I'm German and I rarely like German media because they usually try to please everyone and turn out bland. "Jugend" is a bit different, different but same. It doesn't so much treat the titular topic "youth" but circles around four twenty-something friends living in the same apartment building. They're cute, peculiar and dysfunctional at the same time.

The quirky humour works quite well. It's not laugh-out-lout jokes but rather intellectual, working through several woke topics, centering on dating and talking way too much about feminism. I have chuckled quite a lot though the short scenes, or rather skits, and it's nice entertainment but nothing deep or memorable.

I did like the sets, the production value and the male protagonists/actors, however the female characters are a bit too two-dimensional for my taste: Cathrin is all about dating and Sopie somehow feel out of place, a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit. The squabbles, especially later with her mother, meander through meaningless terrain without ever getting to one emotional point. This is also the fate of the first season in genernal, which ends without a satisfying closure or a cliffhanger.

It feels like a solid German interpretation of 101 American soap screenwriting, not too daring but doing its formulaic job like a clockwork. Yet in the end, nothing really means anything.