Apple TV+'s 'Where's Wanda?' keeps it light despite dark themes

BERLIN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Apple TV+'s first German-language series, "Where's Wanda?", is about a family's desperate search for their missing teenage daughter but, despite its dark subject matter, it aims to make audiences laugh.

It does so through a colorful cast of characters and situations verging on the absurd.

"That was the basic concept of the series, that we have a very difficult topic, the disappearance of Wanda. And yet, of course, we still try to deal with it, with funny situations or funny people," Axel Stein, who stars as Dedo Klatt, father of the missing Wanda, told Reuters.

He thanked Apple TV+ for trusting in the series.

Poster of Where's Wanda?IMDb

Dedo, his wife Carlotta, played by Heike Makatsch, and teenage son Ole, portrayed by newcomer Leo Simon, go to great lengths to spy on neighbours' homes with surveillance cameras bought off the dark web in their search for Wanda, played by Lea Drinda, after she goes missing during a town festival.

In the process, they discover the secrets - some of them criminal - of the people of Sundersheim, the Klatts' fictional German town. There is a pinch of the eeriness of the American TV series "Twin Peaks".

"Especially in a place that presents particularly well-kept lawns and particularly uniform houses and particularly pretty facades to the outside world, there must be something behind it that perhaps undermines this picture," said Makatsch, who appeared in the romantic comedy "Love Actually".

A scene from Where's Wanda?IMDb

Apple made the foray into streaming in November 2019. It has an estimated 25 million subscribers and its content includes the comedy series "Ted Lasso" and films such as "CODA" and "Killers of the Flower Moon."

The first two episodes of "Where’s Wanda" will debut on Apple TV+ on October 2 with new episodes released weekly through November 13.

(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Editing by Timothy Heritage)