“I’m a person who likes to go when it’s most beautiful,” writes Verena Altenberger on Twitter, “I’m moving on and I’m looking for new challenges.” The Austrian actress surprisingly rises Munich police call 110 and says goodbye “quiet Servus and Kisses Baba”. As a fan of the series, you hear that a bit duped: Don’t walk away when it’s the most beautiful! The 34-year-old had been in action as investigator Elisabeth “Bessie” Eyckhoff for just five episodes since 2019. A sixth, last case with her (working title: paranoia) is scheduled to be shot in the fall and aired in the spring of 2023. That’s it. It could have been even better with this actress in this role. Her character was far from being “told,” as other series farewells like to say. On the contrary: Bessie Eyckhoff was just beginning to take shape as a character. You know she’s empathetic, but next to nothing is known about Bessie’s personal life.
Bayerischer Rundfunk seems no less surprised than the viewers
Altenberger’s exit also seems to have come as a surprise to the responsible Bavarian broadcaster. One regrets her departure very much, it is said on the part of the broadcaster. However, he is not alone with this sudden personnel problem. Also the Brandenburger police call, responsible for the RBB, loses its main investigator: Lucas Gregorowicz, since 2015 as chief inspector Adam Raczek for the German-Polish murder commission in the border town of Swiecko, has also announced his departure from the ARD crime series. Apparently he’s leaving of his own accord.
The consequence Police call 110: abyss, which was filmed this spring, will be his 13th and final by the end of the year. Well so what. Where the often impetuous Adam Raczek, a kind of Polish Schimanski, a popular figure despite his increasing problem with pills, has only just gotten a new colleague to work with him. Until 2020 he formed a Polish-German investigator duo with Olga Lenski (Maria Simon). This year he was assigned the queer Vincent Ross, played by the delightful André Kaczmarczyk, who debuted in a skirt and kohl. Hopefully that wasn’t the problem?
However. The fluctuation at police call – and most recently also in the crime scene-Commissariats, see for example the farewell to Anna Schudt or Meret Becker – is amazing. And unfortunate. In the case of Verena Altenberger, because she hadn’t even really grown into the character yet, but as an exceptional phenomenon in the Sunday evening crime business, she let it shine in every episode, always a bit different and differently beautiful, initially as a patrol officer and chief inspector, finally self-confident with a short haircut. Her Bessie Eyckhoff is often more a psychologist than a criminal, a woman with so much warmth, openness and affection, with such a clear and human view that one would have liked to have accompanied her for longer. Altenberger will not be lost as an actress (from next week on she is again the paramour in the Salzburg “Jedermann”). You probably have to worry about that police call.