Derrick (TV series)





Derrick is a German TV crime series produced between 1974 and 1998 starring Horst Tappert as Detective Chief Inspector (Kriminaloberinspektor) Stephan Derrick, and Fritz Wepper as Detective Sergeant (Kriminalhauptmeister) Harry Klein, his loyal assistant. They solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings (with three unsolved cases in total). It was produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG.

Derrick is considered to be one of the most successful television programmes in German television history, it was also a major international success and the series was sold in over 100 countries. On 2 May 2013 ZDF announced it would no longer carry reruns of the show, after it emerged that Tappert had been untruthful in discussing his service in the Waffen-SS in World War II.

History
All 281 60-minute episodes were written by veteran screenwriter Herbert Reinecker and produced by Helmut Ringelmann. As a rule, new Derrick episodes were broadcast on Friday night at 20:15. The series received enormous popularity and was aired in more than 100 countries worldwide.

The series' discontinuation in October 1998 came as Horst Tappert had reached the age limit he had set himself.

Derrick had many fan clubs abroad including the Netherlands and France. In France, Derrick is known as Inspecteur Derrick. In Italy, the show is called L’ispettore Derrick. In Chinese, it is known as Dé li kè.

Evolution of concept
The series took a noticeable turn towards psychological drama as time progressed and Derrick approached retirement age. Acting on a hunch, Derrick would ignore a number of possible suspects right from the start and, instead of doing the legwork often shown in police movies, would follow the main suspect to his or her favourite haunts and involve them in lengthy conversations, claiming that he had to get to know them better. Towards the end of the show the murderer, now revolted by what they had done, would then be prepared to confess to his or her crime without Derrick having to produce any further piece of evidence. Generally, there is little violence or bloodshed and no shoot-out at the end.

Final episode
This philosophy also held true to the last episode, "Das Abschiedsgeschenk" ("The Farewell Gift"). Originally, Derrick was supposed to die by the hands of one of the criminals he had incarcerated just as he is about to take a new job as the chief of Europol. But the violent end was eventually scrapped; while there is a shoot-out, no one is killed, and Derrick goes on into the dark city and towards a new life.

Derrick and Klein
As the series begins Derrick has only recently been promoted from Hauptinspektor to Oberinspektor. The personal relationship between Derrick and his assistant, Klein, is characterized by Derrick's often annoyance over Klein which takes its form as sarcastic remarks to the point of rolling his eyes and shaking his head over his companion in front of witnesses and in public. The reason for this animosity remains unclear since Klein rarely makes any mistakes, yet Derrick seems to pick at him quite regularly. Klein on the other side never talks back and also never gives the slightest appearance of taking offense at this low-level bullying. These many minor episodes notwithstanding, the two work very professionally and organically as a team, however, with Derrick always as the leading partner. This behavior of Derrick becomes less noticeable as the seasons progress.

Derrick hardly has any private life; a girl friend occurs only in two episodes. In one episode Derrick says, "no, I am no longer married"; Klein, on the other hand, does not seem to have any private life. However, as a younger inspector he seems to love getting statements from young, good-looking girls. In that respect and also in the way he goes about a case, Derrick resembles Lt. Columbo. However, as Umberto Eco has pointed out, Columbo is the obedient, seemingly helpless servant of a community of rich and powerful Californians while Derrick, elegantly dressed and impeccably behaved, always appears in control and superior even to the wealthy people he is tracking down.

Just like an earlier television series, Der Kommissar (also written by Reinecker), Derrick features many prominent German and Austrian actors and actresses, including Lilli Palmer, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Maria Schell, Horst Buchholz, Curd Jürgens, Christine Kaufmann, Brigitte Mira, Gottfried John, Sybil Danning, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Carl Möhner, Eric Pohlmann, Anton Diffring and Christoph Waltz. Many appear repeatedly in different roles throughout several of the seasons.

As one of the first western TV series shown on the screen of Chinese televisions after the country opened its gate to outside world in 1980s, the series (as "Detective Derek" - 《探长德里克》) was popular in China. Reportedly it was also actually used to teach police officers and inspectors in proper procedure of tracing and solving criminal cases. Derrick reached cult status in Australia where it screened on SBS Television with English subtitles.

"Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen"
The famous phrase "Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen" ("Harry, bring the car 'round"; implying "we're done here") was attributed to Derrick and became part of popular culture in Germany and China as catch phrases. Actually, this phrase was never spoken in any of the 281 episodes; however, in the second episode of the series, "Johanna" (which premiered on 3 November 1974), Derrick orders Klein "Harry! Wir brauchen den Wagen sofort!" ("Harry! We need the car immediately!"). The exact same phrase was used by Erik Ode in the earlier TV Series Der Kommissar, where Fritz Wepper already played the character named Harry Klein, then the assistant to a different police inspector (played by Ode).

It is unknown how exactly this phrase became attributed to Derrick, but one theory is that since Der Kommissar and Derrick were both created and written by screenwriter Herbert Reinecker, a TV critic may have attributed this phrase to the wrong one of Reinecker's series, after which it entered German popular culture as a catch phrase for Derrick. Horst Tappert did, however, speak this phrase in character as Stephan Derrick was as voice actor of his animated self in the 2004 animated feature film Derrick — die Pflicht ruft (Derrick — Duty calls). (See "Beam me up, Scotty" for a catch phrase with a similar background.) This animated film shed some satirical light on the ever-serious and sombre world of the original series, making fun of numerous clichés attributed to the series, including Harry's rumoured envy for Derrick always standing in the spotlight, while he, assistant for 25 years, always had to stand back behind his boss.

International popularity

 * The series was shown on SBS in Australia for many years.
 * The Chinese dubbed version was broadcast widely in many provincial TV stations in China in 1980s-1990s and the series became a smash hit.
 * In Norway Derrick has been shown throughout the show's history by state-owned broadcaster NRK. Reruns are still running.
 * In France the series has been shown on France 3 television weekday afternoons and was running until May 2013.
 * In South Africa, it was dubbed into Afrikaans, with the original German soundtrack simulcast over the radio.
 * In Iran, a Persian dubbed version of the series is still running in 2014 at TV station called Tamasha.
 * In India, an English dubbed version of the series ran on a state run TV station called Doordarshan during the 1980s.
 * In Italy, an Italian dubbed version of the series is still running in 2015 at TV station called TV2000.
 * In Kenya, an English dubbed version of the series ran on a state run media corporation called Kenya Broadcasting Corporation during the 1980s to 1990s.
 * In Uganda, an English dubbed version appeared on state television station, UTV, for much of the 80s and 90s alongside other popular German series like Tele-match and Didi's comedy show. The license was owned by Transtel Cologne.
 * In the United Kingdom, the series was transmitted by several ITV regions during 1987, including LWT, Yorkshire, Central and HTV.
 * In Cameroun, a French dubbed version was still being aired on State television station even upto 2014

References in popular culture
Derrick was briefly referenced in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis.

"Inspektor Derrick" is referenced in Elfriede Jelinek's Die Kinder der Toten.

The series was parodied on the Norwegian comedy show Åpen Post. It was humoristically claimed that NRK had bought the rights to produce dubbed remakes of the series' original episodes after the show stopped airing in Germany. However, NRK could not afford expensive remakes, leading to a very simplistic (and, in the viewers' eyes, ridiculous) approach to the show, involving uninspired actors and a strong lack of action.

Books
Derrick was also used as the protagonist for a series of books published in Germany and Italy:


 * Das große Derrick Buch (ISBN 3-89487-239-X), Henschel Verlag
 * Das Derrick Buch (ISBN 3-89487-313-2), Henschel Verlag
 * Derrick «Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen» (ISBN 3-548-35830-6), Ullstein (for ZDF)
 * Die Derrick Story (ISBN 3-932234-63-4), BSV Burgschmiet Verlag
 * Grazie, Derrick (ISBN 88-452-3717-6), Bompiani
 * Derrick – L'ordre des choses (ISBN 2-940063-43-5), Les Editions de l'Hèbe
 * Derrick – Eine Erfolgsgeschichte des deutschen Fernsehens (ISBN 3-934305-29-6), Teiresias Verlag
 * Derrick oder Die Leidenschaft für das Mittelmaß (ISBN 3-423-12988-3), Dtv