''Eurocops'' is a European television crime TV-series produced between 1988 and 1992. It is a co-production between seven European TV stations in which each station produced a number of episodes which were then pooled, dubbed and otherwise adapted when needed and broadcast by all participating stations, a format used earlier in the German crime series

Tatort ''Tatort'' ("Crime scene") is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by ...

. The participating networks were ZDF from Germany,

ORF ORF or Orf may refer to: * Norfolk International Airport, IATA airport code ORF * Observer Research Foundation, an Indian research institute * One Race Films, a film production company founded by Vin Diesel * Open reading frame, a portion of t ...

from Austria, SRG from Switzerland, RAI from Italy,

Televisión Española Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in ...

from Spain,

Antenne 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 Ap ...

from France and

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

from the United Kingdom. A direct consequence of the 'pooled production' format was that all episodes by one particular network had a strong local -even national- feel and were distinctly different from the episodes produced by other networks. Not only were they filmed in the network's own country with local actors, but they were also written by local screenwriters, thus reflecting that nation's specific taste for crime dramas. With national networks at that time still relying on self-produced programs, a big part of Eurocop's allure was that it offered viewers in one country a first-hand look at what crime series in other countries looked like. Despite being a pan-European TV series, the three German speaking networks did more than half of the filming with Germany and Austria filming 15 episodes on their own and one more joint production. Switzerland contributed another 12. Of the four non-German speaking countries, Italy made 13 episodes and France made 8, whereas Spain and the UK made only 4 and 3 episodes respectively. All in all, in a span of five and a half years, seventy-one episodes were produced. Typically they were broadcast once a month. In Germany, ZDF broadcast the series on every fourth Friday as part of its Friday night crime lineup. (The three other Fridays it would broadcast episodes from other homemade crime series). Its first broadcast was on November 6, 1988 with a Swiss production called "Tote reisen nicht" (English: The dead don't travel).

Introduction and title music

A little sensation for its time was the title sequence. Not only was the title music a haunting electronic theme composed by

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores fo ...

(Playing Piano's, Synthesizers & Gretch Drums), it was accompanied by a wild camera ride in which a camera circles over a map of Europe, shows the different cities in which the episodes play and for each city shows a picture of the local detective with his name and title. Finally the camera zooms out into a picture of the police badge of the country in which the episode in question plays. Still a novelty for this time, the title was completely computer generated.

Cast and crew

Germany

*''Produced by:'' Monaco Film, Munich for ZDF *''Directors:'' Georg Althammer, Werner Kließ *''cast:'' ** Heiner Lauterbach as Thomas Dorn ** Eva Kryll as Karin * ''City:''

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Austria

*''Produced by:''

*''Directors:'' Rud'i Nemeth, Peter Müller *''cast:'' ** Bernd Jeschek as Peter 'Bernd' Brucker **

Bigi Fischer Bigi may refer to: Surname * Emilio Bigi (1910–1969), Paraguayan singer * Federica Bigi, Sammarinese diplomat and politician * Ikaros Bigi (born 1947), German theoretical physicist * Luca Bigi (born 1991), Italian rugby union player Other uses * ...

as Bigi Herzog **Hermann Schmid as Oberinspektor Nurmeier * ''City:''

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Switzerland

*''Produced by:'' SRG *''cast:'' ** Alexander Radszun as Christian Merian **

Wolfram Berger Wolfram Berger (born 12 October 1945 in Graz) is an Austrian actor. Selected filmography * ''Assassination in Davos'' (1975) * ''General Sutter ''General Sutter'' is a 1999 Swiss historical film directed by Benny Fasnacht and starring Wer ...

as Peter Brodbeck * ''City:''

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...

Italy

*''Produced by:'' RAI2 *''Music by:''

Stefano Mainetti Stefano Mainetti is an Italian composer and conductor. Biography Attended Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Rome where he earned a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, in Composition and a 1st class honors Master of Music in Film Scoring degree. He ...

(9 episodes) *''cast:'' ** Diego Abatantuono as Commissario Bruno Corso ** Bruno Pagni as Marco

France

*''Produced by:''

France 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on ...

*''cast:'' ** Patrick Raynal as Commissaire Nicolas Villars ** Bertrand Lacy as Commissaire Luc Rousseau ** Étienne Chicot as Jérôme Cortal ** François Perrot * ''City:''

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

Spain

*''Produced by:''

Velarde Films Velarde may refer to: *Velarde, New Mexico * Velarde CF, Spanish football team * Velarde map, a 1734 map of the Philippine People * Carlos Velarde (born 1990), Mexican boxer * Efraín Velarde (born 1986), Mexican football player *Enrique Gorostiet ...

for

*''cast:'' **

Álvaro de Luna Álvaro de Luna y Fernández de Jarava (between 1388 and 13902 June 1453), was a Castilian statesman, favourite of John II of Castile. He served as Constable of Castile and as Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. He earned great influence in ...

as Subcomisario Andrés Crespo

United Kingdom

*''Produced by:'' Picture Palace Productions for

*''Director:'' Malcom Craddock *''cast:'' **

John Benfield Jonathan Edmund Fulford "John" Turner (9 November 1951 – 16 June 2020), better known by his stage name John Benfield, was a British character actor. Biography Benfield appeared in 75 television episodes or films starting in 1981 with small pa ...

as Detective Constable George Jackson **

Linda Henry Linda Varilis (''née'' Henry; born 24 August 1959) is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Yvonne Atkins in the ITV drama '' Bad Girls'' and Shirley Carter in the BBC soap opera '' EastEnders'', a role she has played since 20 ...

as Linda Jackson ** Jonathan Phillips as Stonehead ** David Bradley as Roper

External links

*
EUROCOPS
BFI * http://krimiserien.heimat.eu/e/eurocops.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20120530132040/http://www.tvsi.de/krimiserien/eurocops.php
odeonfilm.de
Folgen der Monaco Film (heute Odeon-Film) {{Authority control 1988 German television series debuts 1993 German television series endings Fictional police officers ZDF original programming German crime television series 1980s German police procedural television series 1990s German police procedural television series

Introduction and title music

Cast and crew

Germany

Austria

Switzerland

Italy

France

Spain

United Kingdom

See also

External links