Reviews

Newbie lawyer Junko Aoto (Erika Todo) lands a job at top Tokyo law firm Friedman & Serizawa, working as the assistant to founding partner Gou Serizawa (Koichi Sato) no less. Later that same day she is bowing in effusive thanks to the enigmatic Kei Enomoto (Satoshi Ono), a hi-tech locksmith working for Tokyo Total Security, who has just freed her boss from an airtight bank fault... into which, an hour or so earlier, she had inadvertently locked him.

Thus the viewer is in at the beginning of the association of the three protagonists who form the unlikely team that will investigate a series of 'locked room' murders for the duration of this entertaining series of mysteries with comedic elements.

Each episode essentially consists of a client approaching Serizawa or Aoto with a locked room murder mystery that the police have either deemed to be suicide or misadventure. At first Serizawa's business instinct is to dismiss the requests as non-profitable but he is always overruled by Aoto's youthful enthusiasm and conscience and, indeed, his own curiosity and ennui with his professional life. As the series progresses and the cases attain a certain celebrity, the vain Serizawa becomes caught up in his burgeoning media status as the 'locked room lawyer' and ends up outstripping Aoto in his eagerness to take the cases.

In reality, it is the self-effacing technician Enomoto who actually figures out the facts of each case and supplies the evidence that allows Aoto to construct a case against the true culprits and Serizawa to further his own standing and that of his firm.

Shows with this kind of fixed premise can seem a little formulaic (especially when binge-watched) but, like (e.g.) the BBC's Jonathan Creek, it's the variety and ingenuity of the actual mysteries that engage the viewers' attention. In addition, the comic interaction of the vain and often hypocritical Serizawa (not dissimilar to Creek's Adam Klaus), the anxious and excitable Aoto and the utterly deadpan boffin-like Enomoto makes for a very diverting hour's viewing.

As the series draws to a close, Enomoto's back story emerges and paves the way for a follow up feature length special, broadcast a couple of years after the series, in which a few loose ends are tidied up.

Quick Japanese lesson as, AFAIK, there's not been a formal English title for this ultra-obscure series: Owakon is an abbreviation of 'owatta konatento' which means out-of-fashion content, 'owatta' being a past tense of 'owaru' meaning 'to end' and 'konatento' meaning media content, i.e. video, music, printed or other form of entertainment. The term is generally used as a sort of jokey put down for media trends that turned out to have a rather shorter shelf life than hoped for.

A notable example of an eponymically predictive title - given the dearth of evidence that it ever existed just four years after it was broadcast - this short series from NHK is actually rather a neat little attempt at telling the story of a tiny independent production company, serving multiple networks and clinging to existence in the rapidly changing landscape of 21st century Japanese media.

Chocolate TV is the company in question, employing just twenty staff, it's fate depends greatly on the whims of its mercurial president, Genjiro Aramaki, played, believe it or not, by the great Sonny Chiba. Chiba clearly relishes a role much removed from his martial arts origins and plays the ex-variety show producer Aramaki as a rogueish, larger-than-life, one-time industry mover-and-shaker who might have seen better days but who isn't going to let his career nor his company go down without a fight.

The tone is generally comic, with some serious elements. Each episode begins with a minute long sequence, underpinned with a few bars of what sounds like US3's Cantaloop, in which president Aramaki is presented with some viewer feedback by his secretary (while he scoffs chocolates from a seemingly endless supply) to which he typically responds with an earthy or sardonic drop of wisdom.

The story then typically continues with the assignment of some or other challenging task to one of Owakon TV's producers or directors and the remainder of the episode follows their struggles to resolve it, be it a truculent star, falling ratings or a seemingly unworkable concept for a new show. In most cases staff members band together and despite, or because of, president Aramaki's impulsive interventions, generally save the day.

Somewhat aptly given its subject matter, there's nothing massively memorable about this short series but it's very enjoyable nonetheless and the half hour episodes lend themselves well to the end of evening filler slot. There's also a lot of fun to be had watching Sonny Chiba chew the scenery.

Mildly alien to Western sensibilities, the Japanese 'idol' culture is predicated on notions of youthful innocence, 'cuteness' and, importantly, an unblemished character that is intended to serve as a role model for Japanese youth.

