I sat last night and watched ZDF (public TV, Channel 2)....from their media-library. Show? Mini-series....'The Swarm'.
German public TV....for the record....has a unwritten rule. Science fiction series are strongly discouraged....to the point if you as a writer did have a five-star script idea....no one in the public TV arena would finance it.
Somehow....they broke this rule and agreed to a 8-part series (45 minutes long each, with no commercials).
Basic story? Well....after two episodes, I'd say the basic story revolves around these 'sea-worms' which have 'morphed' into a threat....turning sea 'life' (whales, lobsters, etc) into killing machines.
These scientists then run around....trying to convince people off the 'sea-worms' and no one really believes them.
Production budget? Well....there's several different international public TV groups who put money into this. From what I read....ZDF put up the most money ever budgeted for a series....around 15-million Euro (show ran to around 40-million Euro in final estimate).
I'd probably classify the series more as a thriller....than science fiction. The sea-worm angle? Well....yeah, it's a bit difficult to get over this 'bad-guy' situation.
If you went looking for German science fiction? It's pretty limited. I would give high marks for 'The Dark', Raumschiffes Orion, and Star Maidens (done awful cheap though).
Just my own speculation....if you were a German writer and had a five-star story....it'll be turned into a US or British movie production.
As for Swarm? It's probably worth watching (on the ZDF mediatek library at present). I will admit....it's hard to get all thrilled-up....with lobsters as the threat.
2 comments:
It might be based off of Frank Schätzing's book of the same name. Decent book.
The wording is...they used his book up to a certain point with him in some state of approval, and then they changed some things for the sake or movie-production...which he stepped aside on some differences. I'd say it's typical of 99-percent of great books being used for movie production.
Having not read the book (I read fiction marginally...more into history or finance)...I can't say how much it relates. There does appear to be a lot of relationship angles...which German TV production go to...to hype female interest. If this was pure science fiction, would probably be a lot less female viewers.
In general, my view...it's just odd that German public TV has gone to do a science fiction piece.
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