A dysfunctional panorama in which there is not a single sympathetic character

Somewhere in the south. The hills are pleasant. The harvest is brought in. It's warm. The sun is high in the sky. The streets on the outskirts of the small, small town are empty. On the edge, where the homes are. In a circle around an empty center. And with no way out.

There, on the fringes, Germany is always a particularly dangerous place on a Sunday evening. Envy and resentment and domestic violence grow. That is where the dangerous appearance of the bourgeoisie resides. People observe other people suspiciously. People trust other people with everything. And quite often rightly so.

Sandra Vogt lives there. That's what the new Black Forest "crime scene" wants. It's called "The Views of Others". Bernd Lange wrote it. Franziska Schlotterer directed.

Sandra has two children – Lukas has reached the end of puberty, Jonas is ten – a husband, no worries. They have just been awarded three million. When Sandra is in office, everyone, especially the men, always wants to see her. She didn't always live there. That's a problem.

She can do whatever she wants, she will never belong. Mistrust will always be with her. What is she doing wrong? Nothing. She is wrong. She is Sandra. And Sandra is just Sandra. That's enough for her rejection. Through the mother-in-law. Through the neighbor who meticulously keeps records of everything the Vogts do.

She doesn't know what happened on the night it's about. There is a lot of blood in the bedroom, enough that Sandra's husband would not have survived the loss. The man has disappeared, as has Jonas. Sandra is still there. And has to live with the hatred of the citizens and the suspicions of the investigators.

Being wrong on the bourgeois German fringes is of course not a problem in Breisgau. That would also work in the Old Country and in Lusatia. However, Sandra would not meet inspectors like Franziska Tobler and Friedemann Berg. They're not the fastest. But they would win every crime scene detective empathy award we have yet to come up with. Subjecting this fundamental and fundamentally good empathy to a continuous stress test must be the clandestine program of the responsible SWR editorial team.

In the case of Sandra, the target of the stress test is primarily Friedemann Berg. He would like to relieve Sandra. He sees her desperation, sees how she is becoming more and more self-conscious that she is not suspect because the others think she is guilty. He builds more bridges for her than the Breisgau has rivers. But Sandra doesn't go over any.

You just have to confess. Or say where she was the night whatever really happened. And with whom. Or she would have to confess at all. But she doesn't do any of that. Gradually, in flashbacks, in staged statements, a dysfunctional panorama unfolds, in which there is not a single sympathetic character, including Sandra. If you disregard Tobler and Berg.

The man a choleric asshole. Nobody understands how Sandra got to him. The companion a slimy little spirit. The son is an absolute father-child who treats his mother like a mangy dog. Really developing sympathy for the stubborn Sandra, because one admires Friedemann Berg very much for his patience, is difficult anyway.

It's going slowly. It remains foreign to you. You only develop a longing for a summer in Breisgau. That's a little bit in the long run.