TV Taiyo have hurriedly had to find a replacement weather girl for their idol fronted morning show 'Morning Z' as their current one is about to be engulfed in an image tarnishing scandal. Enter Haruko Abe (pron. 'ah-bey', like the former Japanese PM). The serious and somewhat graceless Abe (played by Emi Takei), as the TV Taiyo production team quickly find out, is the very opposite of the cutesy idol they thought they were getting. Instead she is a genius weather forecaster who attained her meteorologist's license at the age of eleven and who eschews meteorological agency data in favour of standing outside and 'feeling' the conditions herself.

Meanwhile, detective Aoki has just sat down to share a coffee with his old friend Mikumo, a forensic pathologist with a 'weather girl' fixation. Mikumo is still dazed by the appearance of Morning Z's new weather girl who has made such an impression on him that he is replaying that morning's clip. Looking over Mikumo's shoulder, Aoki recognizes Abe as the rain cape clad girl who intervened during the previous night's arrest of a suspected arsonist, insisting that the suspect was innocent (it turned out to be ball lightning). Thus a connection is made between the police and weather girl Abe, leading to her involvement in the series of investigations that make up the narrative of this witty and well-honed mystery series

So how many different crimes can there be which can be solved with the help of weather related expertise? A fair number it turns out, especially if you lump in things like gas clouds from illegally dumped rubbish and rivers flowing backwards due to unusual atmospheric conditions. Even so, it's a shortish series of only nine episodes so the writers didn't have to overtax themselves - nor does it outstay its welcome.

Things I enjoyed about 'The Weather Girl Knows':

• Emi Takei's deadpan yet charismatic take on Haruko Abe (a complete contrast to the bubbly and excitable characters she often plays); think Saga Norén, but with emotional intelligence
• The observational satire of life behind the scenes in an 'idol' fronted daytime magazine programme and the associated 'idol' fan culture
• The ingenious use of meteorological phenomena as plot devices - even if there was some stretching of credibility now and then
• Some great supporting players, notably comedian Kuranosuke Sasaki as the weather girl obsessed pathologist and Mitsu Dan as the coquettish, geisha-like bar owner.

'Queen' is a diverting drama set in the world of public relations - the Queen of the title being a PR team lead. The general setup is reminiscent of the BBC's 'Absolute Power', although in this case the players belong to the crisis management team of a law firm rather than dedicated PR gurus.

Initially, the plot twists often play out in a similar way to many dramas involving 'expert heroes' with Yuko Takeuchi's PR Queen leaving the viewer (and most of the other characters) second or third guessing the means by which victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat with regard to whichever personal or commercial scandal is the subject of the current episode. Towards the end of the series, however, the lightness of touch departs and a complex backstory about politics and corruption comes to the fore, concluding in a dramatic public enquiry which occupies most of the final episode.

The series sports a great cast, with Yuko Takeuchi and Yuki Saito reunited from the previous year's 'Miss Sherlock' and several other top players including comedian Bakarhythm as an entertainingly played eccentric, savoury snack-obsessed law practice boss.

The theme tune is an unremarkable J-Pop track but the jazz-funk incidental music from 'Soil & Pimp Sessions' is excellent.

Back in Europe in the 1960s, if a key agent resigned, you abduct them and imprison them in a picturesque village while trying to tease out their inner motives. In Japan in the 2010s, you let them settle down as a dutiful wife in an upmarket suburb... or do you?

Ex-secret agent Nami Isayama, a fragment of whose past life as a top operative we glimpse in the action opening scenes of the first episode, is a devoted housewife living a dull life in a select residential area where her days consist of cleaning, cooking (running gag: not very well) and spending time with her nextdoor neighbours, Yuri and Kyoko. Afternoons are often spent attending local classes in anything from flower arranging and cooking to yoga and how-to-wear-a-kimono lessons.

The women-who-lunch classes are a useful dramatic device for the hyper-perceptive Nami to uncover crimes and injustices, e.g. wife-beating, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion etc, which would otherwise remain undetected and onto which she can bring to bear her formidable retributive skills. As Nami has no wish for her past life to be revealed, she has to go about her activities in the utmost secrecy and this adds to the challenge of some of the cases that she takes on.

Nami even has to keep her clandestine past hidden from Yuri and Kyoko with whom she evolves an ever closer relationship during the course of the series. This results in Nami having to develop an ever more complex edifice of cover stories to explain certain skills that come to light, e.g. she once worked as a boxing instructor, as a travel agent, in a tax office etc.

As the series progresses we are fed snippets from Nami's backstory at the beginning of each episode and so learn more about how she became an agent. Ultimately Nami's past catches up with her and the series reaches an open-ended conclusion, the implications of which are explored in a spin-off feature length special released three years after this series.

