Talk:Inspector Rex

Wurstsemmeln :-)

For anyone curious about my translation of "Wurstsemmeln" to the English "ham rolls", the rationale is simple. Firstly, it's the translation used on the Australian SBS TV subtitles. Secondly, it's the translation taught to me by a native Austrian. Thirdly, a "sausage roll" (as the alternative translation is) is a cooked pastry with sausage meat baked inside it. Rex and friends eat a breadroll/croissant with ham placed inside it - which in English is a "ham roll". BigHaz 11:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi, you're of course right about the ambiguous term "sausage roll". However, your native Austrian must be a vegan. Go to any shop in Vienna, in Austria, in Germany, and buy eine Wurstsemmel and eine Schinkensemmel. You'll taste the difference.

The characters in Kommissar Rex do not eat ham (Schinken)—they most likely eat Extrawurst.

Extrawurst links:

• http://www.konsument.at/konsument/detail-213.htm
• http://www.messner-wurst.at/db.php3?artnr=2176
• http://home.foni.net/~tanjak/e_rach.htm

Best wishes, |l'KF'l| 15:21, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it, but I'm going on what the Semmeln look like - and consequently what an English-speaker would think when confronted with either translation. As an Australian, I like to think I know what a sausage roll looks like :P

BigHaz 23:28, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

They eat rolls with sliced sausage on it, no doubt. The German word "Wurst", or "Wurscht" in the Austrian version is unmistakebly sausage. However, the subtitle people maybe mistook it for ham because of the pale pink color. -- Prorokini 18:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I strongly doubt that the translators mistook Extrawurst for ham because of its pale pink colour. The SBS subtitling is always done in pairs; one of the subtitlers is a native speaker of the foreign language (in the case of Inspector Rex, German), the other a native English speaker. Between the two of them I'm sure they knew the difference between 'Extrawurst' and 'Schinken'. This is not a mistake by the translators but a deliberate choice at rendering a difficult translation into English. The reason it is rendered 'ham roll' is because there is no easy way to translate 'Wurstsemmel' into English. There are at least three problems associated with translating 'Wurstsemmel' into English. One problem is that while Wurst= sausage and Semmel= (bread) roll, a 'sausage roll' in English means something entirely different from a Wurstsemmel (see out the English wiki article on sausage roll). It would be wrong to translate Wurstsemmel as 'sausage roll'. A second problem is that a simple translation of 'Wurst' as 'sausage' would be confusing to the native English speaker. While as a matter of strict denotation, the English word 'sausage' can indeed be used to refer to a cold cut such as Austrian Extrawurst, the primary connotation of the word 'sausage' is the kind of sausage you would cook on the grill or in the pan (i.e. the equivalent of a German 'Bratwurst'). So (in Australia at least) a 'sausage sandwich' is NOT something akin to Extrawurst between two slices of bread but rather a (hot) grilled/ barbecued sausage (i.e. a 'Bratwurst') on bread (usually with tomato sauce and grilled onions). A third problem is that even though you may be able to come up with a 'better' translation for Wurstsemmel than 'ham roll' by using a specific English word for something more akin to Austrian Extrawurst, the lack of uniformity within the English language, even within a country such as Australia, prevents the adoption of that word. For any Australians out there Austrian Extrawurst is a slightly more upmarket version of devon/ stras/ polony/ fritz/ luncheon (depending on which state you're from).

I hope you can now see why 'ham roll' was no mistake but a deliberate translation choice. Apodeictic 21:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Austrian dialect?

I have only seen a couple of episodes, but I would strongly contest that the show is scripted in Austrian dialect to a major degree. When I saw it, I always wondered about how many Germans appear to be in Vienna on this show. In fact, with Tobias Moretti's accent, he is not credible as a Vienna police inspector at all. In real life, he would probably be asked if he's from Germany all the time. Martg76 14:46, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Different characters obviously speak in different dialects, but as a student of German, I often find Wolf Bachofner (at least) to be almost speaking a different language to the one I've been taught. Moretti's accent could well be due to the fact that, as the male lead, he was meant to sound more German and less Austrian - although that's just a guess on my part. BigHaz 01:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't dream of editing this page, having seen five episodes at most. You're right about Bachnofer, Markovits and Muliar who definitely speak with an appropriate accent and sometimes dialect. Moretti, however, is Tyrolean and speaks like a stage actor in this series, which is completely out of character, especially given his social background described on this page. We know he speaks dialect well (but Tyrolean, not Viennese), given his performances in the Piefke-Saga, a classic Austrian mini series, and as Andreas Hofer in a recent movie. What struck me as odd in the few episodes was that the majority of people they encountered in their investigations had a German accent. For a police series employing Vienna dialect appropriately, I would rather recommend Kottan ermittelt. Martg76 20:28, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, the episodes you've seen have Moser (Moretti), Hoellerer (Bachofner) and Stockinger (Markovics), right? Not that this will progress humanity any, but it might be that the older episodes are "less Austrian" than the newer ones. BigHaz 22:41, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think the episodes I saw were older ones. It's been many years ... Martg76 00:27, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The show is scripted entirely in German, some characters speak with slight Austrian dialects

