The Bergdoktor (1992)

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Television series
Original title The mountain doctor
Country of production Germany , Austria
original language German
Year (s) 1992-1997
Production
company		 new German film company (ndF)
length 90 minutes
Episodes 96 in 6 seasons
genre Doctor series , drama series
First broadcast October 26, 1992 on Sat.1
occupation

Der Bergdoktor is a German-Austrian television series based on motifs from a successful series of novels with the same title from Bastei-Verlag in the 1990s.

When it was first broadcast, the series ran very successfully in the main evening program of Sat.1 and became one of the private broadcaster's most successful series. Many of the actors were TV-proven folk actors and then made their breakthrough in other television genres. Scene of the series is the fictional place Sunstone in Tyrol ; the real location is Wildermieming .

A remake of the series of the same name has been running on ZDF since 2008 .

action

The plot revolves around the person of the Munich doctor Dr. Thomas Burgner, who settled in Sonnenstein in the charming Tyrolean mountains at the beginning of the series. He first tries to overcome the resentment of his father-in-law, the veterinarian Pankraz Obermayr, who blames him for the accidental death of his daughter. Franzi, Pankraz's housekeeper, tries to mediate between the two, including Maximilian, nickname "Maxl", Thomas Burgner's little son, has a soothing effect on his grandfather, who has stiffened on suffering from a life-threatening illness and from it is convinced that he will not have much longer to live.

The hellish pain of Pankraz, however, turns out to be an inflamed appendix , which Thomas removed at the last minute in an emergency operation in the Haller hospital. Nevertheless, the curmudgeon Prankraz initially remains unforgiving. Only when Count Brauneck, who lives with his wife Alexandra in a romantic castle, succeeds in stealing the orphaned doctor's house from Pankraz and making Thomas available as a residence, Pankraz comes to terms with the circumstances and makes his peace with the Burgners. Thomas has to recognize that a large part of his father-in-law's resistance is based on the fact that Pankraz also practiced as a "doctor of people" and feared for his authority among the villagers.

Gradually, Pankraz and Thomas become good friends. Franzi becomes Maxl's second grandmother and takes care of the Burgners. At the hospital in Hall, Thomas met the self-confident Italian doctor Sabina Spreti, who soon moved into the doctor's house. The two get married and have children. Franzi and Pankraz, who sticks to old values ​​and is still on the road with the horse and carriage, spoil little Julia beyond measure. The young receptionist Traudl is the castle listener in a family relationship; Only when Karlheinz Böhm appears in Sonnenstein does she decide to go to Africa as a development worker.

Her successor is the young, personable Christl Wild, who keeps the doctor's office tidy. Just like her predecessor, she suffers from the imaginations of Mr. Konrad, a notorious hypochondriac who, despite being constantly present in the doctoral center, is treated with great benevolence by Thomas. Franzi, meanwhile, is jealous of the elegant Rica Althäuser, an elderly lady who keeps trying to get Pankraz to engage in cultural activities.

The mayor of Sonnenstein is the hotelier and innkeeper Alois Angerer, a sullen and dodgy business man who, thanks to his kind-hearted and sociable wife Elfriede, is repeatedly brought to give in. Angerer has a certain kinship with the wealthy farmer Xaver Zirngiebel, who for his part often plays with hidden cards and is full of prejudices. Nevertheless, he has a good core, which he proves not only by taking the father of his illegitimate grandchild into his heart after much back and forth. His wife, Waltraud Zirngiebel, is always loyal to him. Then there is the farmer Zimmerer, who usually has sinister intentions and often pursues his goals with unfair means.

Art carpenter and mountain guide Luis, a relative of Franzi, often joins the cheerful company at the Angerer inn. His son Michi is a good friend of Maxl and like his father is often a guest at the doctoral center. Village pastor Hauberer, a kind and understanding man who always wears the black cassock , embodies the traditional idea of ​​the “good shepherd”. Wherever there is an argument, he intervenes in a reconciling and soothing manner. In addition to the mountain doctor, he takes care of the worries and needs of the village population and enjoys the greatest respect.

In addition to the housework, Franzi also runs the Sonnenstein post office, a job that she really enjoys. She also sells her famous ointments and teas, which she prepares herself from medicinal herbs, on the sidelines. Right next door is the general store of the talkative grocer Anna Pölz. Whenever the time comes, she shows up at the post office to discuss the latest gossip with Franzi. Gilch, an overzealous gendarme, is quickly there with frivolous suspicions, but has no eye for the real perpetrators.

