Inspector Rex

Kommissar Rex (English title: Inspector Rex, Italian title: Il commissario Rex) is a popular Austrian-made police television drama which aired from 1994 to 2004. In 2007 a new series was released (Season 11), under Austrian-Italian production. From February 18, 2008, the 12th season was shot in Rome. Austrian television broadcaster ORF announced the production of a movie for the 12th season which is to be set in Vienna.

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, or Murder Commission. In addition to the three policemen, the office is staffed by a German Shepherd called Rex who functions variously as a cadaver dog, a sniffer dog (for both contraband and narcotics) 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. Later arrivals included Christian Böck replacing Stockinger, Alexander Brandtner replacing Moser and former statistics officer Fritz Kunz replacing Höllerer. An even later 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 not to have departed the show.

The show is scripted entirely in German, most characters speak with Austrian dialects and is shot on location in Vienna and its surroundings, though the usage of areas in production is often geographically incorrect. Subtitles are used for some international markets, while in others the series is dubbed. In some of the show's popular international markets, such as Australia, the show is considered to have had 8 seasons instead of 10. This is due to differences in network broadcasting schedules as they have chosen to join two of the shorter seasons into one. It is also the case for the Region 4 DVD release and it has caused minor confusion amongst fans of the show.

Many actors play different characters in different episodes of the series, with one of the more striking examples of this being Gedeon Burkhard playing a villain who mistakenly thought he was infected with HIV and proceeded to murder the other members of his orgy club, in an early episode before returning as Brandtner. Alexander Pschill appeared as a crash repair mechanic who blackmails a customer whose car has been damaged in a fatal hit-and-run accident in season 2, before portraying Marc Hoffmann several years later.

Starting from season 11, the action moves to Rome, with inspector Lorenzo Fabbri taking charge of the dog. The show is now shot 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.