Babylon Berlin Seasons 1 & 2 Kino Lorber

[Surge92]

I might actually get these. I absolutely love Babylon Berlin, Season 3 included. It's probably my favorite Netflix series.

[agentalbert]

I finished S3 tonight and have a question.

I never really got the relationship between Helga and Alfred Nyssen. How did they even meet and end up in the relationship? Maybe there's something I'm supposed to remember from S1/2 that sheds light on that.

Can someone tell me the name of the actress who played Greta's cellmate? The communist who at first attacked her, but then became friendly. I feel like I've seen her elsewhere, but never saw a character name and couldn't figure out what actress she was from the IMDB credits.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by agentalbert

I finished S3 tonight and have a question.

I never really got the relationship between Helga and Alfred Nyssen. How did they even meet and end up in the relationship? Maybe there's something I'm supposed to remember from S1/2 that sheds light on that.

I agree, that whole plot element is VERY inelegantly handled, it's the weakest part of the whole series.

In the original miniseries, it's established that Helga lives off welfare funds from a war widows charity. At the end of the miniseries, in the next-to-last episode, there's a scene where she goes to a church service being held by the charity, and sees Nyssen in person for the first time, and we learn it's his family's charity. She tosses aside her intended speech of thanks and denounces his family for making the weapons that killed her husband. He invites her to lunch to discuss things further, which seems strange.

Then in the final episode, during a montage, we see Helga having clearly accepted Nyssen's invitation for some unknown reason, getting in a limo in a fine dress and meeting him for dinner. Your guess is as good as mine about why, there must have been deleted scenes to explain this change in her character.

Then, in "Season 3" she's suddenly dating him. Nyssen comes across as profoundly mentally ill and Helga comes across as shrill and grating, she's my least favorite character in the series, so I can't honestly see what either of them sees in the other.

But the manner in which they meet, strange as it is, is at least definitely clearly shown.

Originally Posted by agentalbert

Can someone tell me the name of the actress who played Greta's cellmate? The communist who at first attacked her, but then became friendly. I feel like I've seen her elsewhere, but never saw a character name and couldn't figure out what actress she was from the IMDB credits.

Greta's cellmate in "Season 3" is the communist doctor from the original miniseries, Dr. Völcker, played by Jördis Triebel:



She's also on the other big German Netflix series, Dark, that may be where you've seen her.

[agentalbert]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I agree, that whole plot element is VERY inelegantly handled, it's the weakest part of the whole series.

In the original miniseries, it's established that Helga lives off welfare funds from a war widows charity. At the end of the miniseries, in the next-to-last episode, there's a scene where she goes to a church service being held by the charity, and sees Nyssen in person for the first time, and we learn it's his family's charity. She tosses aside her intended speech of thanks and denounces his family for making the weapons that killed her husband. He invites her to lunch to discuss things further, which seems strange.

Then in the final episode, during a montage, we see Helga having clearly accepted Nyssen's invitation for some unknown reason, getting in a limo in a fine dress and meeting him for dinner. Your guess is as good as mine about why, there must have been deleted scenes to explain this change in her character.

Then, in "Season 3" she's suddenly dating him. Nyssen comes across as profoundly mentally ill and Helga comes across as shrill and grating, she's my least favorite character in the series, so I can't honestly see what either of them sees in the other.

But the manner in which they meet, strange as it is, is at least definitely clearly shown.



Greta's cellmate in "Season 3" is the communist doctor from the original miniseries, Dr. Völcker, played by Jördis Triebel:


She's also on the other big German Netflix series, Dark, that may be where you've seen her.

Thanks for the info. I remember the scene in the church you describe from S1 where she goes to thank the charity and then denounces it. It had just been so long since I watched S1, I didn't remember that was him.

Thanks for the info on the Volcker character too. I haven't seen Dark, so the reason she looks familiar is surely just that I saw her in Babylon Berlin's S1/2 episodes, but didn't remember who she was.

