Verschollen (TV Series 2004–2005) Poster

(2004–2005)

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A very pathetic ripoff
adrianAKArosemarys_baby19 August 2006
You see in Germany before the US television series "Lost" aired and not many people knew of its existence (including me), the private broadcaster RTL (which gets high ratings for every crap they show on TV) thought for themselves: "Hmmm... we know that we can't purchase 'Lost' because that Haim Saban guy from Pro7 already bought it. Let's copy/steal the idea!"

Sadly this isn't the first time RTL thought up of this horrible scenario. Off the top of my head they have already copied "Married with children", a "Charlie's Angels" TV show (two versions exist of these) and there are MANY more that I forgot trust me. They even made a own movie that copies the basics of "Under Siege 2" mixed with further Seagal and Van Damme stereotypes.

So they have made "Verschollen" and heavily advertised it. They casted soap actors and non-actors for example a grade school teacher, I'm not kidding this is a fact. These actors and actresses play characters that are shallow imitations and hybrids of the ones in Lost. For example there is that girl who is Verschollen's version of Shannon who has bumped like 70% of the male cast. There is the artist additionally an alcohol addict who is capable of making alcohol out of anything. A 4-headed family whom all of them survived the plane crash without any scratches. Rivaling siblings where one is good and the other downright evil who love the same wench. The token Turkish guy that can be blamed for everything and lastly the stupid goth brat who in reality acts more like a pampered snobbish rich girl.

The story starts with people in a plane that only one pilot flies (???) and he is starting to sleep or something. The people walk about in the plane as if they are on a school travel. The light flickers and the plane shakes in such a fashion like it got often parodied on "The Simpsons". The survivors get stranded on an island in the Atlantic ocean, the most traveled ocean in mankind, that nobody has ever found. In the daylight scenes the viewer gets blue-screened to death with blurry pictures of an ocean and mountains etc. The stuff that looks real seems like it came straight from a biotope.

The survivors accept their destiny and various months pass with just soap like stories happening like love and hate. The clever mix of adventure and mystery seen in Lost is non-existent here. As the show was in the middle of its run I stopped watching it as it became to insulting for my brain cells. Also there just wasn't anything really interesting to keep watching. You could have had the same simple-minded entertainment watching a soap but I don't want that! Shortly after (funnily one week before Lost aired in Germany) it was cancelled.

Mankind can only hope that RTL will keep that horrible show in the vaults and not show reruns of it on their countless "lesser" channels.
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Just ridiculous and embarrassing.
Delosario-213 September 2004
A very poor try of transforming the old 'Robinson' story into a German TV series... let me stress "very poor" again.

'Verschollen' is filled with exceptionally bad visual fx (blue-screening all the way since this... thing was entirely shot on a soundstage with loads of cheesy props).

Unknown actors (obviously for reason since they're ALL bad - and I mean EVERYBODY). The performances cover everything from embarrassing to exaggerated to funny (unintentional that is). And of course there is this annoying blurry videolook with over-saturated colors making this wannabe "Cast Away" clone look even a little more sleazy.

The total lack of character development reminds us of all those (surprisingly popular) cheap superficial German soap operas. The story itself is boring since you just don't care about the characters and actually don't give a sh*t if they'll be saved or not.

The impertinence of the producer comparing this TV trash to the great Cast Away almost outrages me since it shows us again this typical arrogance of German television industry which gave us crap like "Alarm für Cobra 11" or "Medicopter" or "Helicops" or "Motorrad Cops". You really start to wonder how such a bunch of obviously incompetent filmmakers get the budget and the green light to produce TV slime like "Verschollen". Apparently RTL has too much money. I'm not just ranting without a reason, because I had a bad day or hate my job (which actually is indeed the case). It really IS infuriating to watch this if you're a movie fan. It's just so pathetic. Let's hope this show goes down the drain and the producers and directors never EVER find a job in the German movie industry again!

I give it 2 of 10 stars 'cause I laughed twice about the unspeakable dull dialog.

EDIT: Now we have 2005 and look what happened! The show got canceled! What a surprise!
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