ZU ASCHE ZU STAUB: Babylon Berlin

Third season is finally among us! Put your hand in mine!

thought this show was pretty awful tbh

weeeeeeeee so glad it’s back just finished ep 1

I have always loved how everyone in this show (except the very wealthy obv) all look tired & unwell, kinda sweaty, bags under the eyes, hair unwashed

The details are very good

The nephew gives me strong Augustus Gloomp vibes

every time i watch this show, i get 2 episodes in & think hmm maybe i want to learn german

maybe i want to learn german, u guys

Do it! I'm close to finishing my rewatch, and while I still love it and am pumped for season 3,there are some major plot points that I'm finding irksome the second time around.

Loved this at the time, when does Season 3 drop on Now TV?

Yes !
Love this show !
And indeed the attention to details is fantastic, especially in the poorer parts of the population.
It all FEELS so bleak and dirty. And the tension and rising menace in the whole society is so well done.
I barely speak German but can understand the simple parts and enjoy so much hearing them talk, especially Lotte (who is amazing ** SPOILER ** I was genuinely sad/shocked when she died in s2 and actually considered stopping the show !).

And that song/sequence in s1 is arguably one of the best musical sequences EVER in a TV show !

The song is in my head which is quite an achievement given I haven't watched it in 18 months or so.

I had forgotten that Bryan Ferry randomly shows up to do a musical number in season 2

Yup and he was the curator for the soundtrack iirc ( which is also part of the greatness of this show).

Some of these plot lines in season 3 are ludicrous but I'm enthralled. Two more episodes to go.

No spoiler please ! (but I'm glad to know it's still good !)

This show has been all about ludicrous plot lines from the beginning, and I'm here for it. I just finished my re-watch of the first to seasons, and the season 2 finale really piled on the absurdities.

I need a refresher on a bunch of the characters for season 3! Who's the guy with the birthmark? Didn't Gereon bust up Moki Efta last season?

<3 <3 Lotte.

Birthmark guy is the heir to Nyssen AG, supporter of secret re-armament, sometime lover of Sorokin.

There was a big shootout in Moki Efta, but it's still running strong.

S3 is absurdity city; kerazy ott so far

OK this is a decent rundown of the first two seasons: https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/babylon-berlin-netflix-how-it-ends.html

I want to discuss all the ridiculousness, at least for the first 2 seasons, but I'm not sure if this is a spoiler friendly zone or not.

can we talk about how beautiful & mesmerizing the credit sequence is

also i love that this season includes movie making & ~the occult~

it really is very good

but i fear my boy Rath is going to be 2 hollowed out eye sockets by the time this shit is done, dude looking deeply unwell now

Charlotte's sister went through a bizarre growth spurt in just a few months.

I was wondering who her new friend was in the first episode!

I didn't realize season 3 has 12 episodes.. assumed it was 10 and was all mad when I realized I wasn't done and had to go to bed at 10:30 last night

It kind of sucks to be a patsy in Weimar Germany, huh?

I could never figure out how they danced like that to music with no beat

fuuuck that was a brutal depressing ending.

i had to watch the end twice, i was so high on cold meds i *didnt* see the dragon the first time lol

Overall theme of this show =
Berlin to Rath: take a beating?
Rath: don’t mind if I do

Katelbach, you knob! Shut up and eat your goulash!

Season 3 seemed to dial back the insane plots and lowered the stakes a bit, which didn't completely work for me, but was still fairly entertaining.

yeah I did kinda miss CRAZY TRAIN vibes but i wasnt mad.

It's funny because everything about the train was insanely over the top, but that was part of the appeal.

it is a high bar to keep in place once you go there

I enjoyed the hell out of the first season and started on the second season a few months ago. The plane flight episode got ridiculous toward the end and really took me out of it. When you guys say "over the top", are you talking about stuff like that? I've always regretted not finishing, but at the same time don't want to punish myself.

Just watched the first two episodes and really enjoyed them. Intrigued and excited to see how it goes “over the top” because at the moment it’s still a pretty straight (if epic) procedurally

*procedural

I still haven't watched s3 (not available in France yet) but the OTT aspect never really bothered me in this show (ok, maybe the "insane"/hallucinations etc moments got a bit on my nerves after a while).
S the train, plane and other dramatic moments (the second Severija song for instance), although not the best parts obviously, were fine.

Season 3 not really bag, it turns out. :(

Is "not really bag" a German expression?

NEIN!

ES IST HIER! ES IST HIER! ES IST HIER!

I think season 4 aired in Germany last year, so maybe Netflix US will get it sometime this year?

There was speculation it was coming late last year, but still no confirmation.

i demand another season goddammit

The nephew gives me strong Augustus Gloomp vibes

AUTOGUS GLOOMPS FOR PRESIDETN.

Since there's no knowing when s4 is coming to Netflix, I'm starting up KLEO, which is basically BB: 90s edition.

So this is being dropped from Netflix at the end of the month, don't know if that is good news or bad. I hope it means another streaming service will pick it up and air the final 2 seasons.

fingers crossed

really would love to see those final 2 seasons for sure

it’s too good to just be lost to the ether

I've pondered getting a multi-region DVD player just so I can watch s4

for people in the US, season 4 is available on MHz Choice, which has a free 1 month trial

I see a 1-week trial.

https://mhzchoice.com/freemonth/

Woah, thanks!

ooh thx

Looked into this more, the free trial is for a week, the free month is when you sign up for a year. Also, only 2 episodes are currently available, they are rolling out 2 per week through the end of July.

