Wild Republic

This rings a bell. I used to take groups of deprived kids on character-forming "holidays" during my incarnation as a social worker. None was as dodgy as these kids in the series though, although some were more unruly. I see that the same pressures that pertained in the UK many years ago against such trips that the Sun and the Daily Mail frothed against are replicated in Austria and Germany. These trips are often successful in forming relationships with the youth and in helping their social and interpersonal skills but ignorance and hatred from the red tops unfortunately make the idea so difficult to follow through.

We have a group, then, of youth with a social worker and a mountain guide who will spend eight weeks together in the Alps. We do not know what the kids have done but we see immediate problems as one of them is sent home in the first few minutes of the programme for violence. We also very quickly see that there is even prejudice from the adults involved which sets up a series of red herrings regarding the plot and the murder, which we know about from IMDB's summary.

We then enter a sub "Lord of the Flies" realm. The kids need to establish some order amongst themselves and work their demons and histories out as well as the murder. In the meantime, the head of the organisation that holds the trips is doing his best to help the quest to find the children against straight-laced, rule-following police investigators.

Obviously there are revelations during the story and all is not what it seems amongst the young people nor amongst the villagers and its police force. The series ends on a cliffhanger or two indicating clearly that a second series is probably on its way. We already know that several crimes amongst the kids have not been punished and the original murder needs a resolution, so these will presumably be the themes.

I cannot say I was gripped by this. Nor did I feel any real tension during the series. I watched it all as I wanted to know what happened. I shall probably see the second series when it comes out. However, it could have been far better and I felt the directing was lacking in finesse. The characters also had little subtlety so the scriptwriters need to do better next time.

I think Young Adult is a cancer on modern culture, and I think German TV is among the worse national TVs in Europe (and I live in Germany!). So I am not exactly the perfect client for this series, and yet... it kinda works!

Sure, it does suffer from the usual ailments of both categories. On the one hand, it gives in the character-based narration, it builds up rhythm through artificial conflicts, it isolates groups without exploring their new dynamic, etc. On the other, it is packed clichéd yet vague political undertones, it flirts with difficult questions without really engaging them, it is 'socially aware' without giving enough time or depth to its social themes.

But (unlike much German TV) it's actually quite decently acted, the script is rather good and understated, and the characterisation is (despite trying too hard on one or two occasions) is actually roundly conducted. The male lead (billionaire ecologist) is the main draw-back, hardly credible and vapid. The female lead is more interesting, but would have benefited from more screen-time. Again, here, the system of 'one character per episode' is a bit weak, and dilutes the important questions (solidarity, collective guilt, self-policing, etc.) which the script does engage.

On the whole then, it's not perfect, but it is both an achievement for German TV (something actually watchable!) and a reminder that the problem, with YA, is not the age of the participants, but the indulgence of the writers in the worse and most shameless clichés. When YA quits peddling fulfilment fantasies and dumbed-down love-stories, it can actually engage political themes without undue naivety. I doubt there's much of a public for that, but who knows?

Four Stars for the beautiful landscape and the actors trying to make the best out of the bad story and illogical scenes. Not recommended to watch it all.