And I'm with the producers on having no interest in the show getting into the period when the Nazi party takes over. I've seen enough of that stuff. I was originally drawn to this series as I'm a WWI history semi-buff, and the period after the war is very interesting. But the more Nazis become a part of the show, my interest wanes. I hope the final season is an improvement over the last one, but I agree with the decision to stop there.

[dougotte]

I think I already wrote this in another thread, but what I enjoyed most about the latest season was the contrast between decent folks like Rath and Ritter leading normal lives, while all around and unbeknownst to them, the Anti-Semites and fascists are gradually taking hold of the military and the government.

There was a sweet scene where they attended their gay colleague's party in his apartment, and they shared a surreptitious kiss amongst the singing and warmth. But, the evil was growing outside.

It's a cautionary tale for us today, I think.

[crazednoir]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Babylon Berlin

Seasons 1 & 2

Coming October 27th from KINO LORBER

Attachment 245009


Content and Special Features:

Sixteen Episodes/Four-disc box set
Behind-the-scenes footage
Making-of documentary
Optional English subtitles
Trailers
*Limited edition O-Card


Babylon Berlin Season 3 Coming NOVEMBER 24th 2020

Attachment 247007

OK it was due to be released on Oct 27th when will Kino Lorber ship the orders?

[PowellPressburger]

Originally Posted by crazednoir

OK it was due to be released on Oct 27th when will Kino Lorber ship the orders?

Kino’s site currently says out of stock. If you pre-ordered it then the delay could be that they also started a big sale weeks ago and are still trying to get out orders from that.

If you did order direct from Kino and it gives you the option to cancel your order, that usually means they haven’t processed it yet and or out of stock. If it doesn’t give you an option to cancel that usually means the order has been processed and is now just waiting to be shipped out. (Again current back log of sale orders doesn’t help matters) best to wait patiently for this one. I figured I had enough Halloween themed films to watch I’d order this one next month.

[crazednoir]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Kino’s site currently says out of stock. If you pre-ordered it then the delay could be that they also started a big sale weeks ago and are still trying to get out orders from that.

If you did order direct from Kino and it gives you the option to cancel your order, that usually means they haven’t processed it yet and or out of stock. If it doesn’t give you an option to cancel that usually means the order has been processed and is now just waiting to be shipped out. (Again current back log of sale orders doesn’t help matters) best to wait patiently for this one. I figured I had enough Halloween themed films to watch I’d order this one next month.

Thanks. I also ordered a couple of other blu-rays with Berlin 1&2.
They aren't answering my e-mails and I have not been able to reach them by phone either! Strange,

[James Luckard]

Mine arrived today.

The slip and case artwork look gorgeous. KL has mercifully dropped their standard generic font on the spine, and they've used the show's font, and the back is also not their standard layout. The whole thing looks elegant.

The miniseries is on four discs, four episodes per disc.

I can confirm it is slowed down. I flipped around a bit in episode 1, which runs 48:26, while it ran 46:42 on Netflix. This was unavoidable, since the series was shot at 25fps for European exhibition.

(Just to be clear, the Netflix stream in the US still runs at the PAL speed, I noticed this with their stream of Prime Suspect too, when I compared it to the slowed down US BD of that series.)

This is currently the only BD in the entire world with English subs, so I'm still thrilled to have it.

The image quality is a huge improvement over the Netflix stream that I have.

That said, if there's ever a UK BD at the native speed, I'll buy it in 2 seconds, this TV series is beyond description.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Mine arrived today.

The slip and case artwork look gorgeous. KL has mercifully dropped their standard generic font on the spine, and they've used the show's font, and the back is also not their standard layout. The whole thing looks elegant.

The miniseries is on four discs, four episodes per disc.

I can confirm it is slowed down. I flipped around a bit in episode 1, which runs 48:26, while it ran 46:42 on Netflix. This was unavoidable, since the series was shot at 25fps for European exhibition.

(Just to be clear, the Netflix stream in the US still runs at the PAL speed, I noticed this with their stream of Prime Suspect too, when I compared it to the slowed down US BD of that series.)

This is currently the only BD in the entire world with English subs, so I'm still thrilled to have it.

