A motley crew and a whole host of clichés about life in a Berlin shared apartment: In the new ZDF comedy series “Youth – it’s complicated”, young city dwellers in particular are likely to find themselves in many of the scenes.
The sitcom about the residents Cathrin (Sarah Gailer), Tim (Thomas Schubert), Sophie (Eli Riccardi), their weird neighbor Frank (Leon Ullrich) and Sophie’s mother Susanne (Gerti Drassler) deals in a humorous way with pretty much every problem that a young person can encounter in the metropolis: from precarious work with an arrogant boss to shared apartment castings with dozens of other applicants. Or even oddities like a cursed bulky waste sofa.
Cathrin lives in a shared apartment with her best friend Tim, a freelance theater maker, and works in a poorly paid job for the annoying gallery owner Florian Graf (Fabian Hinrichs). In the very first episode, however, she frees herself from her dependence on her unloved boss and decides to make a fresh start. She is also looking for a new roommate for her shared apartment. From the many applicants, she chooses the English-speaking Sophie. At a party, Sophie and Tim quickly become close, which complicates the shared apartment situation.
The broadcaster describes the characters in the series, which is based on classic US sitcoms, as “friends, neighbors and family, but above all people on the lookout. They are looking for happiness, for love or sometimes just for money for the next rent.”
Sometimes slapstick-like
In the eight episodes, which are now available in the ZDF media library and can be seen every Tuesday at 9:45 p.m. in double episodes on ZDFneo from September 10th, the search for happiness, love and money sometimes takes on slapstick characteristics. For example, when Tim critically examines his privileges and decides to treat the parcel delivery man with more respect – whereupon the delivery man does not leave his side, which really gets Tim mad. In another episode, Cathrin pretends to be a man on the Internet in order to be taken more seriously in correspondence. This leads to her going on a chaotic date with the art historian Paul and his best friend.
Author and director Stefan Stuckmann describes the series as follows: “‘Youth’ is a naked, raw storytelling of the most tried and tested structure in the world of television: a flawless sitcom that can go anywhere good stories are waiting without the ballast of epic 100-episode storylines. A sitcom whose clear studio look is not a relic from the 90s, but a conscious focus on acting and story.”
Deliberately filmed only in the studio
According to Simon Ostermann and Hannah Dörr, who worked on the series as producers and directors, they deliberately avoided using original sets and only filmed in the studio. “We created a look that never conceals the studio-like quality, but rather embraces it. Finding the right level of artificiality and thus creating a perfect stage for our ensemble was always the top priority,” they said in a statement.
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