Goethe
If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be? Just watched the ARD Series Harter Brocken … Goethe worked in Geology and Mining for the Duke of Weimar. The Jena Set and Caroline Schlegel and Novalis and the Humboldt Brothers. Credit phb Here's a full picture of the German media reception, primarily based on tittelbach.tv (Germany's leading TV criticism platform) and Quotenmeter: The Episodes Harter Brocken: Die Erpressung (Episode 9), which premiered Christmas Day 2025 and was repeated on July 14, 2026 on Das Erste. It's set in the Harz around Sankt Andreasberg , Goslar is the broader regional context, and the Brockenbahn (steam railway) plays a starring role throughout. Critical Reception — tittelbach.tv (Tilmann P. Gangloff) Strongly positive. Gangloff praised it as "ein großes Vergnügen" — a real pleasure — highlighting the series' signature mix of black humor, genuinely menacing villains, Western allusions, and Aljoscha Stadelmann's quietly brilliant underdog-cop Frank Koops. The cold open (pensioner on a ladder, wife yells "Hans-Peter, mach' keinen Quatsch!", steam train whistle) was singled out as exemplary series writing. The verdict: even with some complexity trimmed, fans won't be disappointed. One Notable Subplot: The Creator Drama Series creator Holger Karsten Schmidt, who wrote the first five scripts, quietly withdrew his name from Erpressung, using the pseudonym "Klaus Burck." Reader comments on tittelbach.tv clarify this wasn't a protest against this episode specifically,…