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Lindenstraße

Lindenstraße

TV Series · 1985–2020 · 15 people

Hans W. Geißendörfer is the creator of what is regarded as Germany's first soap opera: Lindenstraße ("Linden Street"), which WDR produced together with his own company. Every week from 8 December 1985 until 29 March 2020, Das Erste showed a new episode of this long-running German television drama, 1,758 in all, with the 1,000th going out on 30 January 2005. Even late on it drew two to three million viewers a week.

The show followed neighbours on a fictional street in Munich, though it was shot at the WDR studios in Cologne-Bocklemünd. Because the idea was to depict an ordinary weekday, the Sunday-evening episode normally plays out on the previous Thursday, with exceptions for holidays such as Christmas and Easter and for general election days. Producers often re-shot scenes shortly before broadcast to keep them topical. The cast included Marie-Luise Marjan, Andrea Spatzek, Georg Uecker and Joachim Hermann Luger.

Homosexuality, right-wing extremism, AIDS, environmental problems and political conflict were among its signature themes. Geißendörfer took care that characters did not reveal party affiliations. Early reviews were mostly poor, but it soon became a success. In November 2018 ARD declined, on cost grounds, to extend the contract, and the series ended after nearly 35 years.

DirectorHans W. Geißendörfer
Production companyWestdeutscher Rundfunk, Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion
NetworkDas Erste

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Cast

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Hasan Ali Mete Hasan Ali Mete Actor · 60 years old Andrea Spatzek Joachim Hermann Luger Marie-Louise Marjan Ludwig Haas Hermes Hodolides Sybille Waury Amorn Surangkanjanajai Georg Uecker Irene Fischer Julia Stark Jo Bolling Knut Hinz Sontje Peplow Bill Mockridge

Through different eyes

Series Binger A series devotee tracking character arcs, cast chemistry and season pacing.

More than 1,700 episodes and a single street across thirty-five years: this is less a show than a habit. The pull of a long-runner lies in growing older alongside its characters, and Lindenstraße feeds that feeling on purpose by setting each Sunday episode on the Thursday before. Over a run this long, though, gripping stretches inevitably sit beside ones that idle and repeat themselves, so dipping into particular eras makes more sense than a start-to-finish marathon. Re-shooting scenes at the last minute to keep up with the news is a lovely idea that gives the show something of a live broadcast's freshness.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Lindenstraße's real value lies in its ambition to fit a whole society's agenda into one street for thirty-five years. Tackling homosexuality, AIDS and right-wing extremism on a mainstream channel, inside the mould of a family soap, was a bold choice for television in the eighties. Keeping the characters' party loyalties hidden was smart too: rather than recruiting viewers to a side, it invites them to argue among themselves. Seen from today, the series can also be read as a weekly archive of Germany's changing everyday life.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

The limits of the soap format apply here as everywhere: a street built in a studio, the hurried pace of weekly production, and storylines left permanently open to tie one episode to the next. That the early episodes were poorly reviewed is no surprise; shows like this live by continuity rather than aesthetic ambition. Still, Geißendörfer has a formal idea and sticks to it: the show's time leans on the viewer's calendar, with the story pinned to an ordinary weekday. As an experiment in near-real-time storytelling, that is interesting. But a cinephile should not expect much from its visual language or staging; Lindenstraße's success lives not in the camera but in the writers' room and the broadcast schedule.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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