Markus Graf von Brauneck, Thomas' best friend, runs a traditional brewery and delivers his tasty Brauneck beer to many traders and landlords in the surrounding area. His manager Rufus Staudinger, a sleazy and dubious journeyman, repeatedly surrenders sums of money due to the prince for his own needs and likes to approach the female domestic staff. Alexandra Countess von Brauneck and Sabina quickly become friends and often spend their afternoons together.

The stories revolve around human fates, illnesses, envy and resentment, betrayal, passion, old enmities or misunderstandings. Criminals also end up in Sonnenstein every now and then. Nevertheless, it almost always comes to a happy end, whereby the calming and warm-hearted charisma of the Bergdoktor, the loving-caring but nevertheless determined manner of Franzis, the grumpy and down-to-earth character of Pankraz and the partly amiable, partly bitter quirks of the villagers set the tone.

After Dr. Burgner and Sabina found their deaths in an avalanche, Justus Hallstein takes on the role of mountain doctor from episode 61 (episode 65) . He was previously appointed as a vacation replacement for Dr. Burgner introduced into the series. With his calm, thoughtful manner, he soon won the trust of the villagers and moved into the doctoral house with his partner, the teacher Lisa Brunner. An old friend of Justus, the cook and restaurateur Paul Reuther, took over the vacant Gasthof Angerer shortly afterwards and opened a restaurant there. He falls in love with Christl, which almost leads to tragedy.

production

The fictional "Bergdoktorhaus" in Wildermieming

The film was mainly shot around the village of Wildermieming , which is about 40 km west of Innsbruck on the meadow-rich Mieminger Plateau ( sunny plateau ). Innsbruck and Hall in Tirol were also used as locations . The series was directed by Wolf Dietrich , Klaus Gendries , Thomas Jacob , Ulrich König , Peter Vogel and Celino Bleiweiß , who has already made a name for himself with many entertainment series.

The first four seasons were with Gerhart Lippert in the role of Bergdoktor Dr. Thomas Burgner filmed. However, after 60 episodes, Lippert wanted to work on other projects and left the series at his own request. His successor was Harald Krassnitzer in the role of Dr. Justus Hallstein. Although the series continued to run successfully even after the main actor had changed, it was discontinued in 1998 because the age of the target audience, according to Sat.1, was above the broadcaster average. Because Der Bergdoktor was the last major family series to be produced by Sat.1, most of the actors continued their careers in public service broadcasting.

The series Der Bergdoktor was produced by the Neue Deutschen Filmgesellschaft (ndF) on behalf of the private broadcaster Sat.1. The ORF was directly involved in the production and repeated all the episodes several times. The film company RETEITALIA , which belongs to the Italian Mediaset group, was also a direct production partner (Italian series title: Un dottore tra le nuvole ), hence the prominent cast with the popular Italian actress Anita Zagaria.

The ZDF version (since 2008) with main actor Hans Sigl as Dr. Martin Gruber plays at the foot of the Wilder Kaiser around Ellmau and Going just before Kitzbühel .

Charisma

The first broadcast of the series took place with the pilot film Resurrection on Sat.1 on October 26, 1992, the first season was broadcast on Monday evenings at 8:15 p.m. until January 25, 1993. The second season of the series was shown on the same slot a year later. The third season was broadcast at the beginning of 1995 and the fourth season at the beginning of 1996. Sat.1 broadcast the first four seasons with Gerhart Lippert with enormous success; more than 10 million viewers followed the Bergdoktor's experiences week after week.

His successor Harald Krassnitzer, who played the lead role from the fifth season broadcast in early 1997, was able to maintain the high ratings level. However, since Sat.1 was planning to realign the station to a significantly younger target group and the age of the series viewers was above the station average, the broadcast of the series was stopped at the beginning of 1998. The last episode of Bergdoktor ran on April 27, 1998. The last eight episodes of the sixth season had already been produced, but were no longer broadcast by Sat.1. However , they were on ORF 2 from August 11 to September 15, 1999.

In 1999 ZDF acquired the broadcasting rights for the series for Germany and repeated them from January to June 2000 in the weekday morning program. This made Der Bergdoktor on German television the first series by a German private broadcaster to be broadcast by a public broadcaster. As with the first broadcast on Sat.1, the last eight episodes of the sixth season could not be seen in the repetition on ZDF. It was not until years later that these episodes were broadcast in Germany for the first time; at the end of 2005, Sat.1 showed them in the Saturday morning program.

In 2016, the rbb acquired the broadcasting rights for the series for Germany and has been repeating them weekly on weekends since July 2016.

Guest actor

DVD

The television jewels company released all six seasons of the series on DVD.

Web links