People in their late twenties have an image problem. You will not be taken seriously. As for their crisis resilience. It is said that they slur up their lives in chatty shared flats. They try not to grow up, to the point of taking early retirement. They don’t want to decide. Don’t want to fix anything because there are so many options for them and something better could come up somewhere. There was no such thing as a crisis that would force them to make decisions. Now there are more crises at the same time than in recent German history and more series in which Generations Y and Z, the millennials, are mirrored more or less satirically. What do you learn from them? Will the thirties be able to crisis? A non-representative sample.
What is it about: old building Berlin. Kreuzberg. Wiebke and Jonas live there. And do something with the media. They were once together, but not anymore. Or maybe yes. You don’t want anything solid. Not in love. Not at work. Even though. It would be nice. Anyway, they write together. Scripts for series, for example, that play in Berlin. They have friends too. They come a bit, but not too much, from the sample catalog for various series dramaturgy. They’re kind of like her. Live largely where they live. And meander through their quicksilver life and the clichés of the capital. But they all give them a strong hand so that the millions of Berlin haters in the series don’t get too comfortable. “Nix Festes” is – although of course probably the ninth derivation of the Freund series principle and although everyone can probably think of at least three American miniseries that are perhaps funnier, so to speak, the original meter of the new German ZDFneo Thirties Precariats miniseries.
What does it look like: Unpolished, not to call it authentic. A happily knotted hustle and bustle of city dwellers on the brink of general collapse – always ready to look into the ironic mirror of their own state of mind.
Best scene: Right at the beginning of the Berlin series “Nix Festes”, Wiebke and Jonas are sitting with the producer and pitching their new Berlin series project. “Basically, our series is about people in their thirties who live in Berlin and are looking for their place in life. So actually a bit like us. You maybe not like that now. How old are you again?” – “Great. I totally like it. The only question: Does it have to be Berlin?” – “Well, yes. It’s called ‘Big in Berlin’, so it would be logical in some way.” – “Ah… Berlin… Berlin is over, isn’t it? Take them all away anyway. And do you know why? Because it’s a shitty town.” As a result, things escalated a bit.
Who is this for: For Berlin haters. For Berlin cliché haters. For Kreuzberg residents with a talent for irony. For parents of the Kreuzberg precariat on the way to the thirty-year graduation party, who always wanted to laugh about their children at home in the living room and are happy that they have escaped their own shared flat reasonably intact.
Gives hope: that at some point it will be good with the growing-up-in-Berlin series.
You have to look: because Wiebke by Josephine Preuss is simply stunning. And because “Nix Festes” actually always gets the curve when you urgently want to walk somewhere with an overfull cliché stomach for relief. “Nix Festes” masters the art of turning off in good time with some virtuosity.
Runs on: ZDFneo
What is it about: With “Four Walls Plus”, the residential community series from the late twenties has reached its next generational expansion stage. “Four walls plus” marks the transition to the multi-generation series, which absolutely must be available soon. Probably then on ZDF for the target group of boomers who retired early. The staff of “Viermauerplus” is once again significantly older than that of “Damaged Goods”. But they haven’t really grown up either. Seven adults, two weird children and a severely eco-friendly teenager form a “Familie” (Freunde
What does it look like: A bit like a bourgeois ball pool. The house is chic. The furniture too. Cabinets are screwed. Cardboard boxes are lying around. Doors are missing, just in front of the toilet. Everyone gets everything. Such committed procreation campaigns, for example, that the youngest of the “family” calls the police. Because of domestic violence.
Best scene: Caro’s mother comes to the housewarming party. A hard-as-nails Miesepetra, who thinks as much of the whole flat-sharing family frippery as any former ZDF “Derrick” series watcher. Unfortunately, her granddaughters (and – shocking! – dark-skinned), who are actually responsible for the garland and streamer decorations, mistook the decorative box for the sex toy box. Dildos and plugs lie around in the vegetarian buffet, turtles carry neon-colored penis substitutes on their backs like candles through the garden. You can’t get out of being ashamed of others. That happens relatively regularly in “Viermauerplus”. Which in turn is due to the quality of the punch lines.
