The Best TV Shows on ČT1

The 25-year-old son of a respected police officer reluctantly joins the force as a traffic photographer after repeatedly failing to get into film school in this intriguing Czech crime drama series.

Set in Czechoslovakia, the drama follows the lives of its characters against the backdrop of real historical events that shape their personal stories. To evoke period atmosphere, the series intersperses authentic clips from vintage Czechoslovak film newsreels, using their original commentaries or newly recorded historical voice-overs by Vladimír Fišer. A narrator, initially voiced by Vojtěch Kotek and later by Matěj Hádek, provides continuity and reflection, guiding viewers through changing times. Under the guidance of screenwriter Rudolf Merkner, each episode’s script weaves family and individual dramas into key moments of Czech and Slovak history: political shifts, cultural trends, and social transformations from the 1960s onward.

Although Czech republic is country free of rabbies, some cases of infected animals appear near one of villages in Sumava region. Virologist Pavel Rogl, that is in his thirties, has task to inspect the situation, supervise the vaccination and find the source of infection. He is also charged to elaborate an expertise for team of police detectives, that are investigating mysterious double homicide. It is possible, that murders are connected to infection. Is it a human murderer, or big beast that escaped?

One shot – you get blind. Two shots – you die. It waits for you in tobacconist, in gift bag from your friend, at wedding… Do you know, what are you drinking? Case that connected police, courts, journalists and politicians. Real story, that can repeat anytime again. In the end of summer 2012, Czech republic was shocked by incidents, that public, detectives or attorneys don't remember. Alcohol made of mix of ethanol and deadly toxic methanol killed at least 38 people and harmed at least 80 in few weeks.

Finding the body of the regional politician Karas, killed in the spirit of medieval torture and carefully arranged in a strange scene, unleash police hunt for a sadistic perpetrator. He puts investigation team in the way of a complex series of murders that shake the local region and criminologists themselves.

This time the detectives deal with the case of a murdered professor. One day a cleaning woman finds him shot to death in his own study. The detectives will thus investigate whether the murder is connected with the victim's persistent effort for the removal of the University's quaestor because of the latter's strange machinations during the reconstruction of the University building. And they'll also want to know why the murderer took the great risk involved in killing the victim on the university soil. The search for the answer to the question who could wish the death of the peculiar but honest professor will take them farther than they have expected.