Roche & Böhmermann

I started with the episode where Max Herre walked out upset and went to cry, then just kept going backwards through the ZDF Mediatheque, eating through everything they’d made up to that point. Completely into it. Into Charlotte Roche and how she works within this format, how the whole thing is built exactly backwards from how I thought successful television was supposed to work.

The show shouldn’t work at all. No slick production framework, no gimmicks, no celebrities who’ve been properly warmed up by their people five minutes before air. Just Roche and Böhmermann talking to people, and somehow it’s the best thing on German television right now. I’m saying this while MTV barely plays music, reality consumes everything, and the space in between is mostly nothing.

Some of Jan’s jokes just die in the air. Some guests show up ready to perform, like they got told minutes before that they’re going to crush it. The silence when a joke dies, the censor can’t even save it. Sometimes they deserve what they get, sometimes they don’t, but the show doesn’t try to smooth it over or pretend it didn’t happen.

What gets to me is that they’re making something real on a time slot most people in this country can’t even receive. In the middle of all the reality noise, the reruns, the void—they’re actually making television that feels true. Something genuine. And I shouldn’t be this surprised by it, but I am.

I’m probably late to even mention this. The show’s already got the people who know about it. But if there’s a chance someone watches instead of scrolling through guaranteed nothing, if it pulls one person away from the wasteland of other stuff, that feels worth saying. Even if the show doesn’t last. Even if they make something terrible next time. You never know with this stuff.