Best character: Luisa, child of Caro and Martin. Career aspirations: dictator. Draw pictures of decapitated squirrels. Can Chinese. Make deals with clandestine terrorists on the Internet. It’s all over. If you don’t want to have more than thirty minutes of television at home in the living room.
Who is this for: Definitely not for Luisa’s generation comrades. But for boomers on the way to an old-age flatshare somewhere in the Brandenburg countryside. They immediately distance themselves from the idea. And buy a tiny house. Only two go in there. And you can’t shoot a series in it. Just too tight.
Gives hope: Not necessarily for now. However, Putin will have a hard time with Luisa.
You have to look: In the case of an acute lack of humor and difficulty falling asleep. Helps against both.
Runs on: ZDFneo
What is it about: About Sofie Passmann. Actually about Nola, who plays Sofie Passmann. But that can’t be completely separated, because “Damaged Goods” is, so to speak, the incarnation of the Sofie Passmann principle. A babbled podcast as a series that might not have existed if “Fat
How does it look: Very colorful, very smooth. “Damaged Goods” carries its budget pretty much in front of it. Which doesn’t necessarily add to the charm and credibility of the eight-parter. You roll off like that. But that’s how it is with the whole series.
Best scene: Nola and her friends play a truth game where everyone has to confess something. There are noodles and cheap white wine. And Nola says: “I thought up until a few days ago that the difficult thing in life is these weird adult things – paying for this apartment, paying for insurance, pensions. Now I feel like the hard part in life is daring to have a lifelong dream and then managing not to freak out when it doesn’t come true. How fucking megalomaniac do you have to be to have a lifetime dream as a millennial in this weird world. The easy part is that I don’t have a career anymore, the hard part is that it’s obviously perfectly normal to have no idea who you are when you don’t have a career anymore.
Who is this for: Unfortunately, it is not revealed even after eight episodes.
Gives hope: That podcasters are capable of learning. On the fact that pasta and red wine actually help against everything. It just occurred to us: is there already a twenty-something-until-the-late-thirties series cookbook? It has to. “Pasta Variations à la ‘Damaged Goods'”. “Passmann’s Pasta”. Should be able to market it.
You have to look: If you have nothing else to do. Or difficulty falling asleep. Or “fat
Runs on: Amazon Prime
What is it about: About Jaksch. Jaksch is in his mid-thirties and does something with theater. He came to Munich from the provinces. And there he bohèmt to himself. A charmer that everyone loves, which he can’t even imagine. Friends run to him, women run to him. It all gets to be too much for him pretty quickly. For example, when his new girlfriend wants to make him friends with her husband, he gets a project at the theater and he doesn’t know if he even wants that – that with the girlfriend and that with the play, because that’s all so much of his life costs, which is also somehow limited, but which he doesn’t know what to do with. Then all of a sudden he doesn’t want anything anymore. Jaksch, the millennial Bartleby meanders, we meander with two seasons long. And would a third one do it too.
What does it look like: “Fat
Best scene: Jaksch wants his assistant director, who follows the real-life and in “Fett
Who is this for: For everyone. “Fat
Makes hope: Somehow yes. Jaksch and his family will never take a wrong turn because they simply don’t have the energy to change lanes abruptly. They’ll get older, maybe they’ll never grow up. But “fat
Must see: Absolutely. Not only because there is nowhere else where you can see what it’s like to be thirty and a get through and a corner runner in the labyrinth of life. Because you can see here how little effort good television requires, how little money. How deep is the surface of Generation Y or Z, the Millennials. Because this glorious contemporary clowning is melancholy hilarity. Because afterwards you need band-aids everywhere.
Runs on: ZDFneo
All not so bad. Thirties will grow with their tasks. They’ll make it through. They always find something. That’s what they learned. And as whizzy as they make you spend days in front of the TV with them, you just have to like them.
