TV tip
Mystery at its finest: “The nicest people in the world”
Lill (Hannah Schiller) in her children’s room. photo
© Georges Pauli/NDR/ARD/dpa
In this series you shouldn’t trust anybody, no, really nobody. ARD has unleashed a first-class cast of actors on very unfathomable scripts. The result gets under your skin.
The new series “The Nicest People in the World” is like a spiral staircase down into a dark nightmare. Incidentally, this can take place anywhere: even in the middle of a job interview at a food company under the eyes of the HR manager (Fabian Hinrichs).
“The nicest people in the world” is the German answer to mystery and horror series like “Black Mirror”, “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits” – and the result is outstanding television.
The great series only runs at the witching hour
The six short episodes will go online on July 21st. The TV broadcast will follow in the night from July 23rd to 24th. Unfortunately, the ARD obviously does not dare to present such sometimes quite heavy stuff at prime time, at 8:15 p.m. they prefer to show an old Berlin “crime scene”. The marathon for “The nicest people in the world” only starts at 12:05 a.m. – appropriately at the witching hour.
NDR, BR, Degeto and partners have brought together the top guard of the German acting industry together with promising young stars and given them first-class screenplays. To pick three stars: Grimme award winner Silke Bodenbender (“One day we will tell each other everything”) pulls out all the stops and asks the audience whether she is a victim or the epitome of evil.
Fabian Hinrichs (Franken “Tatort”) shines in the role of the cheerful demon. And Stephanie Amarell (“The House of Dreams”) probably nobody wants to experience as an opponent in a job interview. What’s behind it? Little by little, the creators unravel the plot threads in this pandemonium. Tocotronic singer Dirk von Lowtzow not only contributes to the melancholic soundtrack, he also plays along.
The ARD emphasizes: “Unlike in the British streaming series “Black Mirror” – which was a model for the format among other things – no distant future scenarios are conjured up, but current topics are dealt with – in different ways – exciting, entertaining and always unpredictable.” The first season is about the power of imagination, director, author and producer Alexander Adolph and author and co-producer Eva Wehrum announced in a statement: “A few of our heroines and heroines have a lot of it, one or one too little – and that becomes fatal to other people. But sometimes also to our heroines and heroes themselves.”