Tempat Berlingdung
Tempat Berlingdung is a Sokokan comedy series written by Eko Sagala, Suhadi Duyi and Kitani Sora. The series is about two civil servant trainees Solihin Kudadiri and Tamar Siagian and their mentor Angryranto Widjaja at the state mission of the fictional Sokokan member state Berlina, located in the capital of Kyusigai. According to the writers, the setting is loosely based on the state of Mirei's representation in Hotel Mirei, but based more on the reality at the state mission of Keadaan Matang where two of them gone undercover and interviewed people on both the floor and at the top secretly. The material has been altered completely, since it's not meant as a documentary, but merely as a more comic insight in state and federal civic service. Even though the series could be interpreted as criticism against Sokokan bureaucracy and the incapable persons employed at state and federal levels, it has received continuous funding for (at the moment) seven seasons and has even been televised abroad under the title The Berlina Office.
Characters
- Solihin Kuhadiri is the son of a well respected statesman who served as a diplomat and ambassador. He spent much of his early life abroad and has been spoiled by the extended diplomatic immunity from his father. While being socially competent and a skilled speaker, he lacks knowledge about the larger subjects of the Mireist state, like social equality or extended family values.
- Tamar Siagian is very knowledgeable about state affairs and current events. However, this is not always clear as she is both pushy and dogmatic. She shares her given name with the fictional dog Tamar from the Commstar series and has clearly suffered from being bullied during her younger years because of this.
- Angryanto Widjaja has made a career at the state mission and is responsible for Solihin and Tamar. She is well-versed in the inner workings of the state mission and federal government but lacks the necessary organizational skills to do her job.
- Jairus Harianja is the mission's director-general and as such Solihin, Tamar and Angryanto's superior. He is also adopted into the extended family by Solihin's father, which explains why he and Solihin are in the positions at the mission where they are.
Given the setting of the series, where the main characters live in the same building where they work, their family members and life partners have recurring appearances in the series. Sometimes Solihin has a girlfriend living with him, which on more than one occassion turned out to be paid prostitutes. Tamar shares her apartment only with a cat, for which she is always looking for someone to take care off so she can spend more time with her extended family living in a remote suburb. Angryanto is depicted as a single mother, with her daughter developing from an irritable kid into a snarky adolescent. Jairus' wife Yamashino (Kamina Nao) acts as the experienced and calm Kakuri mother or grandmother figure who on more than one occassion sees her motherly advice backfire severely. Other recurring characters are the Peratolian Orkanan religious leader Sieto Deli who is unsuccessfully trying to hide he's an alcoholic and the hotel bartender Hamdani Bida, who clearly is an agent for Twenty Seven Enterprises and blatantly used for leaking information whenever violence seems the only way out of the problems the main characters have created.
Seasons and episodes
While the first two seasons only had freestanding episodes, from season 3 on there is somewhat of an overarching storyline linking the episodes. Seasons 1 (7682-83) and 2 (7684) had 17 episodes each, aired once a week at 9 PM. Seasons 3 (7685) and 4 (7686) had 22 episodes each and were televised at the later time slot of 10 PM, allowing for some more adult humor. Seasons 5 (7687-88), 6 (7688-89) and 7 (7690) went back to 17 episodes, but were aired twice a week with only a few weeks of downtime between the series. Season 8 is scheduled for later during 7690.
Reception, reviews and rewards
TV critics have generally praised the series for its candid humor and the setting at a high-level government institution. Especially outside Sokoku the series is seen as an unexpected success, coming from a country where respect for authority and government institutions are deeply rooted in society. Making fun of it, especially when it seems to be based on real events at similar institutions, is not generally associated with the Sokokan mindset. The Hallisian TV critic Anna Pursher described the serie as being about "really annoying people who also happen to be totally incompetent but at the same time work at an important government institution" when the series were aired for the first time in Hallis in 7685.
Main criticism about the series is the stereotypical depiction of some ethnic minorities and foreigners. According to one of the writers Kitani Sora, herself from Kakuri descent, is the stereotypical behavior of some of the series' characters meant to address just these existing stereotypes and not to mock minorities or foreigners. She has even used the mystical nature of the Kakuri language, which Yamashino uses when she's talking to herself, by supplying wrong subtitles to her statements, often hiding the very critical nature of her remarks, rude curses or derogatory terms. For example, when she wishes someone "cancerous typhoid tuberculosis for seven generations to come" it is subtitled as "glad to have been of help". These monologues were not scripted and left to the imagination of the actress, which meant that besides Kitani Sora and Kamina Nao nobody would actually know what was said. These jokes could only be understood by a very small part of the viewers speaking Kakuri.
Some episodes have resulted in quite some debate, for example S1.E06 where the Sokokan member states are negotiating the distribution of refugees between the states. Accusations were made about racist dialogue and an inhumane approach of the issue. S2.E01 even led to an international diplomatic conflict when the main characters were tasked with selling a cluster bomb manufactured in Berlina abroad, despite a trade ban. The lack of studio audience or canned laughs accompanying the TV show meant that journalists in Aedeland missed that it was a comedy series when they addressed the role the Aedelish middle hands played in this episode. The episode contributed hugely to the relative international success of the series, since Vittmark started airing the series with subtitles soon after in 7684. The positive reception by the Vittmarker audience led to further export, even though many national television broadcasters only showed the first 2 or 3 series.
In Vittmark a trailer was made for an Anarian remake of the series, but the Sokokan background of the original in its Mireist setting with a dirigist political system turned out difficult to transform into a more democratic parliamentary context. After showing to test audiences, the idea of a remake was scrapped.
The first episodes of season 6 led to a huge fall in viewer ratings. Confusingly enough, almost the entire cast had been moved to the Commstar universe, aboard a starship called Yellow-1. At the start of E04, Tamar abruptly wakes up and the previous episodes all turned out to have been a single dream of hers. Curiously enough, Tamar was the only of the regular cast not present in the dream as a human, but only in a non-speaking part as the ship's cat. At the season finale of season 6 the writers explained that they only had planned one spoof episode somewhere halfway the series, but that the actress playing Tamar was visibly pregnant during the shooting of the last episodes of season 5 and first of season 6.
In Sokoku, the title Tempat Berlingdun has become synonymous for dysfunctional working places or gatherings of incompetent workers and as such made it into regular vocabulary of Bahasa Sokoku.