Ein starkes Team
Ein starkes Team (German for: "a strong team") is a German crime television series developed by the German television channel ZDF since March 1994. Up to four new 90-minute episodes are broadcast annually, resulting in a current total of 72 episodes. Each episode usually revolves around an intricate murder case, regularly coinciding with events in the private lives of the main characters. The Team. The series originally starred detective chief superintendents Verena Berthold (played by Maja Maranow) and Otto Garber (Florian Martens) as the main characters. They became a team following the German reunification, which caused  the East-German "Volkspolizei", where Otto was working, to be incorporated in the (West-German) "Kriminalpolizei". They became partners in a special unit in Berlin, led by commissioner Lothar Reddemann (Arnfried Lerche), and also including the detective chief superintendents Yüksel Yüsgüler (Tayfun Bademsoy, whose character died in episode 43 in 2009) and Georg Scholz (Leonard Lansink; until episode 29 in 2005). After Georg's departure, detective Ben Kolberg (Kai Lentrodt: in episode 30 in 2005) joined the team. He was later promoted to chief superintendent, and left the team to make a sailing trip around the world (in episode 70  in 2017). In August 2015, Maja Maranow announced to be leaving the series to focus on other movies, but she died of breast cancer on 4 January 2016 at age 54, five days before the air date of the last episode in which she starred. In the following episode, Verena (her character in the series) was said to have emigrated to Australia, and was replaced by detective Linett Wachow (Stefanie Stappenbeck; as of episode 65 in 2016). In episode 56 (2013), the character Verena was out of town to follow advanced training, while in reality Maranow was undergoing chemotherapy and  could not attend the shooting of this episode. In this episode, the female lead was overtaken by Ulrike Krumbiegel, who played the role of a former colleague and friend of Otto, named Katharina Dammers. A running gag in the series is Otto's former colleague from the "Volkspolizei", Sputnik (Jaecki Schwarz). He changes jobs between each episode, and provides schnapps, ironic remarks, advice, and practical support to the "strong" team. His many activities include running a Currywurst-stand, owning a sushi bar, exploiting the police cafeteria, organizing pub crawls for tourists, owning a corner pub in Ostalgie style, cooking at  a French cuisine temple, starting a miniature golf course, being a credit counsellor, serving as matchmaker, operator of a go-kart racing track, acting as eulogist, etc.