“A really hot number 2.0” (ZDF): blue hair, bare skin and blouses

The continuation of the hit comedy “A very hot number” on ZDF tastes more like cold coffee.

Don’t worry, the TV works fine. The formation of blocks during the opening credits is a joke and introduces the topic: missing broadband cable connections. The Bavarian hamlet of Marienzell has only a thin connection to the rest of the world. A fiber optic cable would be necessary, but the company responsible refused to lay it because it was not profitable.

A problem, because industry and other business taxpayers cannot be attracted without a fast internet. Long-established residents seek the distance. Even the baker sits down. Not even with pecuniary promises does the worried mayor manage to keep the man. The wind is already driving undergrowth through the streets of Marienzell, as we know it from American ghost towns.

“A very hot number 2.0” (ZDF): Not immune to bad taste

A sign. There is a threat of vacancy and decline, as well as obsolescence. Lena (Rosalie Thomass) wants offspring, but her husband Willi (Matthias Ransberger) is squirming. Then she finds out that Willi is secretly watching porn on the web, packs the suitcase and Paul the piglet and leaves.

Attentive viewers will be taken aback here: The exposition of the story says that the existing data line is not enough for even the simplest Internet actions. But pornographic material flies by easily? Must be the slippery character of these films.

“A really hot number 2.0” (ZDF): Hardly any logic, little credibility in the second

Logic and credibility were noticeably indifferent to those involved. Just like the quality of the script itself. The team of authors, Kathrin Richter and Jürgen Schlagenhof, dig deep into their clothes box: no sooner have the ladies won the benevolence of the responsible company boss than their Waltrauds lunch is poured over the white blouse. And the unfortunate Felix von Manteuffel had to have his hair dyed blue in the role of Heinz Wackernagel without any meaningful dramaturgical justification.

Many gags come with an announcement. Willi secretly practices tango dancing and of course, who would not have seen it coming, is caught by Lena, who of course misunderstands the situation.

Apparently there was also a lack of feeling for crossing taste limits. When Waltraud (Gisela Schneeberger) with the elderly Dr. Huber (Günther Maria Halmer) engages in telephone sex – a thematic recourse to the very successful previous film – and the old man breathes his life out in Waltraud’s presence in a long dying scene, that’s anything but funny. If the scene was intended to be tragicomic or black-humored, it failed because of a lack of sensitivity.

“A really hot number 2.0” (ZDF): Jorge González sent from heaven

The rudimentary plot: Lena would like to take part in a farmer-savvy dance competition in the neighboring town and invest the 10,000 euros advertised as start-up financing for laying the fiber optics. She is laughed at at a citizens’ meeting, but still bravely tackles the project and forms a dance troupe with Waltraud and Maria (Bettina Mittendorfer). None of them have previous knowledge and talent.

Perhaps it is because of Lena’s prayer to the Virgin Mary with the request for a heavenly sign that in the next moment Jorge González drives up on a lonely country road in a convertible and promptly has a flat tire. That German-Cuban choreographer who wanders through the casting shows of private radio and has become an eye-catcher there with his extravagant wardrobe. You could have written self-deprecating or parodic scenes on his slim body, but nobody wanted to invest that much effort. As usual, González radebrecht from “Chicas” and teaches the three graces to walk and dance and to meet the expectations of a suitably conditioned audience. Why don’t the men dance in sexy clothes?

“A really hot number 2.0” (ZDF): Lushly funded frippery

The story moves from gag to gag, is more like a number revue or a crude farce of folk dialect theater. “Komödienstadel 2.0” on ZDF, if you will.

Director Rainer Kaufmann, who once emerged with works such as “Maria’s Last Journey” and “In All Stille”, does not find a uniform line in the staging, nor any appealing, let alone original, images. Most of the time, the actors charge that it rattles, only showing their class in a few quieter scenes.

This comedy with a marginal humor content was funded by the Filmfernsehfonds Bayern, the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), the Federal Government Commissioner, the German Film Funding Fund.

Since decisions about such grants are usually made on the basis of scripts, the thought almost suggests that something must have gone mightily wrong between the application and the implementation.

Some time ago the saying went around that television was the new cinema. Movies like this are why this sounded like a threat to many television viewers. (Harald Keller)