Eurocops

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Eurocops
Starring Heiner Lauterbach
Country of origin Germany
No. of seasons 6
No. of episodes 70
Production
Running time 60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ZDF
Original run 6 November 1988 – 1993

Eurocops is a European television crime TV-series produced between 1988 and 1992. It is a co-production between seven European TV stations in which each station produced a number of episodes which were then pooled, dubbed and otherwise adapted when needed and broadcast by all participating stations, a format used earlier in the German crime series Tatort. The participating networks were ZDF from Germany, ORF from Austria, SRG from Switserland, RAI from Italy, TVE from Spain, Antenne 2 from France and Channel 4 from the United Kingdom.

A direct consequence of the 'pooled production' format was that all episodes by one particular network had a strong local -even national- feel and were distinctly different from the episodes produced by other network. Not only were they filmed in the network's own country with local actors but also written by local screenwriters thus reflecting that nation's specific taste for crime dramas. With national network at that time still relying on self-produced programs, a big part of Eurocop's allure was that it offered viewers in one country a first-hand look at how crime series in other countries looked like.

Despite being planned all-European, the three German speaking networks brought in more than half of the filming with Germany and Austria filming 15 episodes on their own and one more joint production. Switzerland contributed another 12. Of the four non-German speaking countries Italy made 13 and France made 8 episodes. Spain and the UK brought up the rear with and 4 and 3 episodes respectingly.

All in all over five and a half years seventy-one episodes were produced. Typically they were broadcast once a month. In Germany ZDF broadcast the series on every fourth Friday as part of its Friday night crime lineup. (The three other Fridays it would broadcast episodes from other homemade crime series). It's first broadcast was on November 6th 1988. It was a Swiss production called "Tote reisen nicht" (Dead men don't travel).

Introduction and title music

A little sensation for its time was the title sequence. Not only was the title music a haunting electronic theme composed by Jan Hammer, it was accompanied by a wild camera ride in which a camera circles over a map of Europe, shows the different cities in which the episodes play and for each city shows a picture of the local detective with his name and title. Finally the camera zooms out into a picture of the police badge of the country in which the episode in question plays. Still a novelty for this time, the title was completely computer generated.

cast and crew

Germany

  • Produced by: Monaco Film, Munich for ZDF
  • Directors: Georg Althammer, Werner Kließ
  • cast:
  • City: Cologne

Austria

  • Produced by: ORF
  • Directors: Rud'i Nemeth, Peter Müller
  • cast:
    • Bernd Jeschek as Peter 'Bernd' Brucker
    • Bigi Fischer as Bigi Herzog
    • Hermann Schmid as Oberinspektor Nurmeier
  • City: Vienna

Switserland

Italy

France

  • Produced by: France 2
  • cast:
    • Patrick Raynal as Commissaire Nicolas Villars
    • Bertrand Lacy as Commissaire Luc Rousseau
    • Étienne Chicot as Jerome
  • City: Marseille

Spain

  • Produced by: Velarde Films for TVE
  • cast:
    • Alvaro de Luna as Subcomisario Andrés Crespo

United Kingdom

See also

External links


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