Coming from neighboring Poland I had two German episodes in my life, both spanning for a couple of years. The first one was in the 80-ties. I remember "Derrick" from that period, watching it regularly together with "One Case for Two" and "Tatort" productions. It was a good entertainment and helped me to learn German. Additional attraction of "Derrick" at that time was the fact that I remembered Fritz Wepper (playing Harry Klein) from famous "Cabaret" and very exciting WW-2 drama "The River Line". After leaving Germany I always tried to remember that period of my life by regularly reading German books and watching some German productions in the original language. That way I came across the episodes from "Derrick" from the 70-ties, that simply captivated me. I started to understand why this series became popular in several countries. It offered a new approach by showing who has done it (like "Columbo"), but the most original for me was a combination of crime genre with that of social drama. Some of the episodes could have been made by famous directors of Italian, French or Czech school, but "Derrick" never got over-sentimental or boring. Those early episodes have almost the power of watching documentaries about the 70-ties. So I put "Derrick" alongside my other favorite crime TV series like "Columbo", "Taggart" or "Wallander".
