I haven't read the book nor seen the original movie, but I'm familiar with the story. This series tells the story of Christiane and her friends: 3 girls in total and 4 guys in their late teens. Christiane's family is lower middle class, another girl who looks like Christiane only ugly is lower class and another girl lives in a palace. About the guys we don't learn much as expected. One of them has a job. The guys all live in some drug house/apartment. They of course get the girls into drugs. The kids spend all their nights in some lame dance club. So drug use is recreational at first. For some reason it takes forever for the heroin to cause addiction in these kids. Eventually it does and then the issue becomes how to get money for drugs. The girls and one guy turn to prostitution. Christiane is reluctant and repulsed but of course heroin is more powerful. Eventually Christiane's teachers notice that something isn't right, they try to convince the clueless mother who initially doesn't believe it. Christiane leaves her family at some point, comes back, is sent to rehab but can't do it. There's an on/off love relationship with one of the guys. There are some overdose deaths in the gang and the question becomes whether Christiane will be able to get over the addiction.
The story of course makes for some striking gritty unpleasant drama. But this series chooses not to go that route. It's very, very light drama that borders on non-drama. It's all very casual and nonchalant. The filmmakers are more interested in showing how fun all this is. Parents, grand-parents, school are not much of an issue. Neither is money for life: clothes, cigarettes, clubbing. A lot is made of Christiane's goofy dumb dad who leaves the wife and gets involved with some mail-order Asian bride; in American fashion really for the purpose of giving dads a bad rep. Even though the series is only 8 episodes they sure took their time to get things going. Episode 1 is of the kid's normal life, episode 2 has their personal life given them grief. Episode 3 is some weird Bowie-worship piece and recreational drug use begins. Episode 4 is about Christiane's relationship to her guy. The final 4 episodes do finally become more interesting as things go downhill. But again, the way this is all presented doesn't get the viewer involved. I couldn't get myself to care about any of these people.
So I would say all the criticism in other reviews are correct. The anachronisms are weird, the series is not harsh enough given the material, the casting is weird (why does Christiane's dad look like her younger brother?), they really shouldn't have used this title/bother spending money on the rights. Heck they didn't even have to set it in Berlin, any European large city would have worked. The train station by which Christiane identifies herself, isn't featured enough in my view. Neither are trains, which are such a large part of the life of Germans. I disagree though about the disco's music. I didn't dislike it; it was pleasant enough but I would have preferred 80s techno. I'm not sure this series presents the kids' life as "glamorous." Sure, there are wardrobe excesses but then no one has ever demanded the entertainment industry be "sustainable." At least Christiane does wear the same stuff for several days.
On to the positives: Jana McKinnon is pretty and has a cute way of dancing. Given how the series treats the material and how utterly subdued it is, one can say it is somewhat original, but not really in a good way. Few filmmakers would have chosen to present such a story in this odd manner. There are a few interesting bits to the story: ugly girl gets involved with some pervert who has a harem of young drug-addicted girls for his pleasure and provides them with drugs. One of the clients of a guy who prostitutes himself is another weirdo with odd sexual tastes. Ugly girl's younger pre-teen sister for some reason gets very interested in the money the sister is making and one days shows up on the street ready to...work. Christiane who initially isn't the most hard-core junky turns around and becomes a very bad influence on her friends. But all these didn't make up for the series's shortcomings. There was potential here to come up with something great given the generous budged. Of course, these days, they couldn't have gotten away with doing things they way the story required, and an all out unpleasant ugly series wouldn't have been the answer either. But this series needed a lot more edge.
The story of course makes for some striking gritty unpleasant drama. But this series chooses not to go that route. It's very, very light drama that borders on non-drama. It's all very casual and nonchalant. The filmmakers are more interested in showing how fun all this is. Parents, grand-parents, school are not much of an issue. Neither is money for life: clothes, cigarettes, clubbing. A lot is made of Christiane's goofy dumb dad who leaves the wife and gets involved with some mail-order Asian bride; in American fashion really for the purpose of giving dads a bad rep. Even though the series is only 8 episodes they sure took their time to get things going. Episode 1 is of the kid's normal life, episode 2 has their personal life given them grief. Episode 3 is some weird Bowie-worship piece and recreational drug use begins. Episode 4 is about Christiane's relationship to her guy. The final 4 episodes do finally become more interesting as things go downhill. But again, the way this is all presented doesn't get the viewer involved. I couldn't get myself to care about any of these people.
So I would say all the criticism in other reviews are correct. The anachronisms are weird, the series is not harsh enough given the material, the casting is weird (why does Christiane's dad look like her younger brother?), they really shouldn't have used this title/bother spending money on the rights. Heck they didn't even have to set it in Berlin, any European large city would have worked. The train station by which Christiane identifies herself, isn't featured enough in my view. Neither are trains, which are such a large part of the life of Germans. I disagree though about the disco's music. I didn't dislike it; it was pleasant enough but I would have preferred 80s techno. I'm not sure this series presents the kids' life as "glamorous." Sure, there are wardrobe excesses but then no one has ever demanded the entertainment industry be "sustainable." At least Christiane does wear the same stuff for several days.
On to the positives: Jana McKinnon is pretty and has a cute way of dancing. Given how the series treats the material and how utterly subdued it is, one can say it is somewhat original, but not really in a good way. Few filmmakers would have chosen to present such a story in this odd manner. There are a few interesting bits to the story: ugly girl gets involved with some pervert who has a harem of young drug-addicted girls for his pleasure and provides them with drugs. One of the clients of a guy who prostitutes himself is another weirdo with odd sexual tastes. Ugly girl's younger pre-teen sister for some reason gets very interested in the money the sister is making and one days shows up on the street ready to...work. Christiane who initially isn't the most hard-core junky turns around and becomes a very bad influence on her friends. But all these didn't make up for the series's shortcomings. There was potential here to come up with something great given the generous budged. Of course, these days, they couldn't have gotten away with doing things they way the story required, and an all out unpleasant ugly series wouldn't have been the answer either. But this series needed a lot more edge.