This one started beautifully, aerial views of a snowy forest. "Fichtelgebirge', I guessed instantly. No. Never did figure out where it was (license plate FR -- I could go look). Push/pull -- it clearly was a death of a child, which I find hard to watch, but also you could immediately tell it was in an intimate setting, and I love the comedy of manners element of stories in general. So I tried to remind myself it was just a story and get on with it. Set aside my Candy Crush.
The parts about arranging the child's funeral were hard, especially as we just came back yesterday from an overnight trip to attend a funeral (not a child's however).
There was one attractive figure, a woman, the mother of a missing boy, who ran around with a huge ungainly baby in a snowsuit attached to her with a sling. This was a very realistic element of the story that I appreciated. (She also used the Teutonia brand of Kinderwagen -- the same kind we used all those years ago, but I feel like I haven't seen that brand around for a while). Written into the story line, however, was that the mother didn't seem TOO upset that the kid was missing. And then, all the parents gathered in the police station to complain to the top policewoman that they weren't getting any information, and this mother stood up and said a line and it was just so stiff and just so badly acted, it really tore me out of the the Tatort. That happens so rarely in television productions, actually, never, really, that you're aware that they people are actors reciting lines, it made me appreciate what a high level most television acting actually is.
I was fighting sleep after an hour, but then woke up for the end (had nothing to do with the story, I was just tired).
So what were the German elements of this story? The actors were all very normal looking people. They were all in their winter clothes and thus, dressed primarily in black. The commissioners were all ünformig', to use a word that came to mind. No fit, healthy, American actors with symmetrical features. I really appreciated this about Tatort last night.