Press review
ProSieben show
Time warp horror or a successful comeback? This is how the critics see “TV Total”
Sebastian Pufpaff has taken over the moderation of “TV total”
© ProSieben / Willi Weber
The audience’s vote was clear: the restart of “TV Total” gave the broadcaster a dream rate. The mood of the critics was less clear.
“‘TV Total’ is back. Without Stefan Raab in front of the camera, but with the smart bob. Celebrated with these enthusiastic words Ingo Scheel the comeback of “TV Total” stern.de.
On Wednesday evening, the popular program returned to the screen after a break of almost six years. And it met with enormous audience interest: Almost three million people tuned into ProSieben at prime time at 8:15 p.m. In the advertising-relevant target group of 14 to 49 year olds, the market share was 27.2 percent – an outstanding figure for the private broadcaster. But how did the show go down with the other critics?
Caught in the time warp
Klaus Raab is not very enthusiastic “Zeit-Online”. In terms of structure, atmosphere and intellectual altitude, the new “TV Total” is basically the same as the old one and is ProSieben’s contribution to the German retro television entertainment trend. But it doesn’t really fit into today’s world: “Today, however, ‘TV Total’ just looks a bit old in a media landscape where nobody waits for someone to produce even more small TV snippets.” The crucial question is: “Why do all this again now?”
A point of view that Christian Buß also shares on “Spiegel-Online” shares: There were good moments that fed the hope “that the retro show under Pufpaff could reach contemporary satirical greatness”. But overall, the format is too caught up in the time loop: “Ten minutes ‘Wetten, dass ..?’ at the beginning and ten minutes ‘Wetten, dass ..?’ in the end, that was just too much of the time warp horror with the barely 45 minutes net airtime of ‘TV Total’. “
“A New ‘TV Total’ Era”
Alexander Krei assesses the format completely differently “dwdl.de” even dreams of “a new ‘TV total’ ‘era”. The new moderator Sebastian Pufpaff in particular receives praise: “He doesn’t seem to care how big the footsteps of his predecessor are. With a routine and his own style, he manages to mentally tick off the comparison with Stefan Raab within a few minutes.” He said he made the classic “straight to his show without any lead time”.
Markus Ehrenberg is a little undecided “Tagesspiegel.de”. The comeback leaves open whether Sebastian Pufpaff can jump out of the shadow of Stefan Raab. Trend after the first broadcast: rather no. “Somehow, continuous zapping is no longer as fun and full-length as it was in 2015.”
The last word does not seem to have been spoken in the debate. But the start has already been successful – at least that’s how the audience sees it.