Inspector Rex
Inspector Rex is an Austrian-Italian police procedural television series created by Peter Hajek and Peter Moser. Originally an Austrian series aired from 1994 to 2004 on ORF 1, in 2008 it was revived as an Austro-Italian production on Rai 1 and, from the next year, was made fully in Italy, with occasional episodes set in Austria. Rai 1 eventually cancelled the Austro-Italian production in June 2015, after eight Italian seasons.
The series follows the German Shepherd police dog Rex, his partners and the rest of the team at the Vienna Kriminalpolizei homicide unit, as they work together to solve crimes. From 2008, episodes are set in Rome.
A spin-off series, Stockinger, focuses on Ernst Stockinger, one of the original members of the homicide division, was televised in 1996. International remakes include Polish ', set in Łódź ; Latvian ' ; Russian Muhtar's return ; Portuguese ; Lithuanian Inspektorius Mažylis ; Slovak Rex set in Bratislava and Canadian Hudson & Rex.
In October 2024, it was announced that Inspector Rex will return to television in 2026.
Synopsis
The original series is set in Vienna and focuses on the three-man staff of an office of the Kriminalpolizei – the Austrian Criminal Police – specifically a Mordkommission. In addition to the three policemen, the office is staffed by a German Shepherd called Rex, the main star of the show, who functions variously as a cadaver dog, a sniffer dog and as another pair of eyes and ears for his team.The original team at the office consisted of Richard Moser, Ernst Stockinger and Peter Höllerer. This team was also assisted by forensic expert Dr Leo Graf and retired policeman Max Koch. The show had many changes in characters, including Christian Böck replacing Stockinger, Alexander Brandtner replacing Moser and former statistics officer Fritz Kunz replacing Höllerer. The final Austrian incarnation of the series featured a male-female duo of the clumsy Marc Hoffmann and a female officer Nikki Herzog working alongside Kunz. Dr. Graf is the only character to remain for the entire Austrian production of the series.
In season eleven, the action moves to Rome, with Inspector Lorenzo Fabbri taking charge of the dog. Episodes were produced in both Italian and German. At the end of the season, Rex is apparently mortally wounded when he jumps on Fabbri's head to protect him from a bullet, but is shown in close-up still slightly breathing just before credits roll. The beginning of season 12 shows that Rex survived the bullet, when Fabbri takes Rex to the animal hospital.
Production
For the first ten seasons the show was scripted entirely in German, where most characters spoke with Austrian dialects. It was shot on location in Vienna and its surroundings, though the usage of areas in production was often geographically incorrect. While subtitles were used for most international markets, the series was dubbed in some countries, including France, Greece, Italy and Spain.Following declining ratings during the eighth and ninth seasons, the series was cancelled mid-production in 2004, leaving the tenth and then final season with only four episodes and no finale that concluded the story. As the series was still highly popular abroad, particularly in Italy and Austria, the show remained in syndication for many years.
In 2007, following negotiations, Italian broadcaster RAI secured the rights to revive the series, with production moving to Rome. For the first season of the new series, numbered as season eleven, it was produced in both Austria and Italy, with production moving to Italy full-time for the twelfth season. A total of eighteen seasons were produced, the last airing in 2015, barring repeats. While occasional episodes were set in Austria, the series was scripted and filmed primarily in Italian from 2008 to the concluding 2015 season.
Australian season numbering
For Australian markets, season numbering was altered for airing on SBS, and this numbering was also used on the DVD sets, leaving some viewers confused as to how the European episode lists correspond with the Australian ones. For the DVD sets, seasons 1 to 8 have been re-arranged to seven longer seasons, with the ninth and tenth season being labeled as "season eight". They have since followed the official lists, with season eleven labeled as season nine, season twelve as season ten and so on.Characters
Rex
A trained police dog, Rex is the star of the show. Establishing shots frequently show him demonstrating a new trick — unlatching doors, pushing trolleys, pointing to drugs or corpses — which then turn out to be useful in the course of the episode. He is often used to stalk suspects, often with a GPS-type object attached to him so that the officers can keep track.Rex was stolen by criminals as a pup but managed to escape and befriend a boy, where he helped to solve his first case with the boy.
