LindenstraÃÂe (literally "Linden Street") is a long-running German television drama series, broadcast by Das Erste. The first episode aired on 8 December 1985 and since then new episodes were broadcast weekly until 2020. Its last timeslot on Das Erste was Sundays at 18:50. The events of the Sunday episode usually take place on the Thursday before the show. This is a result of the original plan having been to show each episode on a Thursday night. Before the start of the series the programme's timeslot was switched to Sunday evening, but Thursday remained the day on which the events are normally shown as taking place, because the original concept of dramatizing the events of daily life as experienced by a group of characters on an ordinary weekday has continued unchanged. Exceptions are the so-called holiday episodes where the events take place on such special occasions as Christmas and Easter; also on important election days (especially general elections to the German Bundestag).
Setting the pace for other soap operas in Germany, the first episodes were mostly met with poor reviews. However, LindenstraÃÂe soon became one of the most successful shows on German television.
On 16 November 2018 it was announced that the ARD television programme conference had decided â on cost grounds, despite the programme's continuing to attract between two and three million viewers weekly â not to extend its contract with the show's producers, GeiÃÂendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion, and that the series would therefore come to an end, after nearly 35 years, in March 2020.
The creator of LindenstraÃÂe is Hans W. GeiÃÂendörfer, whose company GeiÃÂendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion GmbH (GFF - "GeiÃÂendörfer film and TV productions") produced the series until its end. In the beginning, GeiÃÂendörfer also directed the series. It is set in Munich, but filmed at the WDR studios in Cologne-Bocklemünd, where an entire outdoor street mock-up of the eponymous LindenstraÃÂe was built. An actual street named 'LindenstraÃÂe' exists in Munich's Harlaching district, but it has nothing to do with the series' fictional street.
The show is based on the long-running British soap Coronation Street, from which it borrows its main premise (the everyday life of a number of neighbours). It tackles topics such as racism, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, disabilities (both physical and mental), and homosexuality. In 1987, it gained attention for showing the first gay kiss on German television. The show is also known for its prompt incorporation of real-life events and current topics.
United States television actor Larry Hagman made a cameo appearance on LindenstraÃÂe on 19 February 2006.
GeiÃÂendörfer wrote and directed the first 31 episodes himself. After that, the series was directed by a rotating group of directors that took turns in about 10-episode blocks. Among them were Herwig Fischer, Kerstin Krause, Dominikus Probst and Iain Dilthey.
There have been many different writers of the show throughout the years. Among them were Michael Meisheit, who has been writing for LindenstraÃÂe from 1997 to 2018, and Irene Fischer, who has been writing for LindenstraÃÂe from 1999 to 2016. She has also been playing a main character in the series since 1987. In 2013, GeiÃÂendörfer's daughter Hana GeiÃÂendörfer joined the team and the first episodes written by her aired in late April.
The series is set in the LindenstraÃÂe, a fictional street in Munich. The resident families Beimer-Schiller, Beimer-Ziegler and Zenker, as well as couples without children and communes are very prominent characters in the show. There is also a doctor's office, currently run by Dr. Iris Brooks. In the past, it has been run by Dr. Ernesto Stadler, Dr. Carsten Flöter and his stepfather Dr. Ludwig Dressler. There is also a Greek restaurant "Akropolis" and a supermarket.
There are also a few shops in the KastanienstraÃÂe (literally "Chestnut Street"), which is at one end of the LindenstraÃÂe. There is an organic food shop called "1 A Bio" (It used to be the chocolate store "Kakao" and the gourmet food shop called "Alimentari". There is also a café called "Café Bayer" and a travel agency called "Träwel und Iwends" (a pun on the German pronunciation of Travel and Events) as well as the car shop "Die Werkstatt". There are also several minor characters who live on this street.
On the other end of the LindenstraÃÂe, one can find the Ulrike-Böss-StraÃÂe. In it is a movie theater ("Astor"), the "Café George" and a hair salon.
Due to the frequency of social problem topics treated in the series, a high proportion of the characters come from minority groups of diverse kind or live in patchwork relationships. From the Greek restaurant with its family and a Vietnamese which were there from the beginning, characters and whole families with migration background have come and gone from Italy, Turkey, Eastern Europe etc. The final cast counted three male homosexuals, two of them living in marriage with an adopted son, and one female homosexual with a test-tube baby. There was a homeless man (until the death of Harry Rowohlt), a man in a wheelchair, a child with Down syndrome, a trans woman and so on.
Fans of the series have proclaimed in mild jest that a "normal" family wouldn't survive the LindenstraÃÂe. As if to prove this, the model Bavarian family Stadler which moved to the street in September 2008 has only one member, the contrarian grandfather, remaining in the street as of early 2013. He "occupies" a room in a commune otherwise populated by twens. His son, the family father, fled the street after the family mother had a love-affair with his brother. The mother then broke up with the brother and started a new affair with a young immigrant from the Balkans who hid his visa-less family in an apartment in the same house. The younger family daughter, who became a teenage mother after a LindenstraÃÂe resident of her age purposely broke a condom, fell in love with the same immigrant and left the street in shock after finding out that he preferred her mother over herself. The mother and the immigrant then left the street together. The older teenage daughter had more luck and married a widely liked LindenstraÃÂe resident in Las Vegas with whom she started a successful business in the street, only to suddenly die from a food poisoning originating in the Greek restaurant in February 2013.