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Schirmer (Ulrich Haupt) has embezzled money from the company he works at for years, but at first he was clever about it and never "borrowed" more than he knew he could pay back within reason. Only lately, he let all caution go and got into big but as yet unnoticed debt. His son Jürgen (Andreas Seyferth) gets wind about it, and between the two of them they come up with a plan for Jürgen to break into Schirmer's office to clear out the safe, that way obscuring the sum Schirmer has taken out, a plan that involves them going to the theatre with Schirmer's wife (Gudrun Thielemann) and daughter (Claudia Golling) as an alibi, with Jürgen slipping out through the performance to break into the office and do the deed. Thing is, Jürgen's surprised by the night watchman (Herbert Weissbach), and when Jürgen tries to make a getaway, he pushes the other down some stairs, injuring him gravely in the process. Fortunately, the night watchman holds on to his life, but the guilt almost breaks Jürgen. The next day, inspector Derrick (Horst Tappert) and his assistant Harry Klein (Fritz Wepper), and naturally they question Schirmer as it was his office that was broken into, and circumstantial evidence suggests it was an inside job. Schirmer of course has an alibi - that sounds just a little too perfect for Derrick, so he decides to dig deeper here, and when he and Harry meet Jürgen, who wears his guilt pretty much on his sleeve, they know something's deeply wrong and thus put the virtual thumbscrews on Schirmer - who remains rock solid in his statements though. But when news comes in that the night watchman has died from his injuries, Jürgen breaks and gives himself up ...

What's interesting about this entry is that it spends a lot of time with its culprits before even bringing in its lead investigators (which is only about halfway through the episode), to give them plenty of emotional background and give the audience a somewhat nuanced picture of the piece's "baddies". All of this is of course thrown out of the window as soon as Derrick and Harry enter the scene and things seemingly have to folloow the series' formula, which apparently involves the culprit giving himself away, and rather blatantly so even. So basically you see writer Herbert Reinecker trying to break the mold he has made up himself for his cop shows, then losing faith and putting everything back into place again, via his old routine of stilted dialogues and unnatural character actions and reactions. So basically a promising episode that just refuses to keep its promise. Still fun to watch through a nostalgic lense, but nothing beyond just that.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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