The image quality is a huge improvement over the Netflix stream that I have.

That said, if there's ever a UK BD at the native speed, I'll buy it in 2 seconds, this TV series is beyond description.

Any pics of the release?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Any pics of the release?

Photos below, spoilered.

Any complaints about the quality or size of the images are forbidden, haha, because Apple has thoughtfully just started making iPhone images in a proprietary format called HEIC, they are no longer JPGs. It took me half an hour to figure out how to get them into a format and size that would be postable here. The new format crashes Windows picture viewer a lot and getting them converted into a format I could compress and post was fiendishly difficult.

[Show spoiler]

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Photos below, spoilered.

Any complaints about the quality or size of the images are forbidden, haha, because Apple has thoughtfully just started making iPhone images in a proprietary format called HEIC, they are no longer JPGs. It took me half an hour to figure out how to get them into a format and size that would be postable here. The new format crashes Windows picture viewer a lot and getting them converted into a format I could compress and post was fiendishly difficult.

Thank you, and the quality and size of the images are great. I hate the proprietary formats and Apple seems to be one of the worst offenders.

This release would look good in a clear or black case. How are the subs (size, color, etc.)?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

How are the subs (size, color, etc.)?

I haven't started watching it properly yet, watched Indy III last night and The Russia House tonight in honor of Sean Connery.

When I skipped through they looked fine - I believe they were white, normal subs.

[chas speed]

I just got through watching the first Blu-ray release (Season 1 and 2) and I thought it was amazing! Along with "Game of Thrones", I think it is the most beautifully shot TV series I have ever seen. I am looking forward to getting the next Blu-ray (Season 3) in a couple of weeks. I can barely find any reviews on the Season 1 and 2 Blu-ray set. People don't know what they are missing. This show is incredible.

[James Luckard]

My S3 set arrived today, Amazon didn't get them in stock when they came out.

It looks nice, same elegant type of slipcover as the original miniseries (S1&2).

Photos below, spoilered:

[Show spoiler]

[James Luckard]

I'm watching the original miniseries now (S1 & S2) and luckily the fact that it's slowed down from 25fps to 24fps doesn't seem to be distracting.

It varies, for me, from show to show.

I couldn't watch the US BD of Prime Suspect, because Helen Mirren sounded like a man on the slowed down version, so I returned it.

But so far nothing on BB has bothered me at all.

[Fiffy]

Any comments on the 25->24 Hz conversion?

In the DVD era, the "PAL speedup" (e.g. framerate conversion from 24 to 25 Hz) that had to be used for European DVD releases of 24 Hz movies was a common complaint, not because you could see it, but because the audio was pitched slightly higher, which was noticeable if you were familiar with voices or musical pieces. On this Babylon Berlin release, the audio should be pitched slightly lower unless the applied pitch correction ...

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

Any comments on the 25->24 Hz conversion?

In the DVD era, the "PAL speedup" (e.g. framerate conversion from 24 to 25 Hz) that had to be used for European DVD releases of 24 Hz movies was a common complaint, not because you could see it, but because the audio was pitched slightly higher, which was noticeable if you were familiar with voices or musical pieces. On this Babylon Berlin release, the audio should be pitched slightly lower unless the applied pitch correction ...

I'm usually SUPER sensitive to pitch/speed changes, but I wasn't really bothered here. They don't appear to have applied pitch correction, the music and voices definitely sound a fraction lower, but somehow I quickly got used to it.

Perhaps it's just because I knew this was the only way on earth to see the series on BD with English subs, so I forced myself not to notice, haha.

I'm still hoping for a British BD, at the native speed, but that seems unlikely.

[V.M. Varga]

I'm hoping they release the show in 4K once it's finished. Hopefully, we get several seasons in the future though, I feel like the shows only getting started.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by V.M. Varga

I'm hoping they release the show in 4K once it's finished. Hopefully, we get several seasons in the future though, I feel like the shows only getting started.

Have any shows that are natively 25fps PAL ever been released on UHD? I don't know of any. Can UHD handle it without issues, unlike BD?