Caution, Hazardous Wife is a well-made and upbeat thriller with both comic and serious threads running through it. The sexual politics aren't always easy to judge from a European point of view but, by setting the drama in a conventional middle-class milieu, the writer is able to satirise a relatively universal form of gender stereotyping as well as highlight some typical deficiencies in Japanese men's expectations around marriage.

Nami Isayama is played by Haruka Ayase who made her breakthrough back in 2008 with a starring role as the eponymous lead in Cyborg She (2008) for which she learned Karate, a skill which she regularly demonstrates throughout this entertaining series.

As can be deduced from a couple of previous reviews, this series is not recommended for Incels.

"It's the story about a young screenwriter who is the sport of irresponsible people nowhere in Hokkaido. It's fiction."

... so say the title sequence subtitles in ever so slightly odd English which nevertheless captures the setup of the show very succinctly.

Jun Takeyama, a disillusioned scriptwriter, decides to escape the frustrations of Tokyo by travelling to the snowy wastes of Hokkaido. A blizzard forces the cancellation of his bus service, leaving him marooned in an isolated village. After failing to find accommodation, he tries the village bar where he unexpectedly finds himself the centre of "Welcome Home, Jun!" festivities, only he's never been to the village before nor ever met the man who claims to be his father.

The next morning Takeyama wakes up in the weird treehouse-like building on the edge of town that serves as the base of the local handyman agency, having slept the night on a sofa. He's unable to remember much from the night before and has lost his both his smartphone and wallet. Thus the setup for the coming episodes is established. Jun is effectively trapped in the nameless village until he can track down his things, working in the meantime alongside his 'father' Umemoto, for Matsui, the founder of the handyman agency, in order to make ends meet.

Much of the action in each episode takes place in the village bar at the end of the working day (typically spent clearing snow), where there is always a carnival atmosphere to be seen playing out in the background while the lead characters pontificate on life, the universe and how to find Tekayama's phone and wallet.

I'm not sure whether to describe Unhandy Handymen as a sitcom or a comedy drama. There's very definitely a situation but there's also a distinct narrative progression, during which key characters reveal themselves and their back stories to the viewer and each other.

Either way, it's a fun watch which serves up a lot of laughs, both straight and absurd, insights into Japanese culture, a take on the regional peculiarities of the nation's northern island and, if all that wasn't enough, a genuine world record. Highly recommended.

A 14-year-old girl with exceptional hearing and a talent for mimicry and vocal impersonation earns pocket money by working part time on a sex chat line from which she learns all there is to know about men's desires and how to manipulate them. Hmmm... that's surely a bit dodgy for a family entertainment series, even in Japan?

Well, luckily the Nippon Television comedy thriller series from 2007 is only loosely based on the manga series, the opening premise of which is described above. In NTV's cleaned up adaptation, Niko Hayashi aka 'Sexy Voice' is still 14-years-old, a skilled mimic and in possession of a wisdom beyond her years, but that maturity is derived from an 'Adrian Mole' style contemplation of the absurdities of the adult world around her, including her parents' failing marriage, rather than by dealing with the fantasies of hentai salarymen.

Iichiro Sudo, aka 'Robo', on the other hand, remains very much the toy robot obsessed, mid-twenty-year-old otaku character that first saw the light of day in the manga series, with perhaps a little less hipster and a little more social responsibility about him. In the TV series, Sudo takes over the call centre role, but now as a social chat line / citizen's advice contact.

This unlikely pair hook up after Niko witnesses a fight and calls the local chatline for advice, putting on her older sister's voice to avoid not being taken seriously by sounding too young. The duo then proceed to get involved in the life story of a very unusual assassin who they call 'Three Days' because that's the length of his memory. This duly brings them into the orbit of a mysterious and seemingly somewhat shady lady antique shop owner (played by glamorous 70-something and scandal sheet favourite Ruriko Asaoka) who becomes the catalyst for subsequent storylines by assigning them various colourful and not wholly safe missions.

One highlight was the two-parter about three nurses who grant dying patients their last wishes, one of which happens to be (another) assassination attempt on the antique shop owner (this episode guest starred top character actresses Satomi Kobayashi and Masako Motai who have worked together in loads of stuff, including riceball-restaurant-in-Helsinki comedy drama feature Kamome Diner, which also starred Hairi Katagiri, who plays Niko's disfunctional mum).

I enjoyed Sexy Voice and Robo as much as other comedy detective thrillers of a similar vein (e.g. Trick, DoS Deka). While the humour might sometimes seem weak and obvious by British standards there's a good-heartedness to the whole thing that makes for good pick-you-up TV, despite the near-the-knuckle nature of some of the stories. Thanks to solid writing, the disparate characters work well together and there's a surprising amount of plot density, unexpected twists and a tendency for innocent actions to have comic repercussions, sometimes several episodes later.

Suzuka Ohgo, fourteen at the time, i.e. the same age as the character she plays, is particularly impressive and manages to avoid western style over-reaction to the events that unfold around her, alternately conveying affection and frustration at her family's and Robo's actions with a subtlety of expression that belies her youth.

Note: Episode 7, 'Mr. Hamburger', was pulled from transmission as it was thought it would remind viewers of a restaurant hostage crisis that had occurred in the Aichi Prefecture shortly before its intended broadcast date.

A young woman counts her tips after busking with her cello in a busy Tokyo square and is approached by an elderly lady who offers her ¥10000 to get to know the woman with a violin in a photograph that she holds up. The woman in the photograph waits in the pouring rain for a minibus that collects her and takes her to a villa in the resort town of Karuizawa. On the way the driver, who is also revealed to be a musician, stops to collect a young man standing by the roadside and, at the villa, the cellist is found sleeping under a table.

This somewhat unconventional introduction to the four characters who form the string quartet alluded to in the title of the series, is a harbinger of the quirky dialogue and convoluted plot that is to follow in this unusual comedy of manners in which very little is what it initially seems.

Quartet is actually a brilliant study of how four disparate characters with a common purpose, i.e. to become a successful string quartet, learn to overcome their differences and reveal their secrets to become a harmonious and emotionally interdependent little group. So much so that it begins to seem that life as an albeit celibate group of four seems to trounce hands down the dull conventionality of being in a couple.

Unexpected events do their best to unsettle the group's composure and one serious revelation from the past leads to one of the group running away to deepest Tokyo, only for the other three to track them down, rally round and bring them back to the villa (a bequest from the grandfather of the second violinist, who keeps hold of it despite pressure from the rest of his family to sell).

As with a lot of J-drama, this show avoids the glossy, over-produced quality of equivalent western productions, lending it an easy spontaneity. I don't know if the actors were selected for their familiarity with stringed instruments but they are entirely convincing in their miming. Another pleasure is the witty, philosophical and sometimes absurdist conversations around the dinner table which occur on a regular basis.

'Quartet' is an intelligent and insightful comedy of manners, very different in character from (e.g.) Sakamoto's intense and melancholic 'Still, Life Goes On' and entertaining enough to engender withdrawal symptoms in this viewer after reaching the end.

This is currently the top of my list of recommendations for those who enjoy quirky, slice-of-life drama and would like to experience the best of what Japanese TV currently has to offer in that regard.

Yes, she has a strict looking bobbed hairstyle, strides around in black clothes and calf length boots and wields a (physically impossible) telescopic bullwhip with which she apprehends perps, Indiana Jones style but... despite the title, this is a decidely non-sleazy comedy cop show which serves up a decent amount of fun, especially if you're already familiar with the particularly Japanese take on goofball comedy.

Sergeant Kuroi Maya (Mikako Tabe) somehow parachutes into the Violent Crimes Investigation Section of Kawasaki Aozora Police Station for reasons which are never quite explained but presumably relate to her (unseen) father's position as the Deputy Police Commissioner. Nepotism also seems to account for her ability to operate on a maverick basis much to the frustration of her boss Inspector Shirokane Fujiko, the other female lead.

The series kicks off with a stakeout in which a crazed otaku is threatening to kill a shop assistant because she sold the last of some kind of collector's anime character doll. The entire Violent Crimes team are trying to persuade him to give up when in strides Kuroi, complete with the limited edition doll which she has managed to obtain from somewhere. Holding the doll in front of her face, she then proceeds, ventriloquist style, to first befriend and then belittle the perp in front of everyone present until, completely brow-beaten, he gives up.

This is basically Kuroi's MO. She became a 'sadistic' detective because she wants to persecute criminals at a decidely personal level. However, her misanthropic behaviour is basically directed at everyone around her, including the unfortunate constable-on-the-beat, Shusuke Daikanyama, who she encounters on her second case and then drafts in to the department as her sidekick, without the consent of her boss.

