In autumn, Heike Makatsch is supposed to crime scene– Inspector “Ellen Berlinger” hunt down criminals one last time. Then Südwestrundfunk stopped working with the actress and her investigative team in Mainz.
The reason given by SWR program director Clemens Bratzler is inflation and noticeable cost increases. “In addition, we have to reallocate money as part of our digital conversion in order to be able to realize more series for the ARD media library.” The other three crime scene-Rows of the SWR remain. The SWR does not comment on why the investigators from Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart and the Black Forest are allowed to stay.
Makatsch started as a special investigator in 2016, instead of having a permanent presence, the episodes with her character Ellen Berlinger should be something special. However, they then became so rare that one could almost have the impression that SWR had forgotten Berlinger itself in the meantime: After the start of the episode in 2016, there were only three more episodes so far, in 2018, 2021 and 2022. SWR took particular care of Ellen Berlinger rather not. After the first episode in Freiburg, the other cases then played in Mainz. her last crime scene titled “Out of the Dark” will be broadcast on the first in the fall. Sebastian Blomberg, who was Berlinger’s wonderfully inscrutable co-investigator Martin Rascher in the last three cases, is no longer there and for his leading role in the historical miniseries Bonn – Old friends, new enemies ARD has just been nominated for the German Acting Award 2023.