The Sacred Sunday Ritual and the Millennial Who Broke It

Every Sunday at 8:15 PM, a large portion of Germany collectively loses its personality. People who are normally loud and spontaneous go quiet, put their phones face-down, and stare grimly at the screen. Because it’s Tatort time—the long-running flagship crime drama on public television, in which some detective in some German city spends ninety minutes looking baffled, arresting the wrong person, and eventually chasing the real killer through an abandoned warehouse or gravel pit. It has been going like this since 1970. The nation treats it like church.

So naturally, the funniest thing you can do is make a millennial version. Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, the permanently grinning host of the late-night show Late Night Berlin, and Palina Rojinski, who has the energy of someone who could charm her way out of anything, did exactly that: a "Millennial Tatort" segment in which the central questions are whether Tanzverbot—a Berlin DJ duo caught up in the plot—is going to jail, and which Instagram filter works best for photographing the corpse. Their own description of the bit is spectacular: Sheesh! All millennials can breathe easy. The Tatort doesn’t air on Sunday, but on Monday—perfectly timed for your Start-Your-Week-Right Casual After-Work Session. Voll schlurky! Incredible.

Klaas has been running Late Night Berlin solo since the end of Circus HalliGalli, the show he co-hosted for years with Joko Winterscheidt. He never quite reaches the cultural weight of Jan Böhmermann—whose Neo Magazin Royale managed to genuinely irritate governments—but Late Night Berlin produces good stuff often enough to keep me watching. The guest list helps: Palina Rojinski, Toni Dreher-Adenuga, Riccardo Simonetti, Tanzverbot—people who bring something instead of just sitting there. Would I take a full-length Millennial Tatort episode over another ninety minutes of the gardener turning out to be the killer? Without question. Every week, please.