Rex Resolution 26: Drei Sekunden bis zum Tod

This is another 'yawn' episode for me. Maybe it's the recurring truck driver theme, maybe it's just the vegetable connection. Or maybe I'm just suffering from an overdose of Rex, with 25 episodes in 25 days. Whatever the reason, watching this particular episode was a struggle.

When a market stall owner and a truck driver are murdered, the only link appears to be the driver's beautiful Russian wife. In the market community, no one is talking, particularly to Stockinger and Hoeller. So, Moser, drags himself off his sick bed and goes undercover, working as a vegetable seller in order to gain their confidence.

Would you let this man (above) handle your brussels?

The team are right on the nose. The beautiful Russian is indeed important, although not perhaps in the way they initially suspect. Irina receives threatening telephone calls and is shadowed by some pretty nasty looking villains wherever she goes. When Moser figures this out and tries to keep her safe, he becomes a target too as the Russian mafia try to track down a missing shipment of explosives that her recently despatched husband has hidden.

When Moser and Irnia end up tied to a bomb set to explode in three minutes, will Rex and the team be able to save them? I'd bet my Wurstsemmel on it, wouldn't you?

Other players include Agnieszka Wagner , above, as the beautiful Russian Irina, Andrzej Musial, above, not listed with IMDB for this episode, Pawel Burczyk, above, not listed with IMDB for this episode, Janine Wegener, above, not listed for this episode and Ernst Josef Lauscher is his recurrent role as forensics expert.

Recycled Rexer Gregor Seberg, here as Gredl, already seen in Gefaehrliche Jagd, and seen later in Attentat auf Rex (2003) as Rudolf Hartmann and Christian Weinberger, not listed with IMDB for this episode but credited for Happy Birthday (2002) as Walter Sedlacek.

Rex Resolution 21: Gefaehrliche Jagd

The Vienna Water Tower above features in this episode. For fun, check out the webcam mounted on the tower here (except not at this exact moment - all is pitch black being the middle of the night).

So, to business...

Life on a council estate. Alcoholic mother. Pet budgie. Who wouldn't want to escape, right? Two men decide to hold up a money truck but it all goes horribly wrong when shots are exchanged, leaving one security guard and one robber dead.

Moser and team are soon hot on the trail, identifying the dead robber from his finger prints, and turn up at the estate, where the surviving robber, Fuchs, has hidden the haul with his scantily clad girlfriend (have to get nudity into the episode somehow) before going to tell his accomplice's mother, aforesaid alcoholic, that her son is dead. The son might have been a 'braver Pup' but it doesn't seem to sink in that he's now a deceased 'Pup'. Moser and Stockinger aren't going to get anything out of her and it all looks a little hopeless until Rex discovers a secret passageway that allows movement between different parts of the estate.

Moser chases down Fuchs, confronting him in the communal showers (enabling further gratuitous nude shots). Fuchs grabs a hostage (thankfully clothed), allowing him to escape. A carjack later, he winds up at the Vienna Water Tower, hoping to meet his girlfriend. Unfortunately, her attempt to leave the estate with the suitcase disguised as one very ugly baby gets foiled by Hoellerer and Fuchs is stood up.

Spotted by patrolling cops, his location is blown and a big shoot out is on the cards. This is the second time Moser takes a bullet but, of course, we all know it won't be the last.....

Other players include Dominik Castell as Fuchs.

A fair bit of a Reycling bonanza in this episode!

Recycled Rexers Ernie (e in credits) Mangold, above, uncredited in IMDB for this episode but also appearing in 1998 as Frau Schuster in Moser's Tod, Gregor Seberg, above, uncredited in this episode but seen in Drei Sekunden bis zum Tod (1996) as Gredl and Attentat auf Rex (2003) as Rudolf Hartmann. Markus Siebert, uncredited here in IMDB but credited for Baby Rex - Der kleine Kommissar (so, a kind of baby Recycled Rexer)and Hemma Clementi, here as Gabi Schmoelzer and in 1996 as Christa Augustin, the photographer, in Tod im Museum.

Here again, but not strictly Recyclers, are Ernst Josef Lauscher, repeating his role as forensic expert from Toedliche Teddys and repeat offender Daniela Gaets.