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katherine_b at 04:48pm on 28/01/2005
katherine_b at 04:48pm on 28/01/2005Okay, two programs I watched last night. One was the first real episode of The Elephant, last week's being something of an introductory telemovie.
I really enjoyed it! (Surprised? I didn't think so.) I was worried that being only 45 minutes long, it would be too short, and it did feel very short, as SBS has no ad breaks. Still, there was the same sense of tension and action as last week. I did guess early on where it was going, but the characters still kept me interested to see how they would discover the truth.
There were a number of changes from last week: Andreas Zier was a full member of the team, the storyline meant that Julia Gerling was somewhat marginalised and Frau Dr. Kruger was a lot nicer. On the other hand, the pathology expert was slightly snappier, but pretty good for all that.
The premise of this episode (Die Leiche im Keller): Steiner nearly runs over an elderly lady, Monika Hepp, (accidentally!) who has dementia, and when they take her back to her nursing home, she mentions hitting a man who died. The team look into the death of her husband, but this was completely unrelated. However they do find that a fire took place at a business where she used to work and a man was killed - Fred Zilges, who used to own in. The caretaker, Heidrun Schöbs, was indicted and served time for the death, which was classified as accidental homicide. However, based on Frau Hepp's comments, Steiner and his team begin to investigate the case.
Andreas Zier is attracted to Sabine, Frau Hepp's granddaughter, who works at the same hairdressing salon that her grandmother used to own, which is now run by Sabine's mother, Bettina Koschinski. Bettina is very determined not to allow Steiner and his team to talk to her mother, an attitude that seems even more suspicious when it appears that Fred Zilges may have been knocked out. An old trophy is found that have his blood on it, but what is a trophy doing in the basement of a hairdressing salon? Frau Schöbs vigorously denies hitting him and Steiner guesses that Fred was hit elsewhere, but not hard enough to kill him. His body was taken to the cellar, which was set on fire to hide the crime.
In the end, Steiner takes Frau Hepp back to the salon. She wanders around, having flashbacks at the sight of various pieces of equipment and certain rooms (such as the basement itself). In the end, she leads Steiner up to her old apartment, where Sabine now lives. They enter the appartment and then the bedroom, only to find Andreas and Sabine in bed together (much to Andreas' humiliation! That was a truly classic moment!!!). Frau Hepp remembers seeing someone hit Fred - but she didn't do it.
So who did that leave? Frau Hepp's husband was overseas and her son-in-law claims that he and Bettina were together in the bar - but we have already seen Bettina thank her husband, Ulrich, for lying to the police about her whereabouts on the night of the fire. Steiner guesses that Bettina was the one who killed Fred - because Fred was having an affair with both mother and daugther, and was in fact Sabine's real father. (Bettina and Ulrich were married very suddenly, not long after the fire.)
The end of the episode was the great bit. Sabine went to visit her grandmother, and Frau Hepp gives her a medallion, which she tells Sabine belonged to Sabine's father - it is the same medallion we have seen Fred wearing in a photo included in the file about the fire! The gloriously knowing look on Frau Hepp's face makes the viewer wonder just how much she knew what she was doing...
My only complaint is that SBS is not showing the episodes in order - this is the eighth episode of nine, and as there are flashbacks to Steiner's wife, whose death was examined in last week's episode. I hope there isn't too much progress to that story-line if early episodes don't touch on it so much. I like continuity!
I told you I watched two programs. The other was about Auschwitz, yesterday being the 60th anniversary of the liberation and all. I should have guessed (in fact, I sort of did guess) what kind of show it would be. It was all about whether the Allies should have bombed the camp or not.
Now, for more than one reason, these shows annoy me (and I've seen several of this genre). The main objection I have is a technical one. Strategic aerial bombardment was simply not possible 60 years ago. Heck, they can't even get it right all the time now! And they would have been aiming for buildings the size of two tennis courts, at least one of which was built partly underground. Just imagine the uproar if they had killed thousands of Jews in the camp. All right, a number of survivors said they would have happily died thanks to Allied bombing, but how were the Allies supposed to know this? Through psychic powers? Come on!
Thank goodness for Richard Overy! I already like him as an historian, so it was great to hear him taking my side, asking how it was possible for planes to fly across France, Germany and Poland to reach their destinations, flying over the Alps, being attacked by the Germans from the ground, drop their bombs on the right place and then fly back.
Of course, there was still an idiot who insisted they should have done it. After all, in his words, it might have made the Germans stop the gassing. Might. Umm... okay. Incidentally, when the Allies bombed the nearby I.G. Farben factory, bombs accidentally fell on the Auschwitz camp (what did I say before about strategic aerial boming?), killing 40 prisoners and 15 guards. What affect did this have on the gassing.
None.
So yeah, I'm sure bombing the camp, no doubt killing most of the prisoners and kicking up a major international stink, would really have worked.
I honestly don't know why the Americans and British are always the ones who are blamed for not doing anything to the concentration camps. The death camps were all in Eastern Europe. Why aren't the Russians told off for doing nothing? After all, at the time, they were our allies. Did we look at what happened later and figure out that such bad guys couldn't possibly do anything positive?
