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Detective Kottan (Lukas Resetarits) and team - Schrammel (Curt. A. Tichy) and Schremser (Walter Davy) - receive a call announcing a murder at a public swimming pool. But even though they're getting the exact time, they're too late to prevent it. Soon though they get another call telling them the next murder will be on live TV - and during a heavily guarded newscast, one of the anchors (Inge Toifl) dies live on air. Gassner (Hans Kraemmer) calls the police to let them know he and the two murder victims were part of a ring of card cheats, and he thinks one of those he emptied of their money has come back to have his revenge - and really while Kottan and Schrammel are there, Gassner's shot at ... but missed. Kottan and Schrammel visit the fourth member of the ring to give him police protection but to no avail, he somehow eludes those trying to protect him and is shot dead for it. The killer announces another murder, and apparently it's Kottan in his own home. And despite all necessary precautions, the killer lures Kottan into a replica of his apartment, there reveals himself to be Gassner, who actually killed his former partners out of jealousy that they've made something out of themselves while he's nothing but a button vendor, and now he wants to kill Kottan too, just ... because. But at literally the last moment, Kottan is saved by his krimi-obsessed mum (Gusti Wolf).

For the first 7 episodes, the instalments were feature length and were released only once or twice a year, with a rotating lead actor - but with episode 8 (and for the rest of the series run), length was cut down to 60 minutes and episodes were released roughly every other week. And at least in Austria, the series experienced a spike in popularity and became pretty much an instant cult item.

That all said, the episode at hand isn't really all that good, or at least it hasn't aged too well: While the focus has returned to the story and the comedy skits that riddled earlier episodes have been reduced here, Lukias Resetarits' angry young man interpretation of Kottan is a bit annoying and lacks depth, which is not helped by the directorial effort going out of its way to paint him as the cool guy. At the same time, many of the supporting cast get a little too repetitive in their routines - a trend that would only increase over the rest of the series' run - and the choice of music, mostly well-known pop tunes, is a bit too on-your-nose (including Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild for a bike scene for example) to be called original. As for the story of this epsiode, it's really as far fetched and not entirely believable as with many crime shows of the era, but that is a bit softened by the very ironic approach.

In all, still some nostalgic fun, if not exactly one of the better episodes of the series.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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