During his career, Rex has been shot, stabbed, poisoned, drugged and kidnapped. But he always recovers quickly.
Initially, Rex and Moser share an apartment at Marokkanergasse 18, Wien-Landstraße; however the pair go house-hunting at the start of season 2. They quickly find a house owned by a man who does not want dogs there. However, Rex is able to alert him to a gas leak, and in gratitude, he allows Moser and Rex to stay.
Rex is frequently called upon to resolve difficult situations, including helping a young girl in shock, preventing a woman from committing suicide and helping to get Moser's mobile phone when a crime has been committed. One famous episode features Moser using Rex to resolve a hostage situation by telling him to creep up behind the criminal and "frighten him".
There is also a considerable element of humour in Rex's activities. Rex has an uncanny penchant for ham rolls or "Wurschtsemmln" in the local dialect. He is introduced to them by Moser, who tells him, "I practically live on these." Rex constantly annoys Stockinger by pulling on his coat and stealing his ham rolls. Later, Höllerer keeps a running score of Böck's success against Rex – not a flattering result for the officer. While not chasing criminals, he often plays pranks on the officers or fails to obey orders to help with the housework. Rex is very fond of horses and once fastened a rope to Alex's car so he could take the horse home. Another time, Rex attacked a man who was beating a horse and, later in the same episode, he ran into a burning barn to rescue a horse.
With Moser, Rex reacts particularly badly to words like "frau" and, later, "tierarzt", as he disapproves of his master's attention to women. During a scene in which Koch claims that Moser "doesn't understand women at all now," Moser tells Koch, "Don't say that word. Every time you say 'woman', he runs off with my laundry. " Koch asks him what Rex does with it, to which Moser replies, "He washes it." Rex was not jealous of Alex and stole a rose for Alex to give to a pretty blonde co-worker.
Once, when Moser is working undercover and needs to ensure Rex won't greet him, he tells Stockinger, "You only need to say 'vet' to him and he'll stop whatever he's doing", a statement which results in a memorable scene involving Stockinger walking after Rex at a crime scene calling out "Vet! Vet!"
Rex was played by four dogs over the years in Europe including Santo vom Haus Zieglmayer, also known as 'Beejay', and his double, Rhett Butler who took the lead role in 2000. For the 2008 revival, Rex was played by a dog named Henry. From 2012 to 2013, Rex was played by Nicky. With Diesel vom Burgimwald, all of the "German Shepherd Dogs" that play Rex in the Canadian series, Hudson & Rex are related to Santo and his great-grandsire, VA5 Elch vom Trienzbachtal.
Rex's partners
Richard MoserImage:Tobias Moretti.JPG|thumb|upright|Tobias Moretti, January 2007
Source:
The first "team leader", Richard "Richie" Moser is a hard-bitten cop who, as the first season begins, is going through a bitter divorce from his wife Gina, who takes all their furniture. Moser is also attempting to quit smoking to improve his blood circulation. An ex-truck driver, Moser credits Max Koch with keeping him from a life of crime, at one point telling Koch that "I'd be on the wrong side of the law too, just like him", referring to a young pickpocket he has just chased through central Vienna.
Moser befriended Rex, whose former police trainer, Michael, was shot and killed by an escaping suspect. To save the dog from being put down, Moser "adopted" him without ever completing any of the official paperwork. He famously declares at one point, "My taxes pay for this dog, so why can't I give him a better home?" Moser, in contrast to his successors, is shown to be quite athletic, often performing acrobatic stunts while chasing suspects. Moretti's looks were also exploited by the producers of the show. He made several nude appearances, including an episode where Moser and a female colleague frolic naked in the woods to attract a serial killer targeting young couples.
