We wouldn't have thought so either, but the RTL production "Der König von Palma", which plays at Ballermann in the year of the first all-German holiday season, isn't bad at all.
That's because the milieu of the drinking party tourists and their landlords is precisely drawn, that's because of the actors who are allowed to talk about how their East and West German beaks have grown.
And that's because the series takes a lot of time to paint the exiled German mores and its crooked guys down to the last moonwashed fringe shorts, sometimes maybe a little too much time.
Yes, the environment is exquisitely trashy, but you can also take a loving look at trash.
Andrea Diener
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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At the center of the pretty pastel colored action is Matti Adler (Henning Baum), formerly a frustrated car salesman from Dortmund, then a waiter at "Ralle's Chute" on Malle and thus a little closer to his dream.
Now he stands day in and day out in a Hawaiian shirt under a thatched roof and flirts with the tourists, but he would rather be his own boss.
At some point he quits Ralle's (Sönke Möhring, completely disfigured by a mullet, porn snoots and gold earring) and leases his own shop, a fairly run-down digs, a little out of the way on Playa de Palma, and the discount is also far too high.
The knot bursts at the World Cup
But the owners, a long-established, wealthy Mallorcan family, seem at least reputable - in contrast to rival nightclub king with mafia ambitions, Manuel Diaz (David Lifschitz, in double-breasted white Miami Vice suit with gold chains), who uses questionable methods to enter the business with the wants to grab 16 million potential new customers.
Diaz is the new big man here, he surrounds himself with bodyguards, he meets his friends on the yacht, for him, who came from a humble background, that's his life now.
And he defends it with all means against the invaders from Central Europe, who want a piece of the pie and then another and then another.
Matti peddles his own home, whistles over the rest of his family from Germany, who is already slightly estranged, and opens the "Bieradler" in the local hybrid aesthetic of Oktoberfest and beach bar.
Wife Sylvie (Sandra Borgmann in platinum blond) is anything but enthusiastic at first, especially because the nasty Diaz does everything to prevent the operation with ever new chicanery – bribing the brewery, bribing the police.
But then, World Cup final, we are world champions, the somehow organized beer flows in streams, that's when the knot bursts.
The shop is running, the skeptical Sylvie is finally enthusiastic.
Matti sees a future, everything could be fine.
And then Ronny is at the door
The story is told from the point of view of Bianca (Pia Micaela Barucki) from Leipzig, who sits on a plane with her friend Annet for the first time in 1990.
Ever since she saw Mallorca in the hit parade on western television, she has been dreaming of a beach holiday. "Balaton died for me from then on," she says from the off.
She makes it to Mallorca, but then she can't make it back.
Annet flies to Leipzig alone, Bianca becomes a waitress at the Bieradler.
With lots of good ideas, charm and a good atmosphere, she keeps the place running and even persuades Costa Cordalis (played by his son Lucas Cordalis) and other pop stars to perform.
Bianca is a stroke of luck for Bieradler, and she has little ambition to return to East Germany, which now seems even colder and grayer, no matter how often Ronny calls.
But then Ronny is suddenly at the door.
And then Matti's brother Uwe shows up at the door, and Uwe always means trouble.
And the eldest daughter feels neglected and helps herself from the bottle rack, and her little brother begins to explore the island on her own.
Matti Adler never existed like this, but Ufa Fiction, which produces the series on behalf of RTL, has researched the environment in detail.
The showrunners Johannes Kunkel and Veronica Priefer could have increased the tension here and there, but they always succeed in touching scenes.
Add to that the clear nostalgia markers, the dreadful hairstyles, Matti's orange golf strawberry basket and last but not least the soundtrack from Madonna to Munich freedom, which make the "King of Palma" a pleasure.
But where everything seemed a bit too predictable at the beginning, it turns at the end and then again.
Wait, what kind of ending is that?
Why is someone suddenly dead?
But there's another season coming, right?
RTL hasn't announced anything yet, but we really can't leave it like that!
The king of Palma from today on RTL +