Start of “Friedefeld”: An animated series for adults from Germany

Start of “Friedefeld”
An animated series for adults from Germany

With “Friedefeld”, a new, highly entertaining animated series for adults starts on March 22nd in the ARD media library. The show, whose first season has ten episodes each lasting just over 20 minutes, is reminiscent in many ways of unmistakable US role models such as “Family Guy” or “South Park”. And yet the animated series by creators Alfonso Maestro and Tillmann Orion Brehmer, with its smart humor and extremely current topics such as cryptocurrencies, dating apps and environmental protection, comes across as independent, and at no point does it simply copy its legendary predecessors from overseas.

That’s what “Friedefeld” is about

A completely ordinary German city in 2024: Paul (speaker: David Kross, 33) used to work as an advertising copywriter, but his greatest talent is not being able to make decisions and preferring to put important things on the back burner. Paul’s half-sister Barbie (Jacqueline Belle, 34) is a completely different person: As the first female CEO, she heads the Giesel car company, repeatedly asserts herself energetically against the all-male supervisory board, and at the same time terrorizes her assistant Gigi (Faye Süßenbach), who… who has a doctorate from the Sorbonne and is therefore significantly overqualified for the humiliating work under CEO Barbie.

And then there is the third member of the group, Paul and Barbie’s half-brother Ludwig (Johannes Lange, 35). In every episode he deals with a new, crazy instant plan: he wants to change the world and then educate young people to become pacifists in a first-person shooter game. Meanwhile, his procrastinating half-brother Paul is in a relationship with the highly intelligent Berthe (Nora Becker), but she breaks up with him in the premiere episode of “Friedefeld”. Berthe then moves in with her new lover, the chronic optimist Jan (Rajko Geith), directly opposite Paul’s apartment, on the same floor.

Is “Friedefeld” worth it?

The new ARD series “Friedefeld” proves that the US entertainment industry does not have a monopoly on smart, animated adult entertainment in the style of “Family Guy”, “American Dad”, “South Park” or – more recently – “Rick and Morty” and “BoJack Horseman”.

Because the cleverly observed and written comedy series not only deals with current topics of our time such as binge-watching, self-optimization apps or NFTs, but, despite all the exaggeration, it also offers some real-life characters whose fates really grow on viewers as the series progresses should grow.

Some people will probably recognize themselves in characters like the eternally suffering assistant Gigi or super procrastinator Paul, who finds it premature to move in with his long-term girlfriend Berthe even after seven years of dating. There has never been a series like “Friedefeld” in Germany yet.

SpotOnNews