That said, I still signed up and watched the first episode and it's dark as fuck. Seems like everyone is letting Charlotte down.

Finally started watching this. On Hoopla, which is one place it landed that I have access to.

oooh hoopla you say? :D

Yeah.

So I can watch ten episodes a month I guess

Or 1.25 seasons a month.

I had to watch season 4 on MHz Choice

The subtitles were much lazier than on Netflix.

Two episodes in. Seems pretty good so far.

I wanna re-watch this, I thought it was such a great show when it first came out... even a Brian Ferry cameo ifirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4OTzlMHmI YouTube

Just got to the horse with a gas mask

Halfway through season 4 and I'm digging this again!

I decided to buy up the blu rays so I don't have to subscribe to some random service next time I want to watch it.

Zu Asche, zu Staub

Zu Asche, zu Staub

Watched this show over the past few weeks. It has a bunch of big flaws - the psychotherapy plotline is awful and S3 somehow makes an expressionist movie murder mystery into something bland and boring - but overall would recommend! Would happily watch a loop of Lotte saying "jut!" on repeat.

What will stay with me is the portrait of a city where everyone is trying to make a life (including crime!) between two catastrophes. Germany is barely recovering from the first war, especially in the first season you feel how everyone lost someone or some part of themselves. And of course it's on an unavoidable path to what's coming next. It's reductive to call this "texture" but all the police shows I really like have that grounding in a time and place.

Just spotted Peter Kurth, the actor who plays Bruno, playing Anna Delvey's dad on the Shonda Rhimes miniseries Inventing Anna.

Rewatched the first 2 seasons and now on season 3. (Season 5 will be on Mhz soon … I watch a lot of shows on it ) … it really starts doing references but not too many to be eyerolly… like the alternate script that refers to Metropolis, the actress character whose last name is the same as the cop in some of the Dr. Mabuse movies, the forensic guy who experiences bureaucratic dismissiveness and then finds a beetle on the ground and examines it and then is going through a list of names and “is on K”

yeah that season was a little less enjoyable bc of that, at least at first

i havent seen s4 yet but excited to have found it’s on kanopy! will watch that v soon

oh good to know

Depends on your library.

well MY library has the goods :D

The songs keep getting stuck in my head

The Season 4 ending scene is … idk idk Game of Thrones-esque

in a good way or in a bad way?

In a disconcerting way … can’t tell

Season 4 is on MHz Choice, and they also have it out on Blu-ray now.

I love MHz … like, of the dozen streaming services I pay for, it’s the one I watch most

Do you have any other shows you like that you want to recommend?

On Mhz?

Reindeer Mafia -Sons of Anarchy in Finland
The Last Socialist Artifact
State of Happiness (norwegian oil historical)
Spiral - French equivalent of The Wire

Procedurals:
Tatort Köln
Tatort Munster
Tatort Schimanski (the first couple series have really solid early 80s synth soundtracks)
Bukow & Konig
Hanko Murders
Beck
The Killing - original Danish
Paris Police 1900

Feel bad historical drama:
A French Village - Nazi occupation and resistance
— forget the names, but several related to Italian politics in the 60s/70s

French Village RULES
can confirm

Good recommendations, thanks!

French Village RULES
can confirm

What about Beau Sejour?

i watched that back when it was on Netflix & really dug it

I watched a few minutes of the dubbed version of Babylon Berlin … went back to the original

yeah the dubbed version is cursed

Iirc the traditional wisdom has usually been that in some languages such as Italian, the dubbed version is okay since they do a first class job of it, but in English not so much.

The only time I might entertain dubs is for anime, and even then not all the time.

Yeah, I pretty much avoid completely and invariably feel tricked or cheated when that is all that is available.

finally started S4

The true star of this series is still the Paternoster lift in the police building

Thank you for noting this, I have been anticipating the new season. That lift tho.

Eheh it’s great indeed. I used one in Prague once

was it terrifying? how many limbs did you lose?

i have had “Days of Gold” in my head for 24 hours -
what a banger of an earworm! not mad at all.
this series has such killer original music <3

OTM!

i get so worried when anyone in this show experiences any kind of happiness

literal doom, always

was it terrifying? how many limbs did you lose?

I have to admit it was a bit more stressful than I thought it would be !

finished s4 - i found the final scene w the doctor kind of odd & anticlimactic?

but i think a pretty good season overall. a bit less shambolic than s3

yep - anything with the doctor is bad imo

yeah it’s like the show acts as though everything w the doctor is so heavily weighted w meaning but it just comes off as arch & kinda dumb idk

he was creepy at first i giess but jfc talk about outstaying yr welcome

Gereon was right to leave him to die on the battlefield.

Super odd otm

Whenever the computer prompts me to have it remember my password, I always see “not right now” and get the S1 theme in my head

kinda surprised by the love of the musical bits.. i find the 'hands in the air' music numbers to be distracting filler, but I guess they're supposed to evoke the bon vivant of the era before the nazis started seriously busting skulls

(not including the dance marathon, which actually drove the plot)

I dislike "Ein Tag Wie Gold" but I keep humming it every time I open this thread