks the digital signal and passes it into your network. If any of these many digital interfaces has a problem you may see pixellation or loss of picture. In particular when the transmission path is over satellite, bad weather, electrical storms, sunspots and the like can affect overall quality, albeit for very short periods. The weakest link in the chain is often the downlink into the cable system or (if you have one) the digital reception on your building... The Formula 1 example may be even worse, because of the many issues around the original upling (electrical noise, helicopters passing over dishes, peope falling over cables): F1-OBTV is hectic at the best of times..

YL6