As Moser's personal life improves, his sense of humour returns. This is noticeable in the general lightening in the tone of the show from the initial episodes to ones with more lighthearted banter among the officers. Being a bachelor, Moser flirts with many of the attractive women featured in the storylines. Moser begins a relationship with Sonja, his local vet, which Rex thoroughly disapproves of and constantly tries to sabotage. In time, Rex accepts Sonja and even pretends to have an injured paw when he wants her to stay with him. Sonja eventually leaves Moser and Rex when she is offered a job in America.
In the final scenes of the season 4 episode "Moser's Death", Moser is killed in the line of duty by an escaped 'borderline psychopath', played by famous German actor Ulrich Tukur while Moser is rescuing his lover, Patricia Neuhold. The escapee commits suicide just after he kills Moser, and there is a heartbreaking scene at the hospital after the doctor tells Moser's friends that he died. Rex takes a squeaky toy that Moser bought at the beginning of the episode to Moser's body and squeaks it until he accepts his master is gone, then he lays his head on Moser's chest and the scene fades to white.
Alexander Brandtner
Alex Brandtner replaces Moser as team leader. Following Moser's death, Rex has become depressed and refuses to eat, wanting to stay near Moser's house all the time. However, Brandtner succeeds in helping Rex out of his depression. Brandtner had lost his former dog, Arko, in an explosion and does not want to work with dogs again until he meets Rex. The explosion has also robbed him of his hearing in his right ear, a fact he confides only to Rex. Brandtner moves into the house that Moser and Rex used to share, apparently because Rex does not want to leave.
Brandtner is portrayed as very attractive to women and performs various physical stunts throughout the series, such as diving over car bonnets, engaging in fast-paced chases on foot, and dives. On his first appearance in the show, he dives into the Danube to retrieve a vital piece of evidence, and later in his debut episode he parachutes from a light aircraft, along with Rex, in order to apprehend a suspect. His living room is filled with boxing and fitness gear.
He had once gone undercover in a prison and also as a drunken homeless man. He also seems to have an uncanny instinct for sensing if a suspect is guilty or innocent, even without evidence.
During the time Burkhard was on the show, the international ratings for the series increased. Unlike Moretti, Burkhard's looks were not exploited by the producers of the show, and he did not make nude appearances. The most skin that Burkhard showed was in an episode where a bank burglar forced Brandtner to strip to prove that he was unarmed before parading him through the street in only his underwear.
Marc Hoffmann
Replacing Brandtner as team leader, Hoffmann is a very eager detective. Hoffmann is portrayed as being very witty, outsmarting murderers. He shares a close relationship with Nikki Herzog, although they sometimes have disagreements.
Apparently Hoffmann had studied forensic science under Graf, and the two men still seem to share a somewhat master-student relationship, with Hoffmann often deferring to Graf's judgment.
Lorenzo Fabbri
File:Capparoni Zich Weinek.jpg|thumb|Kaspar Capparoni with Denise Zich and Martin Weinek
In season 11, Italian homicide detective, Chief Inspector Lorenzo Fabbri. arrives in Vienna to work on a case, and takes Rex, who is officially 'retired', back to Rome. Rex seems to understand the Italian language quite easily.
In the second episode of season 14, Fabbri dies in the explosion of a car during a trap prepared by a Mafia boss.
Davide Rivera
Davide Rivera replaces Fabbri as team leader in season 14. Rivera becomes friends with Rex after the loss of Inspector Lorenzo Fabbri. He follows his grandfather's advice, and eventually, Rex stops avoiding him.
Rivera appears for the last time on the last episode of season 15, titled "Legami di sangue." It is unknown why he does not appear in season 16.
Marco Terzani
Chief Inspector Marco Terzani replaces Rivera as team leader in season 16.
Working under Gori, and later under Director Fiori, he forges a very strong bond with Rex. He doesn't hesitate to bend rules to solve a tough case.