Berlin ER is a gritty medical drama on Apple TV Plus, starring Professor T's Hayley Louise Jones. She plays Dr Zanna Parker, who moves to Berlin to head up the emergency room in its toughest and most overcrowded hospital. There she must unify the underpaid and overworked staff and save lives in the face of adversity.
Being compared to ER, this German medical drama was co-written by Emergency Room physician turned screenwriter Samuel Jefferson who says: "I managed to bring my experience working in the UK and very quickly found that the experiences of the doctors here are very similar to those of doctors in the UK. Of course, some of the complexity behind how the systems works is different, but the actual day-to-day pain of being a doctor and what you have to go through is very similar. So, all the human stories were very transferable."
Here's everything you need to know about the drama-filled Apple TV Plus series Berlin ER, which was previously called KRANK Berlin…
Berlin ER release date
Berlin ER is an eight-episode hospital drama launching worlwide on Apple TV Plus from Wednesday February 26 2025.
* Berlin ER was formerly called KRANK Berlin which was its title for Germany.
is there a trailer for Berlin ER?
Yes Berlin ER now has a trailer... Take a look below for all the medical emergencies going on!
Berlin ER plot
Berlin ER follows Dr Zanna Parker (Haley Louise Jones) who moves to Berlin looking for a fresh start after her life imploded in Munich. She faces the monumental task of heading up an emergency room that is bursting at the seams and staffed by underpaid, chronically exhausted and poorly equipped medical professionals. Many are resistant to change and want Dr Parker to leave as quickly as she arrived, in particular Dr Ben Weber (played by Slavko Popadić), who initially clashes with Zanna over their different approaches to their work. But, in the face of the merciless healthcare system, Zanna must find a way to get the battered team to work together to save lives.
Zanna faces a baptism of fire when she realises that the department is juggling an endless multitude of harrowing cases without sufficient back-up or resources. And even though her plans for bringing about change are not well-received by her exhausted staff, as they work together though their traumatic shifts, she begins to bond with them.
Berlin ER cast — Haley Louise Jones on playing Dr Zanna Parker
In Berlin ER Haley Louise Jones plays stressed ER doctor Zanna Parker. "This is like a hospital drama on steroids! It gets your pulse going. Zanna loves her job and puts high hopes in her new position and things don’t go as planned, but she has grit, resilience and determination. And she’s by the book, but from this team, she learns a new way of doing things,’ reveals Jones, who turns 36 on 23 February, and whose credits include the German version of crime drama Professor T. "But Zanna is also a woman on the run. Her old life in Munich imploded, and she's trying to have a fresh start, but things have a way of catching up with you…’
Zanna Parker has also been in Netflix thriller Dear Child, Paradise, Einstein and Dr Ballouz.
Slavko Popadić on playing Dr Ben Weber
Slavko Popadić who plays Dr Ben Weber in. Berlin ER. "Ben’s self-destructive and a rebel, but a brilliant surgeon. He's driven by his passion to help, but his passion also destroys him,’ shares Popadić, 33, who has appeared in German crime drama Crooks. ‘He does things his own way and has inner demons as he moves through moral grey zones, but I want the audience to go with him.
"The creators want viewers to really feel the pace and the chaos. So we spoke to a lot of doctors and nurses and we had a medical boot camp where we were shown the basics and also things like how you would speak to a patient. We even learnt how to put on a glove with sweaty hands and make it look natural. It was challenging, but fun,’ adds Jones, who has come away with a profound respect for the medical profession.
"I've got nurses in my family so I had appreciation for their work already but that has tripled. We still don’t fully fathom the price they pay and how, out of a pure desire to help other people, they dedicate their lives to this job. We hope that this can shed a light on that, and that they feel seen."
Who else is starring in Berlin ER?
Other cast in Berlin ER include Colin Lainchbury-Brown as Zanna’s dad. Amer El-Erwadi, Şafak Şengül, Aram Tafreshian, Samirah Breuer, Bernhard Schütz and Peter Lohmeyer also star.
Behind the scenes and more on Berlin ER
Berlin ER is by Violet Pictures and Real Film Berlin, and produced for Apple TV+ and ZDFneo, with Violet Pictures’ Alexis von Wittgenstein (Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood) and Real Film’s Emmy Award-nominated Henning Kamm (Unorthodox) serving as executive producers. Berlin ER is directed by Alex Schaad (Skin Deep) and Fabian Möhrke (Eichwald, MdB). International rights are handled by Beta Film.
Berlin ER has been co-created by British writer Samuel Jefferson, who was keen to draw on his own background as a one-time A&E doctor. "Because of the trauma of the job, I used to think, I never want to write a medical show. But that was the thing I had to write, I had all these stories," he says. "The experience I’d had in the emergency room in the UK was shared by doctors we met in Germany. And I wanted to show the reality of that life. Some medical series see doctors and nurses as superheroes, but medicine for me was not like that. It’s less glamorous and shiny and about human beings struggling with themselves. But even though it's a gritty, tough drama, it still has love in it, a human element, and humour."