One of Kuroi's unique eccentricities (see earlier posts re. cops and eccentricities) is to have the hapless Shusuke spin her round on a children's roundabout while she contemplates the facts of the case, Sherlock-violin style. There's also Kuroi's oft repeated catchphrase 'Bakajanaino?' which means, 'Are you stupid?' and which gets to be addressed to just about everyone in the show at one time or another.

To complete the required roster of quirky cop show characterisation tropes, there's a regular underworld informer who appears in ever more outlandish disguises as the series progresses, and a crossdressing forensic pathologist played by singer (and one-time denizen of London) Mitz Mangrove.

It probably helps to have some comedy slice-of-life and/or thriller anime or J-dorama under your belt to get the best out of the slightly corny humour that pervades this series. Certainly, seasoned anime viewers will recognise the flustered, awkward male vs. ice-cool, intelligent female trope that characterises the behaviour of the show's regular team members.

This is not high art TV drama but it is entertaining enough. One-off series like these are churned out by the hundred, as far as I can make out. More often than not they are based on a manga series, visual novel or, as is the case here, a conventional novel. I think their very ephemerality is part of the appeal. It's an appeal that is almost addictive insofar as you have a sense that there's always going to be something even weirder or wackier out there somewhere which you'd hate to let slip through your grasp.

Thirtysomethings Naomi Oda (Ryoko Hirosue) and Kanako Hattori (Yuki Uchida) have been close friends since college days. Naomi is an aspiring gallery curator who works in the VIP customer department of a large store while Kanako keeps house for her husband, an elite employee at a major bank. Naomi begins to suspect that all is not well with her friend's marriage and eventually Kanako admits that she is regularly beaten by her husband Tatsuko Hattori (Ryuta Sato).

Although not without its dramaturgical flaws, Naomi and Kanako is nevertheless an involving tale of two young women who, constrained by the expectations of middle-class Japanese decorum, come to the conclusion that murder is the only escape from the depredations of a violent husband. The series opens on the actual murder before turning back the clock to introduce the characters, their back stories and the reasons for and planning of the murder - which occurs in its entirety half way through the series. The rest of the series concerns itself, not unexpectedly, with the repercussions and the apparent closing of the net around our plucky pair.

Aside from Kanako's violent husband, Tatsuko, there are three other key characters:

• Chinese businesswoman Akemi Ri (played to larger-than-life perfection by Atsuko Takahato), who's rogue-with-a-heart character is both inadvertent catalyst and protector
• Chinese illegal Rin Ryuko (also played by Ryuta Sato), whose identical appearance to Tatsuko Hattori inspires Naomi to conceive the perfect murder
• Tatsuko's sister Yoko (Yo Yoshida) who becomes suspicious of Naomi and Kanako's involvement in her brother's disappearance.

All in all this was a good quality drama which, though it had its implausible moments, dealt sensibly with the disturbing issue of marital abuse and served up plenty of twists and nail-biting action, particularly towards the end. Slight carps from my side would be a tad too long dwelling on Naomi's and/or Kanako's guilty or anxious reaction shots (at various moments when things looked like they were going wrong) and that lazy directorial cliché of characters turning up unexpectedly at exactly the right/wrong moment (there are ways of making that sort of device look and feel more realistic).

I caught this last week on the German 3rd / regional channel RBB, unaccountably included on a Spanish hotel cable TV service. Unfortunately for me, with a lot of work to do the following day, I couldn't bear to turn it off, so got to bed rather late. Why? Because as most of the other reviewers have noted, it's really rather good. The action just keeps flowing and the entirely watchable cast imbue the whole thing with a decent slickness.

Spanish director Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi captured the emerging glamour/spy zeitgeist with style, underpinned with a workmanlike eye for detail (I forgive him the wrecked car replacements, I'm sure the budget was not over generous). The occasional asides of the Tony Mecenas hero are fine in the context of the time and probably soften the otherwise implausibly super-human aspects of the character. It's a technique already pioneered in similar genres, e.g. Roger Moore's "The Saint".

Mid-sixties Istanbul comes across as very Euro-Mediterranean and serves as an excellent backdrop for most of the action. The plot was a satisfying mix of set pieces (meaning that one felt at home with the genre) and unexpected twists (meaning that there was no way the viewer could foresee the eventual outcome). Like a number of other reviewers, I also found the relatively low profile of Sylva Koscina for much of the action to be a bit of a shame, having fallen for her somewhat after watching the excellent "Deadlier Than The Male" recently.

P.S. Retro-discovering these decently constructed sixties Euro-thrillers, particularly those made totally outside the Anglo-American sphere, has become a real pleasure in recent years.

