RTL
Above: From the first episode after the half-season break, ‘Endstation’. All three men have, at some point, played the sidekick on Alarm fĂĽr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei: ErdoÄźan Atalay, who was hired to play second banana in the third episode but has since become the star of the show; Rainer Strecker, the man whom Atalay replaced, here guesting and playing another role altogether; and Daniel Roesner, who is currently Atalay’s co-star in the series, and who also had played another role prior to this one.
One for the Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei fans. Our group—the largest on Facebook and, ironically, the one run mostly by non-Germans—saw this question from Tim Gottschall:
Kann mir mal bitte jemand erklären warum es bei Cobra 11 schon 42 DVD Staffeln gibt aber jetzt im TV die 33 Staffel läuft? Also damit auch die neuen Folgen
This has always annoyed me. At Action Concept, this is still season 23.
This has been compounded by certain episodes from new seasons being mixed in as the existing season was airing (e.g. production seasons 6 to 12) and episodes being shown out of order.
According to production blocks (with overlaps explained above):
Season 1: episodes aired between March 12 and April 30, 1996 (episodes 1–9)
Season 2: March 11, 1997 to June 4, 1998 (episodes 10–31)
Season 3: October 1, 1998 to May 6, 1999 (episodes 32–47)
Season 4: December 16, 1999 to December 14, 2000 (episodes 48–63)
Season 5: April 5, 2001 to April 11, 2002 (episodes 64–80)
Season 6: April 18, 2002 to April 10, 2003 (episodes 81–97)
Season 7: September 11, 2003 to April 29, 2004 (episodes 98–110)
Season 8: March 25 to November 18, 2004 (episodes 111–25)
Season 9: February 10, 2005 to April 20, 2006 (episodes 126–41)
Season 10: April 27 to November 16, 2006 (episodes 142–57)
Season 11: March 22 to November 1, 2007 (episodes 158–68)
Season 12: September 20, 2007 to April 24, 2008 (episodes 169–79)
Season 13: September 4, 2008 to April 9, 2009 (episodes 180–94)
Season 14: September 3, 2009 to April 22, 2010 (episodes 195–209)
Season 15: September 2, 2010 to April 14, 2011 (episodes 210–22)
Season 16: September 15, 2011 to April 19, 2012 (episodes 223–38)
Season 17: September 6, 2012 to April 18, 2013 (episodes 239–53)
Season 18: October 24, 2013 to May 15, 2014 (episodes 254–67)
Season 19: October 9, 2014 to April 30, 2015 (episodes 268–82)
Season 20: September 10, 2015 to May 26, 2016 (episodes 283–98)
Season 21: September 1, 2016 to May 18, 2017 (episodes 299–317)
Season 22: September 14, 2017 to May 3, 2018 (episodes 318–36)
Season 23: September 13, 2018 to date (episode 337 to date)
However, according to how Cobra 11 aired, all but the (short) first block were shown with a break in between—presumably due to labour laws there that required casts to have a break otherwise they would be overworked. So if you divide each of the seasons above into two, except for the first, then we are up to “season 43”. This is the numbering the DVDs use. As to “season 33”, I understand RTL used to follow the production numbering, but eventually diverged from it, so it’s a mixture of the “studio” numbering and the “broken season” numbering.
I realize no one outside the fan community for this show will really care, but as this is my personal and business blog, a wide variety of subjects is covered. And for those fans who may stumble across this, I hope the above helps settle some questions.
