Apple TV+'s 'Berlin ER' takes a dark, gritty look at a German hospital

Apple TV+ welcomes viewers to The Krank in its new series, “Berlin ER.”

The German-language medical drama centers on a chaotic emergency room in the toughest and most overcrowded hospital in Berlin.

In German, “krank” means sick, weird and freaky, three particularly accurate adjectives when it comes to the many outlandish events that unfold within its morally murky walls.

The young Dr. Suzanna “Zanna” Parker, played by Haley Louise Jones, is seeking a fresh start in the big city after her private life implodes in Munich, according to Apple TV+. When she tries to implement necessary reforms, Parker is confronted with resistance from the underpaid, ill-equipped and chronically fatigued hospital staff, who only survive with an indispensable dose of black humor. But in the face of an increasingly merciless health care system, the battered team must put aside their differences and pull together to save lives.

“She’s basically lost,” Jones says. “She is a doctor out of passion, but has lost her way (of being a doctor). I think we all know that feeling, that situation, when you’re falling apart privately then it starts melting into your work, and you can’t separate the two anymore. That’s why she has ended up in Berlin. It’s her attempt to fix her life again, to fix that hole that’s inside her.”

Viewers meet Parker as she has little time for introspection. Drafted as the latest in a long line of head doctors tasked with organizing the chaos of The Krank, she has her work cut out, according to the showrunners. Such is the scale of the task that none of the last four head doctors who tried lasted long. It even caused the most recent to have a psychological breakdown. Which is why, within an hour of Zanna arriving, the staff is already taking bets on how long she will last. Their guess is around three days.

“It’s not nice for anyone starting a new job to know you’re not wanted there,” Jones says. “No matter how tough we can pretend to be, how much we make out that we don’t care, deep down we all want to be part of a group. But at some point, if you’re faced with that much adversity, there’s a strength you find. Zanna develops almost a fighter’s mindset, this attitude of, ‘I’m going to show you. I will get through this.’

“There’s a loneliness to that, but a power, too. She’s a character full of dichotomies.”

The series airs a new episode each Thursday through April 10.

The series is co-created by former emergency room physician-turned-screenwriter Samuel Jefferson together with Viktor Jakovleski. Starring alongside Jones is Slavko Popadic, Safak Sengül, Aram Tafreshian, Samirah Breuer, Bernhard Schütz, Peter Lohmeyer and Benjamin Radjaipour.

The Krank is a fictitious hospital in Neukölln-Kreuzberg, one of Berlin’s roughest boroughs. The place, in the series and in the real world, is a sociological melting pot, once a working class area that has transformed into one of the city’s trendiest urban neighborhoods, according to the series. All life exists here, which means all manner of incidents will find their way into this overloaded ER.

Parker is not without an antagonist. She struggles with the unprofessionalism and lack of respect Dr. Ben Weber, played by Popadic, has for his colleagues.

Weber is a brilliant renegade trauma surgeon who knows his way around The Krank.

“He is emotionally extremely involved in his job,” says Popadic. “Maybe a little bit too much. He’s a rebellious guy who does things his own way, plays by his own rules. But he’s very lonely and has a lot of inner demons.”

The Krank is the only constant in Weber’s turbulent life.

Drawn there because, as his character says, “it’s the worst hospital in Germany,” he is determined to help anyone in need of help – and figures that the patients there need it more than most.

“He’s a warm-hearted person, who really wants to help,” Popadic says. “And he takes The Krank as a challenge. It’s a place of action. As a doctor, you have no time to think; you’re just forced to be in the moment. That puts you on the edge. And Ben likes being on the edge. It’s who he is.”

As part of Popadic’s research, he, like his co-stars, undertook a medical bootcamp, to learn the basics, practicing looking competent with needles, for instance, by sticking them into pieces of fruit. He also took an internship at a local hospital, which gave him the chance to interview a succession of real-world doctors and nurses – and see some sights he will never forget.

“I saw a knee surgery,” Popadic recalls. “Watching it at first was quite disgusting. I was under the mask and almost wanted to pull it up over my eyes, like, ‘I don’t want to see any more!’ But then you realize the process is basically a form of mechanics. That there’s a logic to it.”

'Krank' calling: 'Berlin ER' takes a dark, gritty look at a German hospital