*snort*
I really enjoyed it! (Surprised? I didn't think so.) I was worried that being only 45 minutes long, it would be too short, and it did feel very short, as SBS has no ad breaks. Still, there was the same sense of tension and action as last week. I did guess early on where it was going, but the characters still kept me interested to see how they would discover the truth.
There were a number of changes from last week: Andreas Zier was a full member of the team, the storyline meant that Julia Gerling was somewhat marginalised and Frau Dr. Kruger was a lot nicer. On the other hand, the pathology expert was slightly snappier, but pretty good for all that.
The premise of this episode (Die Leiche im Keller): Steiner nearly runs over an elderly lady, Monika Hepp, (accidentally!) who has dementia, and when they take her back to her nursing home, she mentions hitting a man who died. The team look into the death of her husband, but this was completely unrelated. However they do find that a fire took place at a business where she used to work and a man was killed - Fred Zilges, who used to own in. The caretaker, Heidrun Schöbs, was indicted and served time for the death, which was classified as accidental homicide. However, based on Frau Hepp's comments, Steiner and his team begin to investigate the case.
Andreas Zier is attracted to Sabine, Frau Hepp's granddaughter, who works at the same hairdressing salon that her grandmother used to own, which is now run by Sabine's mother, Bettina Koschinski. Bettina is very determined not to allow Steiner and his team to talk to her mother, an attitude that seems even more suspicious when it appears that Fred Zilges may have been knocked out. An old trophy is found that have his blood on it, but what is a trophy doing in the basement of a hairdressing salon? Frau Schöbs vigorously denies hitting him and Steiner guesses that Fred was hit elsewhere, but not hard enough to kill him. His body was taken to the cellar, which was set on fire to hide the crime.
In the end, Steiner takes Frau Hepp back to the salon. She wanders around, having flashbacks at the sight of various pieces of equipment and certain rooms (such as the basement itself). In the end, she leads Steiner up to her old apartment, where Sabine now lives. They enter the appartment and then the bedroom, only to find Andreas and Sabine in bed together (much to Andreas' humiliation! That was a truly classic moment!!!). Frau Hepp remembers seeing someone hit Fred - but she didn't do it.
So who did that leave? Frau Hepp's husband was overseas and her son-in-law claims that he and Bettina were together in the bar - but we have already seen Bettina thank her husband, Ulrich, for lying to the police about her whereabouts on the night of the fire. Steiner guesses that Bettina was the one who killed Fred - because Fred was having an affair with both mother and daugther, and was in fact Sabine's real father. (Bettina and Ulrich were married very suddenly, not long after the fire.)
The end of the episode was the great bit. Sabine went to visit her grandmother, and Frau Hepp gives her a medallion, which she tells Sabine belonged to Sabine's father - it is the same medallion we have seen Fred wearing in a photo included in the file about the fire! The gloriously knowing look on Frau Hepp's face makes the viewer wonder just how much she knew what she was doing...
My only complaint is that SBS is not showing the episodes in order - this is the eighth episode of nine, and as there are flashbacks to Steiner's wife, whose death was examined in last week's episode. I hope there isn't too much progress to that story-line if early episodes don't touch on it so much. I like continuity!
I told you I watched two programs. The other was about Auschwitz, yesterday being the 60th anniversary of the liberation and all. I should have guessed (in fact, I sort of did guess) what kind of show it would be. It was all about whether the Allies should have bombed the camp or not.
Now, for more than one reason, these shows annoy me (and I've seen several of this genre). The main objection I have is a technical one. Strategic aerial bombardment was simply not possible 60 years ago. Heck, they can't even get it right all the time now! And they would have been aiming for buildings the size of two tennis courts, at least one of which was built partly underground. Just imagine the uproar if they had killed thousands of Jews in the camp. All right, a number of survivors said they would have happily died thanks to Allied bombing, but how were the Allies supposed to know this? Through psychic powers? Come on!
Thank goodness for Richard Overy! I already like him as an historian, so it was great to hear him taking my side, asking how it was possible for planes to fly across France, Germany and Poland to reach their destinations, flying over the Alps, being attacked by the Germans from the ground, drop their bombs on the right place and then fly back.
Of course, there was still an idiot who insisted they should have done it. After all, in his words, it might have made the Germans stop the gassing. Might. Umm... okay. Incidentally, when the Allies bombed the nearby I.G. Farben factory, bombs accidentally fell on the Auschwitz camp (what did I say before about strategic aerial boming?), killing 40 prisoners and 15 guards. What affect did this have on the gassing.
None.
So yeah, I'm sure bombing the camp, no doubt killing most of the prisoners and kicking up a major international stink, would really have worked.
I honestly don't know why the Americans and British are always the ones who are blamed for not doing anything to the concentration camps. The death camps were all in Eastern Europe. Why aren't the Russians told off for doing nothing? After all, at the time, they were our allies. Did we look at what happened later and figure out that such bad guys couldn't possibly do anything positive?
*snort*
energetic