It has been a long time since Schenk’s family played a role in “Tatort”. But the burnt-out restaurant with a corpse was run by his daughter. The TV review of the Sunday thriller.
Torsten Wahl
Scene from the new “Tatort”WDR/Bavaria Fiction GmbH/Martin Valentin Menke
Not again! After only two weeks ago, the Berlin “Tatort” commissioner Robert Karow had to clear up a very personal case, this time it’s his Cologne colleague Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär). He rushes to a scene of fire with a corpse – the burned-out restaurant had been run by his daughter Sonja and her friend Karim. But the dead person inside the “miracle lamp” is not Sonja – she is on the other side of the street behind the barrier. Viewers had previously seen a masked arsonist swerve from a neo-Nazi demonstration, set the venue on fire, and then was struck from behind.
It has been a long time since Schenk’s family life played a role in “Tatort”. Until 2010, Karoline Schuch always appeared – but as the younger daughter Melanie. Natalie Spinell was last seen in 1999 as Schenk’s older daughter Sonja, then as a pregnant 15-year-old in the abortion drama “Licht und Schatten”. What happened to this pregnancy remains open – because Sonja’s daughter, Freddy’s granddaughter Frida, is not 23 in the current case “Protective Measures”, but only 15. The daughter is played again by Natalie Spinell, who now works mainly as an author and director and created the Munich mothers’ series “Servus Baby”.
Of course, Dietmar Bär is challenged in a different way in this unfamiliar role – Freddy Schenk is torn out of routine. After apparently not taking care of his daughter for years, he now wants to be particularly caring. He accommodates Sonja’s family in a sheltered apartment, but soon realizes that she is hiding something: “I have no idea what else I can believe from you!” Schenk has even bigger problems with Sonja’s boyfriend. Karim (Timur Isik) has no alibi for the time of the crime.
The political references seem artificial
Although Sonja and Freddy argue about “racial profiling”, at the beginning neo-Nazis roar through the city of Cologne and the topic of xenophobia is also touched upon, the political references seem very artificial, they claim a dimension that the case does not have at all. Screenwriter Pauls Salisbury and director Nina Vukovic succeed better in depicting the network of mutual dependencies in Cologne’s pub district. Whether it’s the manager of the Turkish café or the tavern owner, who is her own best guest, they all stick together and seal themselves off from the police. The wholesaler (Manfred Zapatka) appears as the godfather in the district, who not only supplies delicacies, but also puts all the innkeepers under pressure with his henchmen. His son (Paul Wollin) has meanness written all over his face.
While the case has a few surprises in store, one element is mandatory in such TV crime dramas. Inspector Schenk becomes more and more self-conscious because of his closeness to his daughter, keeps important information secret from his colleague Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt) and is finally withdrawn from the investigation. Unfortunately, his pistol falls into his daughter’s hands – that’s how Natalie Spinell gets her big scene. Oddly enough, Freddy’s wife, Sonja’s mother, plays no part in all the hustle and bustle, only sends photos from afar. But maybe her appearance will be the highlight in a later case.
Crime scene: protective measures. Sunday, January 1st, 8:15 p.m., ARD
Rating: three out of five