I bought a copy of this film from the writer/director some months back, having, if I remember correctly, traversed a few IMDb links and read some favourable reviews, including a co-poster's tip about where to get hold of it.

I've always had a fondness for films that focus on personal relationships and carry little in the way of political baggage. When done well, and 'Private Road' is done well, they become quite timeless, so much so that it's sometimes hard to appreciate that this film is now nearly forty years old. On one level the film is a sort of middle class kitchen sink drama, while on another it is a universal tale of a journey into adulthood which starts with passion and goes on to labour under the collective burden of real world responsibilities and the changing nature of friends and family.

I enjoyed the naturalistic handling and Platts-Mills' light touch. The couple and the friends had just enough style to involve, but not so much as to alienate the viewer. The use of the sub-plots of Peter's friends' lives and other, unexpected incidents, to test the maturity of the couple was effective and quality cameos, such as Patricia Cutts' literary agent, gave a certain richness to the texture of the film, without diverting from its main focus.

I watched this mild mannered comedy of manners primarily because the two leads have been working together since the beginning of the 90s as the Munich end of the Tatort franchise and are a familiar in the roles of 'tough but fair but flawed' detectives. Udo Wachtveitl and Miro Nemec turn in competent performances in their respective roles of airline pilot widower and under achieving commercial photographer whose love lives take on a surprisingly interrelated quality after various surprising turns of event. Due to their long standing partnership and the ground they have covered in the last decade and a half, it was always going to be difficult for them to change the dynamic - and, in the end, I guess the director didn't ask them to. Well, so what, I enjoyed it and this is their take on police work anyway, so it would have been hard to change the vibe.

Maybe I'm getting soft, but as a Brit who has worked outside the UK since '93, I've become quite addicted to pleasant German comedies of manners and look on them as a blessed relief from the relentless 'presentation over content everyone in each others faces posturing Hollywood wannabe' contemporary British fare.

(Continuity error: Why don't continuity people apply the same standards to machinery as actor's hairstyles and clothes? E.g. pilot Franolic's plane grows engines on finals, not a big thing but it's so easy to avoid.)

Another eminently watchable, well crafted Tatort from Bavaria Film and the worthy Munich Kommisars played by Messrs. Nemec, Wachtveitl and Fitz. Not outstanding when compared with some of the other Munich Tatorts, but a good solid story where a pharmacist is found murdered and the investigation leads in unexpected directions.

The real pleasure of this Tatort is the appearance together of actors Eva Pflug and Dietmar Schönherr, who played the leads in the cult German sixties sci-fi series 'Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion'. I've not seen this mentioned anywhere else on the Web, but the observant viewer can see a subtly placed homage to that series in the form of a re-run being shown on one of the televisions flickering away in the background of the old people's home where much of the action is set. After all, Bavaria Film made both 'Orion' and 'Nicht jugendfrei', so why not?

I saw this late last night, repeated on 'Das Erste', both parts shown together. It's typical of the well engineered, thoughtful and consistent material regularly churned out by the German public channels. OK, it was never going to become a blockbuster, but I can't help thinking that it's got 'the legs' to become a popular series, so I'm disappointed by the news in the 'Trivia' section that it's not going to be developed.

German film and TV stalwarts Von Thun, Sawatzki and Berkel do an excellent job of bringing to life the characters of three psychoanalysts, each of whom have a different approach to their work and to their own problems. In this two-parter we see them treating a range of 'typical' conditions, in what I suppose are not wholly unconventional, but nevertheless interesting ways.

What really strikes me about this two-part film as 'pilot' is the enormous potential for developing the characters and situations in the course of a full series, e.g.:

The different approaches of the analysts and the way in which these themes can be developed to explore the modern practice of psychoanalysis ,e.g.:

• Fred's somewhat traditional belief that the client has to feel it in the wallet (or at least the Krankheitsversicherung) to get the full effect of the analysis

• Ted's holistic strategies (no end of possibilities here!)

• Helen's transition from psychiatry to psychoanalysis (perhaps the most interesting theme to develop to give the series a bit of an academic undercurrent)

The huge range of themes that can be explored with all the different cases that are presented to the practice - all sorts of opportunity here for social comment etc.

Frau Nitsche and her very un-Nietzschean approach to those around her.

Overall, I can't help thinking that this would work well as series and help offset the preponderance of 'Krimis' as the main series based dramatic output of ARD (not that I've anything against those, I learnt half my German from watching 'Tatort' and 'Polizeiruf 110!').