Is this noteworthy because the majority of German-language viewers are in Germany rather than Austria? Andjam 09:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Tobias Moretti is Tyrolean, yes, not Viannese, you can hear it. And yes, he speaks as if he were on stage -- being a stage actor myself, I noticed it immediately. And of course, it is out of character. That's why people have accused him of ham (sausage?! see above) acting. And maybe that's why he wanted to leave the show. I think the use of Austrian words, such as "Paradeiser" instead of "Tomaten" is quite obvious, as well as the use of typically Viannese things, such as "Heurigenlokale"

Category:German television series?

I'm a little in doubt as to the category inclusion. It certainly is a German language TV series, but it is Austrian though... --Wernher 01:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

True, but I'd vote to keep it in the current category for now, at least until a hypothetical "Austrian TV Series" category exists. BigHaz 01:59, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

kommissar rex's success

the german wiki page states: "Die Serie wurde in bereits über 100 Ländern ausgestrahlt. Weiter verbreitet hat sich einzig Baywatch."

which i think translate to something like: "kommissar rex is the 2nd most successful series in the world being shown in more than 100 countries only being surpasses by baywatch."

(i don't speak german)

can anybody verify this?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommissar_Rex

The translation is correct, although there's no indication of exactly where the information is sourced from. I'm having difficulty pulling up the links from the German 'pedia for some reason, and really should be finishing an assignment anyway, but I'll keep at it unless anyone else can work some magic. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 08:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Inspector Herring parody

The comment about it has been tagged with 'citation needed' but the Newstopia article already has a Youtube clip of Inspector Herring linked to it. (The clip is an early one though.)

• Is the "citation needed" required? I removed it. Andrew Moylan (talk) 09:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

New season coming?

It appears that Rex's apparent death may have been a cliffhanger afterall... I came across a news piece dated over a week ago reports that Kommissar Rex is now back with a new season and airs on Tuesdays on RAI 1. Tarmo Tanilsoo (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: I watched Inspector Rex yesterday on RAI 1. Yes, it's a new season. I think it is safe to assume that Rex did not get killed off. Tarmo Tanilsoo (talk) 07:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"Sisi" episode

One of the episodes, called "Sisi" touched on the myth associated with the Elizabetb, Empress of Austria-Hungary a.k.a Sisi and focused on a woman who was obsessed with being like her. She had murdered the coachman because he asked "the wrong question" and was hiding in the palace trying to replicate Sisi's life. The placing for the show was at the end of the show's 5th season. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonMackay (talk • contribs) 13:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Speculation

Waaaay too much speculation and original research. Lots42 (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Season 14 airing now in Oz...

Ummm... The missus is right now watching s15e10 "A Knife Through the Heart", 2013-01-28@20:11 WAST on SBS2...

Any chance of updating the article? 203.161.102.82 (talk) 12:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Is the Polish series a spinoff?

Some of the films are based on Austrian scripts, so they are rather remakes. Xx236 (talk) 08:56, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

No kommissar in Austria

Kommissar is a German police rank.

Kommissär in Austria is a rank in Rechtskundiger Dienst (I don't know what it is).Xx236 (talk) 09:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

UK broadcast

Does anyone know anything about broadcasts of Inspector Rex in the UK? The page suggests that it was broadcast by FIVE (now Channel 5), but Channel 5 says they didn't and have no record of this. --HarryNikki4ever (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Section needs expansion

The section for Alberto Montreosso is one sentence long I recommend adding a template alerting editors to this but I do not know how to Would someone be willing to explain it to me Thank you John Kryten (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC)