Season 8 • Episode 7
LatestBalko is a German prime time television series broadcast on the private TV channel RTL. It is a police detective story with comical twists featuring two inspectors of the Dortmund police, Balko and his colleague Klaus Krapp. Balko's main characteristics are his coolness and his consistently laid-back appearance, whereas “Krappi” is a typical mama’s boy and very clumsy. The series started in 1995 and has won several television awards.
Acting
Ludger Pistor's physical comedy as disaster-man Krappi
Production
Dortmund locations giving grimy authentic Ruhrpott energy
Writing
Balko's deadpan one-liners cutting through police procedural tropes
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Balko helped define 'Tatort'-adjacent German crime comfort viewing for a generation who found actual Tatort too depressing.
The 1999 TV movie 'Balko: Die Mutter aller Probleme' finally sent Krappi to therapy—temporarily.
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