Having just graduated from high school, moved from the village to the city, lived without his parents for the first time – the time spent studying was formative for life. For Lennart Schowiak (Mirko Muhshoff) in "Something with Media", this time is particularly hard. As a self-overestimating mother's boy in a long-distance relationship, he begins his bachelor's degree in media art in Weimar and lets the viewer of the Ufa "mockumentary" on MDR participate in it. The genre means that the whole thing is supposed to seem real, but that's not exactly what it is. Reality should rather be mocked in the sense of the word "mock".

Carlota Brandis

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Another important characteristic of the popular genre, in addition to the camera's participation in the action as in a documentary, is the shame of others. This has been proven by "Stromberg", its English version "The Office" or "Jerks". And "Something with Media" offers plenty of potential for this. Whether it's at a house party that Lennart interrupts because he's afraid of a corona infection, or at a photo project where he paints himself and declares: "I'd like to be black."

Lennart, who grew up as the only child of a single mother, is fundamentally naïve, his thickly applied thirst for action is boundless. With this, the "freshman" gets on the nerves of those around him. For example, the long-term student Simon (Jano Kaltenbach), who has been stuck in the same bachelor's degree program for five years and is simply too lazy for any hard work.

Situational comedy would have helped

The eight episodes offer a charming turning point. While Lennart becomes increasingly unpopular with his fellow students in the course of his first semester, Simon, himself in his eleventh semester, becomes his only friend. The two couldn't be more different. A love-hate relationship develops. Simon just can't get rid of Lennart, whom he perceives as a troublemaker. Or does he not want that at all? During his lengthy studies, Simon has lost many friends. And he appreciates Lennart's loyalty. Loneliness unites both of them. And they both get a lesson: Lennart is confronted with the reality of life in quick succession, just like the stroller, Simon, who wanted to avoid it for a long time.

With the locations of school, supermarket ("discounter") and workplace, mockumentaries on German television have already shown what the genre has to offer. The university offers good conditions to join the ranks. Everyday student life provides quite a few reasons to draw something serious into the comic. For example, it is about the first shared apartment, the entry into university life, the relationship between professor and student, but also about dealing with sexual orientation and with the big question of what one actually wants to achieve in life. In other words, all the things that keep young people busy.

"Something with Media" exploits all this with black humor and has the current topics of debate ready. A positive gonorrhea test is confused with a corona test, the pronunciation of foreigners is pedantically improved, and polygamous forms of relationship life are labeled as "heteronormative blah-blah".

The relevance is there, the sayings are right, and yet there is a problem with "Something with Media" in terms of implementation. The punchlines of the individual episodes, each of which deals with a social topic such as inclusion, migration or relationships, are very pointed and almost exclusively subscribed to humor to embarrass others. A bit of comedy out of the situation would have helped. The viewer wants to look away too often – and the dramaturgy doesn't attract in such moments.

Nevertheless, the two directors, screenwriters and leading actors Mirko Muhshoff and Jano Kaltenbach succeed in authentically bringing the viewer closer to experiences in the first semester of study. The fact that the two of them studied media art and design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar certainly helped.

The first season of Something with Media is available in the ARD media library.