| Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Kurt Bartsch |
| Starring | Robert Atzorn, Corinna Harfouch, Gisela Trowe, Charles Brauer, Gerd Baltus, Claudia Wenzel |
| Country of origin | Germany |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 70 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | ZDF |
| Release | 5 January 1992 – 1999 |
Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht (Our teacher Doctor Specht) is a series of family author Kurt Bartsch, directors Werner Masten (episodes 1-57), Vera Loebner (episodes 58-63) and Karin Hercher (episodes 64-70), shooting starting in 1991 in Germany. The episodes had a length of 52 (first season) or 46 minutes (second to fifth season). For subsequent repetitions of the episodes of the first season, the episodes were cut to about 45 minutes. In addition, they were provided with an alternative, shorter end credits sequence, which was also designed in a different font.
Dr. Markus Specht is a teacher with heart and soul, his private life is often behind the students. In the five seasons Specht is transferred frequently and experiences the quiet town of Celle, a boarding school on an island (Krähenwerder), the political situation shortly after the Wende in Potsdam and Berlin, and at the end of the series, the Bavarian countryside, again in a boarding school. The exteriors were mostly shot on the island of Scharfenberg in Berlin-Tegel, which also houses a Gymnasium (school type) with adjacent school farm.
A few of the characters accompany him throughout the series, the pension owner Pia Kleinholz, which is later his stepmother, when she marries his father. She always follows the educator from town to town and buys new pensions where Specht lives.
In the story, all kinds of school subjects are dealt with, while his students are mostly high school students and 15 to 18 years old. Subjects were truancy, drugs, career pressures on students, divorces, pranks, kidnappings, extortion, evil and good caretakers and much more.
Specht itself is under some relationships, loses his beloved but increasingly due to the fact that it's more important than his students are often very demanding women. Specht is in every season and every change of school, first hated by his students, but then builds on a relationship of trust that sets it apart from other teachers.
The series is, in contrast to the Lümmel-Filmen mit Hansi Kraus depicted realistically. School life is not embellished, but not dramatized. This gave the series an extraordinary popularity, and it became a ratings success. However, the materials to the shallow end of the series have been implemented, the rate of one burst and the series was finally discontinued. Especially Robert Atzorn also wanted to dedicate himself to new tasks, such as Tatort (since 2001 as Kommissar Jan Casstorff). In this context, he once remarked:
People will always see the teacher in me, I wish he would have died the serientod, or the corpse in my first Tatort is found with the cry "The Specht is dead!"
In the series played numerous and well-known German actor guest starred or were for some seasons there. For Veronica Ferres meant her role as secretary Anita Kufalt in the second and third season of the breakthrough as an actress. The cast of the students are in most cases not caught on the show.
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