Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood

This is very loosely based on real events. "Loosely"? Maybe I should say infinitesimally. The character of Curt Prank is meant to have been based on that of a real person, Georg Lang, who erected the first large beer tent at the Oktoberfest. However, that person was not the first one to have had the idea of installing a large-capacity facility there, but he was more persuasive than his predecessors.

Money has been spent on this production. The sets are lavish and cover a huge area although at times one can see that the inns and attractions are simply facades - there were a few careless camera shots.

For dramatic interest, the characters and their motivations have been sensationalised. Even in turn-of-the-century Bavaria struggling under a mentally-ill king, I doubt that rich, important people could have been bumped off or beaten nearly to death without proper investigations and then repercussions.

I didn't know that, as part of its "place in the sun" that Germany had colonised Samoa. This gave an out to the murderers in the story. It's a real indictment of the times, though, in the attitudes towards the "savages" who earnt their living by pretending to be cannibals.

There's scope for a second season although I don't know if one will ever be commissioned as this was meant to be a mini-series. If one came out, I'd certainly watch.