What, cheese? Vanessa (Lola Höller) freaks out when her aunt, Inspector Franziska Tobler (Eva Löbau), comes home with a non-vegan pizza. She wants to be taken seriously as a vegan. Tobler is flabbergasted. Just the "cool aunt", she is now supposed to be a spoilsport. Tobler finds the life-threatening "challenges" that Vanessa, spurred on by her friends, films for her social media channels and reveals to the world, questionable.

The quarrel between the teenage niece and her parents is age-appropriate, it has always existed, but Tobler finds the career aspiration of an influencer moronic, if I may say so. But she would never say so. It's always diplomatic when you talk to young people. Her colleague Friedemann Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner) is more impatient. He is annoyed by the sensitivity attitude of "Gen Z". There is a lack of authority today, of borders. Constant understanding from the ancients, that's where the malaise begins. With which he probably speaks from the soul of not a few viewers of this "crime scene".

Ancient trenches

The new case of the Black Forest also deals with a murder investigation, but once again it seems like a crime format requirement in order to present current issues in a broadly effective way. This time it's about "Baby Boomers vs. Gen Z". "The Secret Life of Our Children" by Astrid Ströher (screenplay) and Kai Wessel (director) aims less at understanding the more differentiated views and attitudes of "Generation Z" than at sounding out the depth of the age-old divide between the generations in terms of time diagnosis. This "Tatort" is not a rejuvenation offer from the public broadcasters, but a film for the generation "that fucked it up".

Whether housing, energy, climate, the "boomers" are supposed to be to blame for all future crises. Their prosperity, for example, is described in the 3sat documentary "Seriously, Baby Boomers?" (in the media library) the younger ones, owe their irresponsibility. The elderly complain that the willingness of "Gen Z" to make an effort is close to zero, see an "insane inwardness and sensitivity" and, last but not least, "maximum demand for tolerance" with their own tolerance aversion. Some of the findings have been true since the past. Some accusations are new, such as that of the loss of self-irony among "Gen Z". A little bit of self-irony would also have done "The Secret Life of Our Children" good. The plot and investigation are very serious – right down to the involuntary caricature that a character like niece Vanessa has to play in the subplot.

Parents and children

The case is just the hook: Christopher Gnabri, who is found dead in the weir of a river, lived with his single black mother Eileen (Dalila Abdallah) sitting in a wheelchair in modest circumstances, had secretly left his training some time ago and seemed to be making big money in the end. His basketball coach Marius Ulrichs (Max Woelky) can only say the best about him, the friends Benno (Aniol Kirberg) and Zoé (Caroline Cousin), the actual main characters of this "crime scene", are on the run and are threatened by a pizza maker.

Benno's stepfather Paul (Christian Schmidt) is Zoé's father, his partner, Benno's mother Miriam (Susanne Bormann), has recently reconnected with Benno's biological father Oliver (Kai Ivo Baulitz). While the adults shape their relationship life (Paul also has an affair), they celebrate themselves as understanding parents – and the "open" communication with their children, who secretly do all sorts of things. For example, speculating with cryptocurrencies in order to have a few more carefree years before the climate catastrophe takes away their future.

Ströher repeatedly sends the audience on the trail of Benno and Zoé (cinematographer Andreas Schäfauer), whose "No future" attitude to life seems extremely low in tension and predominantly depressing until a suddenly dramatically escalated bloody finale. For long stretches, this "crime scene" is treading water. Even his rather one-dimensional characters are not fascinating, in contrast to the earlier Black Forest "crime scene" "The Looks of Others" (with the outstanding Lisa Hagmeister). All that remains here is the realization that even in Freiburg patchwork falls into disrepute, at least in "Tatort". And that parents consider their willingness to understand to be more elastic than it is. But this is not a new finding.

"Crime Scene: The Secret Life of Our Children", Sunday, at 20.15 p.m. on Das Erste