SOKO Donau

To summarize, it's basically a crime show about a fictional team of cops (Soko might or might not be an abbreviation for something real, but I'm not sure) in Vienna, Austria who work together to solve crimes. I'm not particularly good with summaries, forgive me. The premise of the show in itself isn't what interested me in the first place.

This is a really good crime show. Not as flashy as the likes of NCIS or CSI, but it holds its own, being on a European (much smaller) budget. If you know German or are learning it, and are interested in crime shows it's worth checking out. The way crime is handled on TV in German-speaking Europe (in this case Vienna, Austria) is a bit different it's a lot less violent a good portion of the time, than it is in the US. Or so I thought, anyway. Very enjoyable series. Not to mention the dialects and accents used by some of the characters are quite interesting as well.

The different culture and geography in which the stories are set carry with it a bit of uniqueness to the cases.

I watched the first five series on DVD. This is a great TV show to watch if you want to see Vienna and learn German. You will get to experience some Austrian dialect, but it's not a hard dialect to pick up.

The show is not too heavy, and not too light, it's entertainment. Yes, it's a crime show, but there is very little violence and the characters interact nicely - a team effort. Some of the other Soko franchise are much darker, this series captures the Vienna charm (cheek). Each Soko (Leipzig, Rhein Main, Koln) has its own "personality". This is my favorite of the franchise, and definitely the lightest.

If only they would release more DVDs, I've been waiting for the next series for too long!