Date of release: February 26, 2025 (Apple TV+)
Written by: Samuel Jefferson, Lisa van Brakel
Directed by: Fabian Möhrke
”Steffen always finds a new idiot for the job.”
“Why did the last one leave?”
“Mental breakdown. May 1st, almost 300 patients high, drunk, street fight wounds, and so on. May 1st kind of thing.”
The American healthcare system is not the only one that forces its employees to work for minimum wage during 24-hour shifts that are tiring and maddening, in a hospital that seems to be falling apart, filled with patients who don't have any patience. After (HBO) Max's THE PITT started showing the limitations every healthcare worker faces day in and day out, it was time for the Germans to also throw a medical drama out into the open, for viewers to wonder once more why every country in the world doesn't seem to care about its ill people and continues to slash the budgets of hospitals.
KRANK BERLIN is no THE PITT. One has an emergency department that could be considered filthy and in need of a thorough scrub-down and paint job; the other is so bright and illuminated that you can see what's happening behind every corner. One has doctors who hate their new boss because they hate all their bosses for simple reasons; the other still has some respect left for their leaders. One has healthcare workers who don't mind downing a ton of alcohol and pills to forget the problems of their private lives; the other doesn't seem to bother with these kinds of storylines. However, both shows depict how chaotic a shift in the emergency department can be, especially when the flow of new patients never stops.
The show is not like any other medical drama you have watched, but in a way, it's a medical drama that decided to replace one premise (that of the romantic entanglements between the characters) with another (the portrayal of anarchy and literal grittiness in the ER). In this hospital, having to dangle yourself from one patient to the next, from one diagnosis to another, is like being in a warzone. At some point, the doctors don't care that one of the patients has a gun in their pants – they are just being asked nicely to get it out of the building before the cops arrive, because in this hospital, if you don't have the money to care for your patients properly, then you don't care about rules and order.
A patient loses their IV and is bleeding on the floor while unconscious? Naah, no investigation about that is needed, just pop the IV back in. A patient throws herself in front of an ambulance after being kicked out of the hospital? Naah, get her to radiology and then move on with your work, more patients are waiting. A patient coding in the waiting room can't be moved, and the ultrasound machine with no charged batteries can't reach the wall plug? Drill into the bone marrow to get access for a quick IV. In this hospital, doctors have to macgyver their way through medical procedures, because the hospital administration believes that the busiest part of their building should get the least amount of money. Healthcare is not that important, right?
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| Getting piss on your scrubs is a daily occurrence in this hospital. |
