- The "Tator" summer hiatus has ended: farewell in Frankfurt and Frankfurt.
Time's up, fresh episodes of "Tatort" and "Polizeiruf 110" are hitting ARD. The initial new Sunday crime after the 17-week summer break is a Viennese "Tatort" titled "Your Mother" (airing September 15, 8:15 PM).
Prior to the summer break, which commenced on May 20 (Pentecost Monday) following the telecast of a Black Forest "Tatort", 17 "Tatort" and 5 "Polizeiruf 110" crimes had already been aired on the first channel this year, including the second case of the Halle team Koitzsch and Lehmann (Peter Kurth and Peter Schneider) that started in 2021.
A rundown of the remaining premieres before the end of December - at present, there are 15 "Tatorts" and 2 "Polizeirufe". The sequence isn't finalized yet, as scheduling only takes place around six weeks ahead.
Vienna/ORF:
On occasion, there are three Austrian "Tatorts" annually, at times just two - in 2024, there will be two. In the second case (September 15), an upcoming Viennese rapper meets an untimely end. Multiple suspects are on the loose. The hip-hop "Tatort" goes by the title "Your Mother" (initially titled "Whore's Child").
Black Forest/SWR:
In "Ad acta" (September 22), Tobler and Berg (Eva Löbau and Hans-Jochen Wagner) find themselves questioning why the stepfather and employer of a slain lawyer is reluctant to support the investigation into the death.
Frankfurt am Main/HR:
"When Frankfurt's mountains bloom, the green is so green" signifies the last (and 19th) case of the Janneke/Brix team (Margarita Broich and Wolfram Koch) on September 29. Matthias Brandt plays a psychologist, and HR promises an exhilarating final act.
Wiesbaden/HR:
The 13th case of LKA investigator Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur) takes us back to the 1940s. It revolves around a sought-after war criminal. "Murot and the 1000-year-old Reich" (airing October 20, according to HR) isn't shared in the conventional manner.
Franconia/BR:
The tenth case since 2015 marks the end for the character Paula Ringelhahn. Actress Dagmar Manzel is bidding farewell to the team. According to BR, the suicide of a 25-year-old inmate catalyzes a chain of fatal incidents in Nuremberg.
Ludwigshafen/SWR:
"Your Good Right" is Ulrike Folkerts' 80th portrayal as Lena Odenthal (over 35 years - for Lisa Bitter as Johanna Stern it's the tenth year). In this case, the question is whether a terminated call center employee is responsible for the murder.
Stuttgart/SWR:
According to SWR, "Let Her Go" is planned for November, where Lannert and Bootz (Richy Müller and Felix Klare) explore the death of a woman who abandoned her hometown, family, and fiancé for urban life. Self-inflicted?
Munich/BR:
In their 96th case, investigators Batic and Leitmayr (Miroslav Nemec and Udo Wachtveitl) delve into a NATO military exercise filled with countless soldiers, civilian extras, and heavy equipment.
Kiel/NDR:
In "Borowski and the Eternal Sea", Borowski and his colleague Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) confront a puzzling series of women's suicides on the beach in Kiel. It's the 42nd and penultimate case with Axel Milberg. Two more are coming in 2025.
Munster/WDR:
The most popular team receives a new case in the second installment of the year, "One dies only twice" (the initial working title of the 46th Münster "Tatort" was "The Curse of the Death Mask"), featuring the corpse of a lawyer impaled by an ancient spear from a warrior sculpture. Commissioner Thiel (Axel Prahl) and Professor Boerne (Jan Josef Liefers) both agree that this wasn't merely an unfortunate accident.
It's the second-to-last case with Mechthild Großmann as State Prosecutor Wilhelmine Klemm. The actress with the distinctive deep voice recently announced her departure after the two films in 2025.
Dortmund/WDR:
Faber and Herzog (Jörg Hartmann and Stefanie Reinsperger) encounter a perplexed, bloodstained woman with a knife in an Asian shop in "Made in China", claiming responsibility for the murder but also expressing amnesia.
Cologne/WDR:
Ballauf and Schenk (Klaus J. Behrendt and Dietmar Bär) handle a body in front of an erotic center. A young man plummets from the seventh-floor window. In the crime "Seventh Floor", the commissioners probe the very floor itself, which houses a hairdresser, a nail studio, and rooms for various services.
Hamburg/NDR:
In "Silence", Falke (Wotan Wilke Möhring) unwinds for a break in a remote monastery. The night he celebrates his departure, a fire breaks out. Pastor Otto perishes. Was it murder?
Zürich/SRF:
The second major crime case of the year in Switzerland, featuring Grandjean and Ott (Anna Pieri Zuercher and Carol Schuler), is expected to unfold in December. The chilling thriller, titled "Ferryman", is set in the pre-Christmas season and revolves around a cunning serial killer who operates within the banking scene.
Meanwhile, over in Bremen/Radio Bremen, Moormann and Selb (Jasna Fritzi Bauer and Luise Wolfram) are on duty during the holiday season. A ship's captain is found shot in his cabin, having taken in a Filipino sailor for the festivities. Was it a botched robbery?
As for the "Tatort" teams, the Saarbrücken, Berlin, and Dresden squads will be absent from the ARD program in 2024, with a comeback scheduled for 2025. NDR investigator Charlotte Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler), who was transferred from Hannover to Göttingen due to team spirit issues in 2019, is also expected to return to Lower Saxony's state capital at some point.
The Rostock duo from NDR, Böwe and König (Lina Beckmann and Anneke Kim Sarnau), and the "Polizeiruf" teams from MDR, including Claudia Michelsen as Doreen Brasch in Magdeburg, have already closed cases for 2024.
Munich/BR presents a thrilling third case featuring Cris Blohm (Johanna Wokalek) and Dennis Eden (Stephan Zinner), under the direction of crime veteran Dominik Graf. The story, titled "Beyond the Law", delves into the murder of an adult film actor and the complex legal issues that ensue.
Lastly, in Brandenburg/RBB, the crime drama "Waterways" sees a Polish student discovered dead in a canoe on a canal. Commissioners Vincent Ross (André Kaczmarczyk) and Karl Rogov (Frank Leo Schröder) investigate, following the old waterway that the victim had been researching.
The Swiss police might be involved in solving a case, given the diverse range of crime investigations across Europe, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and others. In the upcoming year 2024, Switzerland will have two "Tatort" episodes, further showcasing international collaboration in crime solving.
