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Murder in the Countryside
Is it a comedy? When reading the comments on this TV series “Mord mit Aussicht” you are seduced to think of this series as having assembled a bunch of comedians that try to entertain you on the light and smiling way. However, it’s about murder – and murder is always an earnest affair.
So why this comedy touch? The series takes you away to a small village in the Eifel, a rather lonely countryside. You may not think that anything more serious than driving too fast, driving after too many glasses of beer, stolen hens, quarrels about a garden fence set beyond the border of the site … etc. … etc. … However there are suspicious deaths which may become a murder case.
In other words: we are in the countryside – where (generally speaking) the village idiots congregate to eke out an existence more badly than well. What’s more, in a small village everyone knows everyone else – and everyone is somehow related to everyone else, albeit around three corners. So there’s a lot of haggling and a lot of sweeping under the carpet, because who wants to do something bad to their neighbour or even relative – unless you still have unfinished business.
All the action and the crimes which are normally reserved for any serious crimes in big cities and are up to well-staffed homicide squads, to elaborate forensic laboratories, to high-intelligent pathologist working on the leading-edge of their profession … all is now reduced to a small village in the countryside with a police station crewed with two cops in uniform and a detective transferred for disciplinary reasons from the homicide squad in Cologne, a true metropolis compared to Hengasch. There are no resources to rely on, no additional staff or expertise …
So … our Sophie Haas is already despairing a little at this situation … Of course she tries her best to modernise the police station under her command and to motivate her two subordinates, but it doesn’t quite work. After all, this is the Eifel – and there aren’t actually any really bad crimes here. At least that’s what the two uniformed officers and their former boss, who is now retired, think.
In addition there are the inhabitants of Hengasch: some are freaks, some are old, some are crafty, some are not the brightest candle on the cake, some are curious, some are grudging, some are in need of money, some have unfinished business with their neighbors, some like too much good eating and drinking, some like adultery … etc. … etc. You’ll find a cross section of any kind of people with any kind of ambitions or even without any ambitions i. e. just living a peaceful life in a peaceful small village.
All this pooled is predestined for some comic states of affairs when all clashes in a small village.
Sophie Haas is a successful detective in Cologne’s homicide department and hopes to become the boss of the team – unfortunately she suddenly finds herself in this godforsaken Hengasch in the middle of nowhere. Her boss has made it unmistakably clear in private that he doesn’t think much of a woman at the head of the homicide squad – the exchange of opinions and the boss’s statements cannot be proven because there are no witnesses. She is mad, furious, disappointed … and thinks about how to get back to Cologne.
It starts getting boring after some days, but then there are cold cases and Sophie reads about a suspicious death and … Sophie looks for work and distraction … and she finds some … everywhere – each morning seems to have some special bombshell for her. I don’t think that it is necessary to mention that Sophie closes all murder cases successfully.
Soon Sophie is no longer alone: her father, who has retired, decides to move to Hengasch and they are soon living together in a beautiful house. Her father socialises with the women of Hengasch. There also seem to be some very interesting men in Hengasch when it comes to love affairs. Sophie begins to meet interesting specimens of the male species and …
Her two colleagues at the police station are … surprised by Sophie. They always compare her to her retired boss who is always around the corner, always pricking up his ears. Both are not so keen for action and trouble – they like their steady life from nine-to-five. They also like good food, lots of plain fate. Sophie likes to rough up everything during the daily routine. Her colleagues have to adjust … if they like it or not.
All this is the basis for a crime series as well as for a comedy series. The crime is commonplace and shows that anybody may be able to commit murder or whatever. As a rule there are family affairs and family business going wrong, inheritance problems, financial problems, illegitimate children … The background of Hengasch is like the icing of the cake.