Die Rote Meile | |
---|---|
Genre |
Drama Thriller |
Country of origin | Germany |
Original language(s) | German |
No. of seasons | 2 |
No. of episodes | 39 |
Production | |
Location(s) | Munich, Germany |
Production company(s) | Bavaria Film GmbH |
Release | |
Original network | Sat.1 |
Original release | 1 October 1999 | – 8 March 2001
Die Rote Meile is a German television drama that aired on Sat.1 and follows the lives of strippers, prostitutes and their pimps in the district of St. Pauli in Hamburg. The first season premiered on 1 October 1999 and consisted 26 episodes. The show was a rival to the RTL drama Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast; both airing in the same time-slot - Monday nights at 9:15 pm. A second season was ordered by the network in the spring of 2000 and started airing on Thursday nights at 8:15 pm on 14 December 2000. The show was canceled in the beginning of 2001, airing its last episode on 8 March 2001.
Johnny Roland owns the strip club "Candy Club" in the district of St. Pauli in Hamburg. He falls in love with his neighbor Annette Verhoven, while forming a rivalry with her brother Andreas, who wants to take over Johnny's club. Annette has to deal with the hostility of Johnny's daughter Sascha and has to prove herself to fit into Johnny's world of naked skin. Crime lord Wilhelm Kastor becomes Johnny's personal enemy and tries to destroy everything Johnny has.
Even though the show is set in Hamburg, it was purely filmed in Munich. The network created the show as a rival to RTL's successful Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast. Die Rote Meile never matched the show in ratings, but was a success for the network itself. This led to the network's decision to move the show from Monday to Thursday nights for its second season. The move proved unpopular as the ratings declined. As one of the reasons, next to the move, was said that the death of main character Johnny Roland took the show's heart and the stories became meaningless. The production of the show ended in fall of 2000. About six months later the show was canceled.