Anne WillPart of our guide to German TV: “Slow death, or a winter of German telly”Anne Will Made the jump from main ARD news show Tagesthemen to her own talk show called Anne Will in 2007, having taken over from Sabine Christiansen. Famous for breaking a few boundaries, including being one of the first female sports presenters on German mainstream TV, and one of the first openly lesbian TV presenters. The highpowered guests don’t necessarily end up shouting at each other; instead, they sort of chuckle smugly and swap anecdotes.
Sandra Maischberger Presents another ARD political discussion show Menschen bei Maischberger, where people sit on armchairs too close together and argue a bit. The title and the sets seem to suggest that the idea is to pretend that everyone is actually in Maischberger’s house. There’s no studio audience, no swoopy dramatic camerawork, less shouting and more use of beige decor.
Thomas Gottschalk Rapidly becoming the aging Michael Jackson of German TV. His curly blond perm and white suits mark him as an energetic 60-year-old who hopes to maintain his youth by appealing to children and the inner child in all of us. His main show is Wetten, das..? – in Britain once known as You Bet, in which contestants perform death-defying feats and celebrities bet on them. You might have heard that one feat – a boy bouncing over moving cars on prosthetic limbs – went wrong a little while ago. Seriously, let’s tie pogo sticks to your legs and bounce over a moving car. What could possibly go wrong?
