ZDF series Dr. Nice: This is how it continues in the third season

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This is what happens on “Dr. Nice” after the grand finale

Since the beginning of May, the ZDF season 2 of the heart-movie series “Dr. Nice”. In four episodes of 90 minutes each, the doctor with a hand disability looks after patients in a country doctor’s office in the fictional town of Stöckersand in Schleswig-Holstein. Before that, Dr. Moritz Neiss (played by Patrick Kalupa) was what you would call a star surgeon in demand around the world. After a car accident, however, parts of his right hand remained stiff. The straightforward doctor with a sharp tongue ended up in Stöckersand more by chance. His teenage daughter Lea, who he had not known about for a long time, lives there. Nice was supposed to give his daughter up for adoption at a notary – as a kind of stopover on the way to Sydney, where his stiff hand was to be treated.

Unexpected end of the second season of “Dr. Nice”

The last episode, “Heart Fluttering,” ends surprisingly and dramatically. It seems that Dr. Neiss dies on the operating table in the final scene. In the previous episodes, it seemed as if the surgeon was only just settling into his new life as a country doctor. So why the death throes? Series producer Stefan Raiser told the star on request: “Viewers want to be touched as much as possible. And who knows, maybe viewers didn’t see everything that happened with Nice in the operating room…”

Earlier this year, ZDF announced that a third season would be broadcast next year. Spring 2025 will follow. Stefan Raiser and his production company Dreamtool Entertainment are currently filming the new episodes of the Herzkino series in Flensburg, where a large part of the series is created. Work will continue at other locations near Berlin until mid-November. ZDF has not yet announced exactly when the new episodes will be broadcast next spring.

This is what the new season is about

“More of everything. More sea. More love and laughter. More crying, consolation and reconciliation. More exchanges of blows, more unexpected twists and even more drama.” This is how producer Raiser describes the next season. Specifically: the previously unknown children of Dr. Florian Schmidtke (played by Maximilian Grill), the head doctor of the Förde Clinic and former fellow student of Neiss, play a role in the series for the first time. Charlie (played by Josefine Preuß) and her family, especially her previously unknown brother, are also given a lot of space. Charlie, as Neiss’ confidant and adoptive mother of his daughter, overcomes her period of mourning for her deceased partner and “gives it her all both professionally and privately,” says Raiser. Viewers will also learn more about Dr. Neiss’ deceased mother.

And: In the new six episodes, Dr. Neiss gets a psychiatrist, played by Hannes Jaenicke. “In the course of the third season, he also becomes Neiss’ patient because of a very rare disease,” reveals producer Raiser. According to Raiser, the therapist also turns out to be the ex of Dr. Birol (played by Idil Üner), the colleague of the head doctor at the Förde Clinic. Hannes Jaenicke had to rearrange his schedule especially for the production. “We are very happy that we were able to get him. Hannes is one of the very few stars we have in Germany. He has enormous quality, huge popularity and everyone from 3 to 103 years old knows him,” enthuses Raiser.

Until the new episodes are broadcast, viewers can follow the production of the series on social media such as Instagram: Lead actor Patrick Kalupa shares almost daily in his Stories Impressions from the film set. Stefan Raiser also refers to Social-Media: “After the last episode on Sunday, we will reveal what else was going on at around 9:46 p.m.”

High ratings on TV and in the media library

Since season 1, Dr. Nice has been one of the Sunday evening television favorites. According to the online magazine DWDL, the first season in 2023 reached an average viewership of 5.4 million in the ZDF evening program. The penultimate episode of the second season, “Gebrochene Herzen,” reached 3.71 million last Sunday, or 15.4 percent of the total television audience. To put it into context: The strongest program on Sunday evening was Tatort with 5.66 million viewers and a market share of 23.5 percent. (market share).

According to producer Stefan Raiser, the story of the new country doctor has also been a hit with audiences in the ZDF media library since season 1. In a recent interview, he said that the strategy for the third season is therefore even more focused on media library views.

What makes the ZDF Sunday evening series so successful? “The current times are frosty and shrill – we need an overdose of being nice. With a series that stimulates the synapses for friendship, family, loyalty, love, empathy, decency and morality, this can succeed,” says Raiser. The main character is also a reason for the success. “With his honest relaxedness and lack of political correctness, a nice probably speaks to the soul of many viewers. People want honesty, seriousness, backbone, facts instead of fairy tales. They want struggles for good solutions and consensus in everyday life, instead of pure populism or lectures on what to think, say or not to say anymore.” The main character doesn’t wrap anyone in cotton wool. “People want someone to fight honestly for them, in real life as well as on ZDF.”

Broadcast information: Dr. Nice will be broadcast on Sunday, May 26th, at 8:15 p.m. on ZDF.