For many years, ZDF stood, among other things, for long-lasting successful formats on the eve, for crime series such as "Ein Fall für Zwei", which also find their audience in the new edition.

In the ARD there was the weekly dose of "Lindenstraße".

The real winner on the program slot before the so-called "Prime Time" was and is the RTL long-running hit "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten".

For more than thirty years, the classic among the daily "soaps" has given the evening before its themes and faces.

Those who produce something new orientate themselves towards what may soon change, when more and more "soap" series are produced specifically for the media libraries and only come to linear television for secondary exploitation.

“Evening” then no longer plays a role.

ZDF alone will announce almost thirty new series by summer 2023.

They should increasingly seize the opportunity to negotiate zeitgeist issues "with a light hand", as the PR prose for the new ZDF evening series "Hotel Mondial" says.

Every Wednesday, this "weekly soap" wants to show a "modern perspective" of the employees of a four-star hotel in Schwerin.

drama among the guests

The "traditional and almost forgotten" genre of the hotel series is to be revived.

Apart from the fact that the "Black Forest Clinic" did not differ significantly from a series of hotels with sick guests, "almost forgotten" only applies to people with a very short memory.

From 2016 onwards, Ulrike C. Tscharre, and from 2018 Annette Frier, with the help of Christoph Maria Herbst, worked regularly on ARD in the "Hotel Heidelberg" - in a house that was a lot more sophisticated than the "Hotel Mondial".

Otherwise the recipe was similar.

Hierarchy banter and teamwork effort among the employees from concierge to housekeeping, drama among the guests.

The "fresh program color" results above all from the narrative focus.

Eva de Vries (Gesine Cukrowski) is the new hotel director in Schwerin, who has initially been transferred as a punitive measure and which, with its attractive tourism-promoting pictures, is just as important as Heidelberg in the "Hotel Heidelberg".

The second main character is Lara Hildebrandt (Joy Ewulu), the black adopted daughter of white parents, whose biological mother once worked in the "Hotel Mondial" and disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The concierge is greeted by the emotional Maria Rietzel (Lea Sophie Salfeld), the brilliant Linh Thuy (Nhung Hong) works at the reception desk, and Svetlana Bogdanova (Sarah Palarczyk) takes care of the room service.

Not to be forgotten is the top chef (“Food Chef”) Uli Kersting (Agnes Mann).

Men, whether professional or private, play second fiddle here.

The fact that the series does not deal with topics such as racist insults and attraction between women as a dramatic exception, but casually integrates them into the stories, is worthy of all honor.

Unfortunately, however, the storylines all too often appear as if they were drawn from the diversity commitment.

First of all, there are twelve episodes of “Hotel Mondial”.

If it should continue, better scripts are recommended.

Because what is a hotel here?

“A cauldron that is constantly being heated and on which modern, contemporary stories condense like water vapor – in the pendulum swing between business and emotion.

It's an endless powerhouse of fascinating stories," says producer Johannes Pollmann.

A mirror with water vapor in the swing of the pendulum,

hung in a power plant?

With less metaphor excess and less character woodcut, "Hotel Mondial" might have a chance of an upgrade.

Hotel Mondial runs on ZDF on Wednesdays from 7:25 p.m. and is available in the media library.